The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralised access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus. That’s Jürgen Habermas, originator of the concept of the public sphere, on Web 2.0, in his acceptance speech on winning the Bruno … Read more Habermas on Web 2.0
Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems Author: David Bade Price: $22.00 ISBN: 978-0-9778617-6-7 Printed on acid-free paper The three papers in this volume were written in the wake of a single policy decision at the Library of Congress: the decision to cease the practice of distinguishing and collating series through the use of distinctive … Read more David Bade’s Responsible Librarianship
ALA Council passed a resolution on the crisis in Kenya, focusing on the issue of press freedoms. The resolution is below. One thing that helped sway Council to pass the resolution was news of a request for international support from the Kenyan library community. It is worth reading the views of Esther Obachi, National Secretary … Read more Kenya
Celeste West was a pioneering radical librarian whose works still inspire alternative minded librarians, especially anarchist librarians, today. She was one of the founders of the Bay Area Reference Center, Booklegger Press, Booklegger Magazine, Synergy Magazine, and one of the editors of Revolting Librarians. She died on January 3rd in San Francisco. The San Francisco … Read more Celeste West passes on
This is rather unbelievable. Two shipping containers of records from the Baath Party of Iraq – about seven million pages – are being transferred to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, over the objections of Iraq’s archivist, the celebrated Saad Eskander. They have been in the possession of a non-profit run by Kanan Makiya, an … Read more Hoover Institution to Accession Looted Documents
Report on ALA Council to SRRT, Midwinter 2008, Philadelphia Although we did not get everything we advocated, SRRT‚Äôs initiatives and interventions in the work of ALA Council went quite well at Midwinter in Philadelphia. Our Resolution on the Confiscation of Iraqi Documents from the Iraq National Library and Archives was passed almost unanimously with very … Read more Al Kagan’s Council Report
Toni Samek and other library educators concerned with the declining place of information ethics, intellectual freedom, and matters having to do with the unique ethos of librarianship formed a Special Interest Group in ALISE (the Association of Library and Information Science Educators) to address Information Ethics in library education. Their SIG released a statement on … Read more ALISE Information Ethics Statement
INFORMATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (ISC) ISSN 1364-694X CALL FOR PAPERS (please feel free to forward to other lists) — The Summer 2009 issue of the online journal Information for Social Change (ISC) will focus on the theme of SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FOR UTOPIAS. This issue of ISC aims to document 21st century science and technology … Read more Call for Papers – Information for Social Change – Science and Technology for Utopias
Just a plug for a really fun blog: Not In Worldcat. The tagline is “rare, interesting, unusual books and book-like things.” Pictures of covers of said things, with descriptions, and information about buying copies (not from the same bookseller – it’s not a bookseller’s catalog). Great timewaster for when you’re tired of Freerice.
Jerome Weeks comments on two new articles on the decline in reading: one by Caleb Crain in the New Yorker arguing that we are losing not only the habit of reading but the ability to read, and one in Harper’s (subscription required) by Ursula K. LeGuin that says the apparent decline is partly an illusion … Read more More on the decline in reading
I’ve been brainstorming about some essential facets of librarianship – skills, roles, services, problems – that while they have not lost any relevance have lately been ignored, passed over, forgotten, swept under the rug, or declared obsolete and old-fashioned by the vocal minority of librarians whose main concern now seems to be to create a … Read more Annotated list of things not to forget (in the 2.0 craze)…
Byron Anderson of the SRRT Alternative Media Task Force (AMTF) and compiler of Alternative Publishers of Books in North America has finished a new version of his helpful bibliography, Bibliographic and Web Tools for the Alternative Press. The download is a PDF on the website of the AMTF. This bibliography is also published in the … Read more New version of Bibliographic and Web Tools for the Alternative Press
The Nation has an interesting review of the new edition of Walter Lippman’s 1920 book, Liberty and the News. This book is about the relation between journalism and democracy, and the crisis he saw in both at the time. Princeton University Press is publishing the new paperback edition based on their perception of the book’s … Read more Walter Lippman’s Liberty and the News (1920)