One nice thing about true open source software, especially when it’s running a huge website like Wikipedia, is that creative programmers can make useful add-ons to it. Wired Magazine (which I generally dislike) has an interesting article in the August issue about Virgil Griffith’s Wikipedia Scanner, which can tell you what organizations have edited what … Read more Wikipedia Scanner
Elaine Harger, outgoing coordinator of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table, compiled a list of resolutions by ALA Council on the War on Terror, for distribution to congressional offices on Tuesday, which was a day of lobbying during the ALA Conference in Washington, DC. The list is online in PDF form, and also here: American … Read more American Library Association statements re: the “War on Terror”
This isn’t an analysis of a military action after the fact, as with last July’s reports of the destruction of a public documents archive in Nablus. What is happening now is that Israeli authorities have issued a warrant to the owner of the building housing an important Palestinian library in Jerusalem, ordering him to evacuate … Read more Israeli authorities planning to destroy a Palestinian library in Jerusalem
Steven Bell has an article in the current Inside Higher Ed, entitled, “Good at Reviewing Books But Not Each Other,” about the major disfunctionality in LIS discourse: our excessive “niceness” toward each other and discomfort with open disagreement. In this article, Bell elucidates an uncomfortable contrast between us nice, non-confrontational librarians and academics in other … Read more Steven Bell tough on LIS discourse in Inside Higher Ed
Another example of the Bush Administration’s information evil. Marjorie Heins has some commentary on the Free Expression Policy Project’s website about Guantanamo prisoners’ recantations of abuse charges in exchange for release from custody. The government knows they got the wrong guy, but won’t release him unless he signs off on a promise to back off … Read more Guantanamo secrecy through plea-bargains
Media critic and theorist Robert McChesney is spearheading the campaign against the postal rate hike, which has Time Warner and other major magazine publishers’ money behind it. This is from the campaign website: Postal regulators have accepted a proposal from media giant Time Warner that would stifle small and independent publishers in America. The plan … Read more Postal Rate Hike would hurt independent publishers
From Al Kagan: One of my colleagues here has encouraged me to distribute this letter more widely, so here it is. It appears in the latest issue of the IFLA Journal 33, 1 (2007): 5-6. Letter to the Editor Freedom of the Press, Social Responsibility and the Danish Cartoons I would like to comment on … Read more Al Kagan, letter to IFLA Journal on Freedom of the Press, Social Responsibility and the Danish Cartoons
For several years I hosted Joel Kahn’s “Frankentoons,” a fun fair-use protest site, on Libr.org, and took it down due to a change in my hosting situation. I just received the following from Joel: Yes, the Frankentoon project is back online! http://www.geocities.com/frankentoons Some things should be noted about this current incarnation: I played no part … Read more Frankentoons back online
I urge everybody to read Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s post on her main blog, Fighting the Bush Doctrine of Disinformation is a Librarian’s Mandate. She hits the nail on the head: the key to the our urgent political problems right now are in the Bush Administration’s governance by manipulation of information. She puts a … Read more Fighting the Bush Doctrine of Disinformation is a Librarian’s Mandate
This is so f-ing typical of the Bush Administration… White House staffers are using private internet domains for much of their work by email in order to avoid the accountability of a paper trail. White House correspondence is supposed to be part of the public record, eventually. Here’s a snippet: “…[I]t is better not to … Read more White House using private email to avoid the accountability of a public paper trail
The justice department has been abusing a provision in the PATRIOT Act allowing them to issue “national security letters” to obtain information on citizens (140,000 so far) without a court order and with the famous gag order imposed. The Washington Post has published a revealing article by one of these recipients of a National Security … Read more 140,000 National Security Letters
I am going to take another stab at outlining my views on “library and non-library issues.” Last time I did it I was sloppy in the way that I stated my views, and I surprised and disappointed some people who I think would not have been so surprised and disappointed if I had been clearer … Read more Library and non-library issues
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
The Presidential Records Act of 2007 is a bill presently in Congress that would overturn Bush’s Presidential Order 13233 of 2001, which was one of many outrageous secrecy measures of the Bush Administration, this one case giving former presidents the power to prevent access to their papers for many years. Kathleen de la Peña McCook … Read more The Presidential Records Act of 2007
At the ALA Midwinter in Seattle, two SRRT task forces were combined into one. The Alternatives In Print Task Force was one of SRRT’s original task forces, and has consistently advocated for the collection of materials from alternative publishers as a necessary part of living up to the Library Bill of Rights in collection development. … Read more Alternative Media Task Force
Just a link to a handy website, brought to you by Public Citizen, guiding you through all the ins and outs of one of the Bush Administration’s clearest and strongest changes to government policy: drastically increased government secrecy and public disinformation. The website is Bushsecrecy.org, and it is divided into a few simple sections: Regulatory … Read more Bushsecrecy.org
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
Dear Friend of the Library of Congress, We are sending you this message because the Library of Congress Professional Guild, AFSCME Local 2910, needs your help. For over thirty years our union has worked with management to forge a constructive relationship at the Library of Congress. Together we have built a modern and progressive workplace … Read more Urgent message from LoC Professional Guild
Here’s a little detail about the present government that everybody should know. The Office of the Vice President, along with all executive branch offices, is required to submit a list of its staff for publication in the government’s “Plum Book,” and is required to submit statistics on its document classification activities. Cheney has been refusing … Read more Dick Cheney’s stealth operation
Just briefly mentioning two important things that I have neglected to follow here. 1). The 9th Circuit Court’s rejection of Brewster Kahle’s constitutional challenge to copyright laws that prevent people from using orphan works. That link is to the Cyberlaw project at Stanford and will be updated with commentary and future developments. This couirt decision … Read more 9th Circuit rejects Kahle vs. Gonzales, AAP PR