Category: May 2011

Turning the Reference Desk into a Reference Bureau

Librarians have responded to the internet and other technologies that have reduced people’s demand for our services in a couple of complementary ways over the past 20 years or so (or more). On the one hand, we have pointed out all of the reasons that libraries are still needed and still heavily used, and on … Read more Turning the Reference Desk into a Reference Bureau

Review in Libraries and the Cultural Record

The new issue of Libraries and the Cultural Record has a review of LJP publication The Great Depression: Its Impact on Forty-Six Large American Public Libraries, an Analysis of Published Writings of Their Directors, by Robert Scott Kramp. Arthur P. Young wrote the review. Libraries and the Cultural Record is the leading journal in the … Read more Review in Libraries and the Cultural Record

New book: Out Behind the Desk

Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians Editor: Tracy Nectoux Price: $30.00 Published: May 2011 ISBN: 978-1-936117-03-1 Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians is an anthology of personal accounts by librarians and library workers relating experiences of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or queer at work. A broad spectrum of … Read more New book: Out Behind the Desk

Thoughts on MiT7

I was in Cambridge, MA last weekend for MiT7: unstable platforms: the promise and peril of transition. This conference is put on every two years jointly by MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program and the MIT Communication Forum. The conference is concerned with new media and new communication technologies and their broad implications. Presenters came to … Read more Thoughts on MiT7

Koofers – stealing students’ work to help other students cheat

No comment on this other than to say that Koofers is incredibly slimy, and it rankles me that they seem to be getting some tacit support from legitimate institutions. Here is a post by my friend Nicole Pagowsky on how Koofers ripped off one of her student papers and posted it to their for-profit site … Read more Koofers – stealing students’ work to help other students cheat

Paulina Mickiewicz on library architecture

An interesting library-related paper from MiT7, by a media studies scholar: Knowledge Experiments: Technology and the Library, Paulina Mickiewicz Abstract: In April of 2005, the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec opened in Montreal, a library project of unprecedented scale in the city. This paper seeks to focus on the programming and technologies of the Grande Bibliothèque. … Read more Paulina Mickiewicz on library architecture

MiT7 podcasts

MiT7 was a great conference – intimate, warm, stimulating, interdisciplinary, and cutting-edge. There were some brilliant minds at work. I plan to post a few comments on the conference later. For now, here are links to podcasts from the three topical plenary sessions: Media in Transition 7: Unstable Platforms Archives and Cultural Memory Power and … Read more MiT7 podcasts

JTA News Archive

Press release: NEW YORK (JTA) — JTA [a Jewish newswire] has launched a digital archive containing 250,000 articles dating from 1923. The JTA Jewish News Archive, which is searchable and free for the public to use, was launched officially Tuesday evening with a celebration at the Center for Jewish History in New York. Highlights of … Read more JTA News Archive