A creative MIT student made a thing out of a circuit board and some LEDs and wore it on her shirt. She’s young, 19, so it’s understandable that she didn’t quite understand how things are in airports these days, and when she walked into Logan Airport she was surrounded at gunpoint by security men who … Read more I’m shocked and appalled that you’re shocked and appalled
The British Columbia Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee has a new blog, which I will read regularly. It’s been going since late August, and in that time I’d say it’s shown that the BC IFC is a group that’s doing some interesting things relating to intellectual freedom and information policy and having fun while they’re … Read more British Columbia Library Association IFC blog
The New York Tims has a story dated yesterday about a change dictated from the top in the libraries of U.S. Federal Prisons, called the “Standardized Chapel Library Project.” With the rationale of preventing violent religious extremism among prisoners, religious books in Federal prison libraries will now be a standardized collection – 150 books for … Read more No intellectual freedom in U.S. prison chapel libraries
For Immediate Release July 11, 2007 American Library Association urges Congress to reform laws governing the FBI’s use of National Security Letters CHICAGO – The American Library Association’s governing body has unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of National Security Letters (NSLs) to obtain library records and urging Congress to pursue immediate reforms of … Read more ALA on National Security Letters
From ALA’s Don Wood: Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions (PDF) This guideline is designed to provide libraries, library consortia, and library networks with a centralized list of strategies and actions to help them fulfill one of their key responsibilities: to provide access to a diverse collection of resources and services. Special attention … Read more Media Diversity in Libraries
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”
There’s a brief story in the current issue of The Progressive titled, “Vet Prosecuted for Opposing Recruitment in the Library. It doesn’t go into great detail and is essentially an interview with one person, Tim Coil, the guy who got busted for interfering with a military recruitment effort going on at the Stow-Munroe Falls Public … Read more Military recruitment in the library, and how you can get busted for interfering with it
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
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
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
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
Frank Furedi in the free-thinking Spiked has an interesting essay in defense of denial (as in holocaust denial, AIDS denial, etc.). His position is that illiberal intolerance of such heresies breeds more of them and breeds an illiberal society. It is a good exposition of some classical principles of intellectual freedom, but stated more categorically … Read more In defense of denial
After his last address on Iraq, President Bush broke with precedent and refused to be photographed at the podium by journalists, instead distributing an official, government produced photo which he expected the media to publish. Some media outlets did publish the official photo, and some published still video captures from the address. Put it on … Read more Bush refuses to be photographed
ALA has started up some blogs. Some belong to staff members, but there are many that belong to units. Check out the Office for Intellectual Freedom blog, and then look at some of the others linked at the top of the top level ALA blogs page…
Library Juice Concentrate Edited by Rory Litwin Preface by Kathleen de la Peña McCook Price: $25.00 ISBN-10: 0-9778617-3-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-9778617-3-6 6″ by 9″ Published: December 2006 Library Juice Concentrate is a compilation of the best of Library Juice, an e-zine published by Rory Litwin between 1998 and 2005 that dealt with foundational questions of librarianship … Read more New from LJP: Library Juice Concentrate
This post is a compilation of web resources having to do with alternative literature and libraries. It replaces an out-of-date page on my personal site. By “alternative literature” I mean books, magazines, and other written media coming from any of a myriad Left perspectives (socialist, anarchist, green, feminist, queer, or specific-issue-based) and published independently of … Read more Alternative Lit and Libraries
The Guardian (UK) published a story on Friday about a new wave of censorship in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Scores of Western classics, Western bestsellers, and liberal Iranian novels are censored and not being published there. One small thing worth pointing out about this. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is among the banned books, and … Read more Censorship in Iran
I think I neglected to emphasize this… Nancy Kranich’s preface to the 6th edition of Alternative Publishers of Books in North America is online. It’s good reading about the importance of alternative literature in libraries, from someone who has been studying the issue for years. Nancy Kranich is a past president of ALA and has … Read more On the importance of alternative literature in libraries
NYU historian Tony Judt is a strong critic of Israel and a proponent, along with Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said, of a secular, binational state as the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Washington Post has a nice article, dated Oct. 9, about how a couple of his talks in New York City … Read more Historian Tony Judt’s talks in NYC cancelled due to ADL pressure
IFLA and SCECSAL Report to SRRT September 29, 2006 By Al Kagan Diverging from my usual report, this time I am reporting on two meetings held in the summer of 2006. This report includes my usual comments on the conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and also on the SCECSAL … Read more Al Kagan’s IFLA report