Over time, Radical Reference moved from being simply an experimental virtual reference service for political radicals to being an activist organization sharing the same space as PLG and SRRT, but offering a different flavor and a different set of political ideas. Its primary activity, however, remains what it was when the group was originally formed … Read more A question for Radical Reference
From the current issue of The Believer, an article by Rolf Potts on Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, publisher of those 5-cent “Little Blue Books” that educated the masses in the 1920s: “The Henry Ford of Literature.” Here’s how it starts: …Selling for as little as five cents and small enough to fit in a trouser pocket, these … Read more Emanuel Haldeman-Julius and his Little Blue Books
Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge has an hour-long program this week on libraries, books and reading. Interviewed are Maryanne Wolfe, author of “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain” (which has some pessimistic things to say about the internet); Geraldine Brooks, who talks about the rare … Read more Some good listening
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO A CELESTE WEST “FESTSCHRIFT” BOOK PROJECT Co-editors Toni Samek and KR Roberto are seeking articles, stories, poems, photographs, letters, thought pieces and other individual and collective memories of Celeste West, lesbian, feminist librarian, publisher, and activist, for a festschrift to be published by Library Juice Press in 2009. Celeste passed away … Read more Call for contributions: Celeste West Festschrift
Former ALA President Nancy Kranich has an editorial in the current issue of The Nation magazine, titled, “What’s Daddy’s Roommate Doing in Wasilla?” Kranich is writing about Sarah Palin’s attempt to censor books from the library in Wasilla when she was governor, and her subsequent attempt to have the library director, Mary Ellen Emmons, fired, … Read more Nancy Kranich on Sarah Palin, would-be censor
New York magazine has an article in this week’s issue about the pain that the publishing industry is feeling these days, titled, “The End.” “The end” is not the end of publishing, but it is the end publishing as the industry has known it, according to the article, which reports on slow sales, CEO firings, … Read more Publishing industry shrinking pains
Dr. Richard J. Cox, head of the archives track at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, has posted a review of Lara Jennifer Moore’s Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France. I find it an intelligent review that gives a clear sense of … Read more Richard Cox reviews Lara Moore’s Restoring Order
Amy Goodman and David Goodman (of Democracy Now) have an article in the current Mother Jones magazine about the great Windsor, Connecticut librarians’ defiance of the FBI and the PATRIOT Act and ultimate court victory for all of us on constitutional grounds.