Here’s a brief essay in the New York Times by Edward Rothstein that I am afraid I don’t have much to say about at the moment. I think I agree with it, at least partially, but I get the feeling that there is an important counterpoint that is not coming to mind. The editorial essay … Read more The problem with cultural property
I’m slow to catch this one, so I’ll just mention it (as an important scholarly paper that argues for the future of paper): William Powers’ “Hamlet’s Blackberry: Why Paper is Eternal,” a discussion paper for the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy.
Media Release Contact: Dr. Terrence W. Epperson Chair, Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Committee Progressive Librarians Guild Phone: 609/771-3352 FAX: 609/637-5177 E-Mail: epperson@tcnj.edu April 29, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Winner Announced (The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ) ‚Äì The Progressive Librarians Guild is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 … Read more 2008 Braverman Winner
The UIUC PLG chapter event I linked to yesterday was a part of a series. This past Monday the group hosted David Bade in a discussion event titled Technology Waits For No One: Thinking About Technology, Progress and Responsibility in Academic Librarianship. David has given me permission to post the transcript of his presentation here. … Read more David Bade on technology and librarianship
American Libraries’ April issue was focused on the environment and global warming, and had an “On My Mind” piece by The Progressive Librarians Guild‘s Elaine Harger: Global Warming and Us: Assessing Our Environmnetal and Professional Liability. This brief article is thought provoking and worth a read.
David Bade pointed me to this very interesting talk (in transcript form) by Andrew Abbott of the University of Chicago, given as the Windsor Lecture at the University of Illinois this month: Library Research and Its Infrastructure in the Twentieth Century. This paper is the author’s own ethnography of library research by scholars in the … Read more How library research is really done
Michael Zimmer is the guest editor for the just released special issue of the open access journal First Monday: Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0. Here is the table of contents: Volume 13, Number 3 – 3 March 2008 Special issue: Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0 edited by Michael Zimmer Preface: Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0 … Read more First Monday Special Issue: Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0
The new issue of Information for Social Change is on the web. This issue comes back to the topic of social exclusion, which has been a major direction for ISC over the years. Here is the table of contents: Social Exclusion ‚Äì where is it going? (John Pateman) Developing a Needs Based Library Service (John … Read more Information for Social Change – issue 26
Message from Terry Epperson, chair of PLG’s Braverman Prize committee Hello ‚Äì We‚Äôre pleased to announce the fifth annual Miriam Braverman prize, sponsored by the Progressive Librarians Guild, for the best student paper on progressive library issues. Below are the guidelines for the prize. The announcement flyer can be found at: http://libr.org/plg/Braverman-08-flyer.pdf. Feel free to … Read more Miriam Braverman Prize – essay contest
The current issue of LRC: Literary Review of Canada has a light essay by an acquaintance of Marshall McLuhan, discussing what the man was like and assessing his influence: In the Garden with the Guru. If you’re only vaguely familiar with Marshall McLuhan I definitely recommend it for a little taste of he was like … Read more Bob Rodgers remembers Marshall McLuhan
We’re presently awash in talk about a great paradigm shift that puts the user at the center of our planning for services. This is sometimes referred to simply as user-centered librarianship. It has been a hot idea for at least a decade, but has gained new power and momentum because of ideas about the interactivity … Read more Dueling Paradigm Shifts
I found these on Arts & Letters Daily. A comment about that site after the links. First, an article from the New Yorker by Anthony Grafton: Future Reading: Digitization and Its Discontents. This is a thoughtful meditation on Google’s Library Project and the general effect of digitization on reading, from a well-informed historical perspective. I’m … Read more A couple of interesting links
The new issue of Information for Social Change, issue 25, is available online. It is another theme issue, this time dealing with libraries and information workers in conflict situations. Examples of what’s in it include articles in disinformation during wartime, truth commissions in Latin American countries and libraries in relation to them, women living under … Read more New issue of Information for Social Change
First, two new ethnographic studies of undergraduate research habits, each offering a corrective to assumptions at the foundation of Library 2.0 thinking: Anthropologist Nancy Foster led a study at the University of Rochester, and presented her findings at the ACRL conference this year. The study will be part of a book published by ACRL soon. … Read more Two minor correctives and one broadside on Library 2.0 madness
Terry Eagleton has a rather sad article in Saturday’s UK Guardian: Only Pinter remains: British literature’s long and rich tradition of politically engaged writers has come to an end. Eagleton tells how England’s major writers have moved to the right in recent years, and talks about the Left politics of its great writers of the … Read more Only Pinter remains
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
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)
Tracy Nectoux, a library student at UIUC, is taking a class whose students were assigned to visit a bookstore and compare the atmosphere to a library’s atmosphere. This is what she wrote: The library’s purpose is different from that of bookstores And it always has been. Public libraries are set up so that anyone who … Read more Tracy Nectoux on Libraries versus Bookstores
From PLG’s Braverman Prize committee: Hello – We’re pleased to announce the fourth annual Miriam Braverman prize, sponsored by the Progressive Librarians Guild, for the best student paper on progressive library issues. Below are the guidelines for the prize. If anyone would like an announcement flyer, please contact me directly. Feel free to pass this … Read more Braverman Prize call for student papers
Library Juice readers on most university campuses should be able to read this new one from EDUCAUSE Review: “If the Academic Library Ceased to Exist, Would We Have to Invent It?” It’s a brief think piece that demonstrates why academic libraries are necessary, answering the idea, apparently familiar to the EDUCAUSE crowd, that they are … Read more EDUCAUSE on libraries (with friends like these…)