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)
In mid-April I posted an item about the campaign to get Reed Elsevier out of the arms trade business, which had a link to a well-organized petition drive. I found out about the issue from Mark Rosenzweig, who tried to bring the issue up for discussion on the ALA Council list, where it was ignored. … Read more Reed Elsevier to stop organizing arms fairs
Two items regarding recent mainstream news reports telling the story that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is cracking down on free speech in refusing to renew RCTV’s license. First, Robert McChesney unpacks the issue and provides some of the facts and context that have been buried, showing how “the US media coverage of Venezuela‚Äôs RCTV controversy says … Read more Venezuela’s media and the U.S. media
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
Hameeda Al-Bassam is an Iraqi librarian, a woman who is physically disabled as a result of the violence in Iraq. She operates a small, private library in service to intellectuals and academics. The Alive in Baghdad video blog has an interesting video interview with her, where she talks about working as a librarian under the … Read more Hameeda Al-Bassam
There is unavoidably a moral dimension to business decisions. To make decisions that work from a practical standpoint we constantly make compromises with humanistic and environmental ideals. It is difficult if not impossible for a person to live in the modern world, even as an anarchist on a commune, without making compromises with the system … Read more Reed Elsevier and arms trade
Michael Dowling of the ALA Chapter Relations Office has forwarded to the IFLA list a link to an audio version of a PBS interview with Saad Eskander, the new head of the Iraqi National Library and Archives. The interview is about 18 minutes long and extremely interesting. We in the U.S. talk about running libraries … Read more Saad Eskander
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
The Progressive Librarians Guild endorsed a petition to impeach President Bush and to have Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Gonzales tried for war crimes by an international tribunal. The petition, written by Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois Law School and Joan Russow of the Global Compliance Research Project, is carefully framed within the … Read more Progressive Librarians Guild calls for Bush’s impeachment and trial for war crimes
In Seattle last week ALA passed this Resolution in Support of Immigrants Rights: Resolved, that ALA strongly supports the protection of each person’s civil liberties regardless of that individual’s nationality, residency, or status; and be it further resolved that ALA opposes any legislation that infringes on the rights of anyone in the USA (citizen or … Read more ALA Council supports immigrant rights
The Progressive Librarians Guild has endorsed a resolution by the American Historical Association, titled Resolution on United States Government Practices Inimical to the Values of the Historical Profession. The resolution addresses the Bush Administration’s violations of historic preservation practices and other principles held by historians, in the context of the war in Iraq. The violations … Read more PLG endorses AHA resolution on US gov’t and historical preservation
The new issue of Information for Social Change is out. It’s issue 24, and its theme is “Libraries & Information in the World Social Forum Context. There hasn’t been much participation in the World Social Forum by U.S. librarians, including the progressives and socialists, though there has certainly been awareness and enthusiasm about the WSF … Read more New – ISC #24 – World Social Forum
PALIAct is the Progressive African Library & Information Activists Group. It has ties to CILIP (the UK library association) and the UK’s Information for Social Change, and publishes an online journal, Information Equality, Africa, the second issue of which is just out and available from the group’s website.
Today is Human Rights Day. Two sites I will recommend: OHCHR Human Rights Day page Human Rights Education Association Human Rights Day page Also note Toni Samek’s upcoming book: Librarianship and Human Rights, coming out very soon on from Chandos Publishing. Also… Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Kathryn Phenix are working on a book … Read more Human Rights Day
This is from LISNews. It turns out that LibrariansForFairness, the ostensible library group that opposed SRRT’s criticism of Israel a few years ago, is actually a project of the PR firm Rothstein and Memsic, which is connected with Standwithus, a pro-Israel lobby group. The rundown is LISNews, though brief, is very interesting and presents the … Read more LibrariansForFairness a project of PR firm Rothstein and Memsic
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
Why do I care so much about France? I don’t know, maybe just because it’s the traditional first stop for a semi-cosmopolitan anglophone and I am less culturally far-reaching than I would like to think. Or maybe it’s simply that I want America to be more like France. Anyway, I think this is a very … Read more Four top French book awards go to non-French authors
Thoughtul article in the new Marginal Librarian, McGill’s library school student e-zine: Public libraries: who or what is “public”? This article has to do with Montréal’s new anti-homeless policies (that’s anti-homeless, not anti-homelessness), and ties the question of society’s attitudes toward poor people to library service and the way “the public” is operationally defined in … Read more Circumscribing the “public” in public libraries
INFORMATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (ISC) ISSN 1364-694X CALL FOR PAPERS The summer 2007 issue of the online journal Information for Social Change (ISC) will focus on the urgent theme of library and information workers as political actors in times of war, civil war, military occupation, and social conflicts worldwide. ISC seeks both contemporary and historical … Read more Information for Social Change – Call for Papers