The Jane Addams Peace Association has announced the winners of its Children’s Book Awards for this year. This award tends to get lost in the shuffle, I think. From the site: The Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards are given annually to the children’s books published the preceding year that effectively promote the cause of peace, … Read more Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards – 2009 Winners
Mark C. Taylor has an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times titled “End the University as We Know It,” which has been circulating rapidly on Facebook. I’m sharing it here because I think people ought to see it. I think Taylor’s insights about higher ed are on the money, for the most part.
I attended Media in Transition 6: Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission in Cambridge, MA, April 24-26. (Follow that link for a summary of what the conference was about.) Here are my thoughts about the conference after returning home. Of primary interest to me, coming from Duluth, MN, where it was below freezing yesterday, was … Read more Media in Transition 6… Reactions…
From today’s Inside Higher Ed, “Digital Archives That Disappear,” a brief article about Google’s shutdown of the historical newspaper archive Paper of Record, which it secretly purchased in 2006. This is a good example of what many people have feared about Google’s success – that turning over information resources from shared, public control in library-related … Read more The constraining effects of information privatization: Google’s purchase and shutdown of Paper of Record
“Exploring the Ethical Implications of Technological Change through the Thought of Walter Ong and Other Media Theorists” That’s the title of my paper for the conference coming up this weekend in Boston, Media in Transition 6: Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission. The paper is not the greatest thing I’ve ever written, but it is … Read more Exploring the Ethical Implications of Media Technology Through the Thought of Walter Ong
This is a call for people to send me used pocket cards, you know, that your library may at one time have used to keep records of what books are checked out. I’m helping my designer design a cover for an upcoming book. If you send a card or cards to me, you’ll be acknowledged … Read more Help needed – used pocket cards
The following obituary for Franklin Rosemont was written by Séamas Cain, a writer I know here in the Duluth, Minnesota area. Franklin Rosemont, surrealist poet, artist, historian, street speaker, & labor activist, died of an aneurysm on Sunday, April 12th in Chicago, Illinois. He was 65 years old. With his partner & comrade, Penelope Rosemont, … Read more Franklin Rosemont has passed on
This is going to be my obnoxious post for the year, the kind of post I write periodically that leads to ugly Google results on my name. There are things that I sometimes need to say that I know a lot of people won’t like. Helps me maintain a sense of integrity, I guess. Like … Read more Library 2.0 talk enters backwardation
Judith Krug, head of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967, has died of stomach cancer at age 69. Library Journal has published an obituary rapidly; I am sure we will see something more extensive soon. From what I have been told by people who have been a part of librarianship and active in ALA … Read more Judith Krug has passed on
Library of Walls: The Library of Congress and the Contradictions of Information Society Author: Samuel Gerald Collins Price: $32.00 Published: April 2009 ISBN: 978-0-9802004-2-3 Printed on acid-free paper “The experience [of reading this book] was something akin to watching a reality show featuring Jorge Luis Borges, Marshall McLuhan, Michel Foucault, Lewis Mumford, and Paul Virilio … Read more New from Litwin Books: Library of Walls
In the most recent issue of ALA’s email newsletter, AL Direct, there is an item (“More authors turn to web publishing”) about the growing popularity of author services companies like Lulu.com and Author Solutions as mainstream publishers cut back on the numbers of titles that they take on during the economic downturn. That’s true as … Read more POD vs. author services publishing
If you’re like me, you work in a library that is facing tough decisions (no irony intended by that cliché phrase) as a result of budget cuts during the economic crisis. The choice between cutting staff and cutting the budget for materials is the easy one – protect the people who work in the library … Read more The economic crisis and the preservation function of libraries
From the Izzy Award site: The first annual Izzy Award for “special achievement in independent media” was presented March 31, 2009, to blogger Glenn Greenwald and Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman. Roughly 800 people attended the award ceremony at Ithaca’s State Theatre – including Izzy Stone’s son Jeremy, who spoke briefly. The … Read more Goodman & Greenwald win Izzy indy media award
LIBREAS – Library Ideas is a LIS journal out of Germany that publishes articles in German and English. The Call for Papers for the next issue is out. Issue #15 of LIBREAS is going to be all about semiotics. If you’ll look at the CFP you’ll see that the issue has a rather narrow focus … Read more CFP – Semiotics and LIS… A whole issue of LIBREAS on it…
I’ve started a LibraryThing group for Library Juice Press. I decided to start it as “a group for readers and authors of books from Library Juice Press and Litwin Books. Discuss books, ask questions of the authors, suggest ideas…” I hope a whole buncha people join and discuss books. I like Library Thing. I hope … Read more LJP LibraryThing group
Stephen L. Carter, a law professor who writes about democracy, has an article in The Daily Beast entitled, “Where’s the Bailout for the Publishing Industry?” It begins: Like a lot of writers, I am wondering when Congress and the administration will propose a bailout for the publishing industry. Carnage is everywhere. Advances slashed, editors fired, … Read more Stephen L. Carter – Where’s the Bailout for the Publishing Industry?
Richard J. Cox has posted a review of John Ridener’s From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory. Thanks to Dr. Cox for the review.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians (a working title), edited by Tracy Nectoux and published by Library Juice Press as part of the series Gender and Sexuality in Librarianship. Seeking submissions for an anthology of personal accounts by librarians and library workers relating experiences of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, … Read more Call for submissions: Out Behind the Desk