UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As part of the 17th annual global observance of Open Access Week, Penn State University Libraries will host Sarah Lamdan, deputy director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, for a virtual talk titled “Data Cartels and Commercial Obstacles to Open Access.” Lamdan will discuss her most recent book, “Data Cartels” (2023, Stanford University Press), in which she calls out the companies that control and monopolize information.

Employees and students from across the University as well as members of the public are welcome to attend. The free event will take place on Zoom from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24. Registration is required to attend.

After the talk, members of the University community are invited to join the University Libraries’ Open Initiatives Group for desserts and discussion in the Music Seminar Room on the third floor of Pattee Library (Pattee W-325) on the University Park campus.

Lamdan has worked on data justice projects across the spectrum, from open government to personal privacy. She researches and writes about information access, surveillance and privacy, and informational capitalism. At the ALA, Lamdan combats book bans and works to educate librarians and the public about the nature and importance of intellectual freedom in libraries.

Before joining ALA, Lamdan was a professor at City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, where she taught administrative law, environmental law, open government law and data privacy courses. In addition to a juris doctor degree from the University of Kansas School of Law, she holds a master’s degree in library science and legal information management from Emporia University and a law certificate in environmental law.

Lamdan has been a senior fellow at SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and a fellow at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at the New York University School of Law. She is a member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and a council member for Invest in Open Infrastructure, and has worked with immigration groups on government surveillance issues.

For the second year, the theme of Open Access Week is “Community Over Commercialization,” highlighting the need to prioritize approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and academic community.