From ALA’s Don Wood: Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions (PDF) This guideline is designed to provide libraries, library consortia, and library networks with a centralized list of strategies and actions to help them fulfill one of their key responsibilities: to provide access to a diverse collection of resources and services. Special attention … Read more Media Diversity in Libraries
I will simply refer you to the ALA blog District Dispatch and let you read it there…
Elaine Harger, outgoing coordinator of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table, compiled a list of resolutions by ALA Council on the War on Terror, for distribution to congressional offices on Tuesday, which was a day of lobbying during the ALA Conference in Washington, DC. The list is online in PDF form, and also here: American … Read more American Library Association statements re: the “War on Terror”
Monika Antonelli is developing what I think is an important new conceptual direction for libraries, on the basis of ideas from the permaculture movement. She has just started a website, Greenlibraries.org, still mostly undeveloped, which will be a resource for support and documentation for making libraries more ecologically sustainable. Making libraries more sustainable is the … Read more Green Libraries
Mary Sue Brown of ALA/SRRT’s Alternative Media Task Force (AMTF) has compiled a bibliography of “sources for, reviews of, and film subscriptions to alternative media in film,” titled, “Beyond Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” It is available in a six-page pdf on the AMTF website, and also here: Beyond Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ALA … Read more “Beyond Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” – Video Resources
From the introduction of the forthcoming Eugène Morel: pioneer of public libraries in France, by Gaëtan Benoît: This study is a critical account of the works of Eugène Morel (1869-1934), a French Librarian who, along the lines of such eminent public library pioneers as Edward Edwards and Melvil Dewey, made a remarkable contribution towards the … Read more Eugène Morel: pioneer of public libraries in France (forthcoming)
New essay by Thomas Mann, “The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and Scholarship in Research Libraries” (June 13, 2007). PDF, 41 pp. ABSTRACT: The paper is an examination of the overall principles and practices of both reference service and cataloging operations in the promotion of scholarly research, pointing out important differences not … Read more Thomas Mann’s new one
Resolution on Southeast Asia Conflict Whereas, the stated objective of the American Library Association is the promotion and improvement of library service and librarianship, and Whereas, continued and improved library service to the American public requires sustained support form public monies, and Whereas, the continuing U.S. involvement in the conflict in Southeast Asia has so … Read more ALA Council Resolution on Southeast Asia Conflict (1971)
Media Release Contact: Dr. Alison M. Lewis Chair, Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Committee Progressive Librarians Guild Phone: 215/895-2765 FAX: 215/895-2070 E-Mail: alewis@drexel.edu June 6, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Winner Announced (Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA) ‚Äì The Progressive Librarians Guild is pleased to announce the winner of the 2007 Miriam Braverman Memorial … Read more Braverman Prize winner (student essay contest)
In mid-April I posted an item about the campaign to get Reed Elsevier out of the arms trade business, which had a link to a well-organized petition drive. I found out about the issue from Mark Rosenzweig, who tried to bring the issue up for discussion on the ALA Council list, where it was ignored. … Read more Reed Elsevier to stop organizing arms fairs
Two items regarding recent mainstream news reports telling the story that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is cracking down on free speech in refusing to renew RCTV’s license. First, Robert McChesney unpacks the issue and provides some of the facts and context that have been buried, showing how “the US media coverage of Venezuela‚Äôs RCTV controversy says … Read more Venezuela’s media and the U.S. media