New from Litwin Books: 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 development of public librarianship in France. Morel was genuinely interested in all facets … Read more Eugene Morel: Pioneer of Public Libraries in France
Dr. Richard J. Cox, head of the archives track at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, has posted a review of Lara Jennifer Moore’s Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France. I find it an intelligent review that gives a clear sense of … Read more Richard Cox reviews Lara Moore’s Restoring Order
That’s the winning design in the IFLA/UNESCO design contest for an International Information Literacy Logo. The winning designer was Edgar Luy Perez, of Havana, Cuba. I like the logo, and I think it was a good idea to pursue in an international effort. It is part of the InfoLit Global Information Literacy Resources Directory.
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?
I’ve always been appalled by British libel law as long as I’ve known about it. Basically it puts a strong onus on defendants to prove that what they have said is true, rather than on the accuser to prove that it is false. The result is an excessive real-world limitation on freedom of speech for … Read more UN says British libel law violates human rights
Public Knowledge, the DC public interest group, has a very informative discussion of ACTA – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA is an international trade agreement now being worked out behind closed doors, outside of the relatively open framework of the the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is a so-called “executive agreement,” rather than a treaty, … Read more ACTA – Policy laundering IP
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.
I neglected to link to this post when it was published a couple of weeks ago. The blog of the Committee of Concerned Librarians of British Columbia has an item on a somewhat disturbing training program put on by CILIP (the UK Library Association) that aims to “teach anyone how to do in-depth desk research … Read more Insta-librarian
A Marxist Analysis of the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (PDF) Policy Futures in Education Volume 4 Number 4, 2006 RUTH RIKOWSKI London South Bank University, United Kingdom This article examines the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). There are many WTO … Read more Ruth Rikowski on the WTO and intellectual property rights
Robert Kent, Steve Marquardt, Walter Skold, FREADOM, “Friends of Cuban Libraries”… What is that perfume, that perfume that you won’t let anyone forget? Ah, I recognize it…. It is:
In the current issue of the New York Review of Books there is a review article by Hugh Eakin about the loss of Iraqi antiquities and records in the current war, titled, “The Devastation of Iraq’s Past.” From an historic standpoint, the great loss of Iraq’s cultural record and the inventions of Google will probably … Read more Review article of six books on the loss of Iraqi antiquities
Open letter from Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archives, June 21, 2008 An Open Letter to the Director of Hoover Institute I have read Mr. Sousa’s letter to Mr. Mark Greene, President of the Society of American Archivists (dated 06-06-08), Mr. Al-Jaberi’s statement (dated 27-04-08) and the article published by Stanford … Read more Saad Eskander’s open letter to the Hoover Institution
John Ronald sent me a link to a review of a British pamphlet titled Rethinking Public Service Reform: The Public Value Alternative, from the Trade Union Congress (UK). The review is in the blog A Very Public Sociologist, which has the subtitle “Sociology with a Socialist Punch.” Sociology should have a socialist punch, shouldn’t it? … Read more Democratizing Public Services
The ALA International Relations Committee has just released a very nice, detailed history of the “independent library” movement, Friends of Cuban Libraries, and ALA and IFLA’s activities in relation to them. I think it is going to be an essential point of reference on this issue for years to come, and I applaud the IRC … Read more Cuba Update from the International Relations Committee
It is still not dead. A resolution has just been sent to the ALA Council list for discussion, calling on ALA to recognize the dissident “independent librarians” as members of the library community who deserve our support as colleagues, calling for the return of “library materials” to the “independent libraries,” and calling for the release … Read more The Cuba Debate – Why the “middle” is not the middle
SRRT Newsletter issue 162/163, June 2008, is now up on the web in PDF form. This issue has a schedule of SRRT events at ALA in Anaheim, news from the Feminist Task Force, the International Responsibilities Task Force, and the Task Force on the Environment; a report from the Coordinator, resolutions on the crisis in … Read more New SRRT Newsletter
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
Via Kevin Arthur’s Questioning Technology blog, a tidbit on the fiasco known as One Laptop Per Child…
The L.A. Times reports that… the organizers of the this year’s Turin Book Fair made it an occasion to honor Israeli authors on the 60th anniversary of the nation’s founding, which understandably has made a lot of people angry. So, lots of boycotts of the book fair and heightened security. Yeah, it’s unfortunate that this … Read more Israel-Palestine conflict comes to the Turin Book Fair
Stephen Mitchell of UC Riverside wrote me the other day to ask, Do you know of academic libraries who have done BI on the War? We’re starting to talk about it and it occurred to me that someone has probably done a nice powerpoint somewhere that we could build on. I asked him if I … Read more BI on the War, anyone?