I just noticed this month-old article from the Wall Street Journal: So much for the ‘looted sites’. It says that many sites of purported looting of antiquities in Southern Iraq were actually not looted, although they are in danger. I can’t claim to know what’s really going on here; this issue has a lot of … Read more Iraq sites not really looted?
Melissa Adler has started a new blog on library history: Library Notes, named for Melvil Dewey’s original journal. It will include lots of postings of old articles and primary source material on libraries from the ages. Enjoy!
This is great: A Librarian’s Job, from the Los Angeles Times, circa 1920. Melissa Adler dug it up from the SLIS library at UW Madison and posted it on her blog. It’s just the kind of thing that I collected and compiled in Library Daylight: Tracings of Modern Librarianship, 1874-1922. One thing I love about … Read more LA Times on librarians (1920)
Jon Wiener has an editorial in Friday’s Los Angeles Times: “Pillaging Iraqi history: Shortly after Baghdad fell in 2003, the Baath Party archives were shipped to the U.S. It’s time to return them.” The editorial is a very informative summary of this important issue.
In my view, one of the most important documents and position statements that ALA has produced in the last few years was its June 2007 report, “Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions.” This was produced by a subcommittee of the Intellectual Freedom Committee, now dissolved, called the Subcommittee on the Impact of Media … Read more ALA IFC’s Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries, and ALA’s grey literature in general
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
Powell’s Books is the option for many people who want to buy a book online from a union shop, so I’m very happy that they are stocking books from Litwin Books and Library Juice Press. This note is to announce that they have added the latest book, Lara Moore’s Restoring Order: the Ecole des Chartes … Read more Lara Moore’s book now available from Powell’s
Tim Brown has a post in Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle, about the “death of zines,” claiming, as though no one had heard the idea before, that zine culture is dead and has been replaced by the internet. There’s something a little bit too obvious and common sense about the … Read more Zines: not dead, just retro
From Lara Moore’s Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 (pages 208-209): It … appears that the late Empire had strong political misgivings about the extension of libraries to the “popular” classes. In April 1864, Interior Minister Paul Boudet dispatched a circular marked “confidential” to department … Read more Napoleon III and public libraries
New from Litwin Books Author: Lara Jennifer Moore Price: $32.00 Published: March 2008 ISBN: 978-0-9778617-9-8 Printed on acid-free paper Buy from Amazon Buy from Barnes and Noble Between 1789 and 1793, the revolutionary French state nationalized thousands of libraries and archival depositories, thus becoming the proprietor of many millions of books and documents, ranging from … Read more Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870
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
Mrs. Magavero: A History Based on the Career of an Academic Librarian By Jane Brodsky Fitzpatrick Preface by Susan Searing Price: $15.00 ISBN: 978-0-9778617-5-0 5″ by 8″ Filomena Magavero worked for fifty years at the Stephen B. Luce Library at SUNY Maritime College in the Bronx. For twenty five of those years she was the … Read more Mrs. Magavero: A History Based on the Career of an Academic Librarian
Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 Author: Lara Moore Expected: Spring 2008 Printed on acid-free paper Between 1789 and 1793, the revolutionary French state nationalized thousands of libraries and archival depositories, thus becoming the proprietor of many millions of books and documents, ranging from Montesquieu’s … Read more Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 (forthcoming)
From the introduction of the forthcoming Eugène Morel: pioneer of public libraries in France, by Gaëtan Benoît: This study is a critical account of the works of Eugène Morel (1869-1934), a French Librarian who, along the lines of such eminent public library pioneers as Edward Edwards and Melvil Dewey, made a remarkable contribution towards the … Read more Eugène Morel: pioneer of public libraries in France (forthcoming)
Resolution on Southeast Asia Conflict Whereas, the stated objective of the American Library Association is the promotion and improvement of library service and librarianship, and Whereas, continued and improved library service to the American public requires sustained support form public monies, and Whereas, the continuing U.S. involvement in the conflict in Southeast Asia has so … Read more ALA Council Resolution on Southeast Asia Conflict (1971)
The Globe-Wernicke Vertical File
The Communist Party of the United States is presently in the news for donating its archive to the Tamiment Library at NYU. As many are aware, this archive was part of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, the library located in the CPUSA building in New York, which was run by ALA Councilor Mark Rosenzweig … Read more The hidden story behind CPUSA’s donation of its archives to NYU
My friend John Gehner just told me about this watershed piece of investigative reporting by James Bamford, an article from Rolling Stone that won the 2006 National Magazine Award in the “Best Reporting” category: The Man Who Sold the War. It is about John Rendon, who heads the “perception management” firm that was hired by … Read more John Rendon – the Goebbels of our era
Here is an excerpt from Jesse Shera’s 1936 article in The Bulletin of the American Library Association, “The College Library and its Future.” (Vol. 30, pp. 495-501.) A PROFESSIONAL CREDO Having seen that technologically librarianship has made significant progress, and that investigatory activities have already achieved impressive beginnings, we now turn our attention to a … Read more Jesse Shera on academic librarians’ professional values