According to the Brussells Tribunal, an international group of artists, intellectuals and activists opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the intellectual and academic community of Iraq is being destroyed: A little known aspect of the tragedy engulfing Iraq is the systematic liquidation of the country’s academics. Even according to conservative estimates, over 250 educators … Read more Liquidation of Iraqi academics
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
The new issue of Information for Social Change, issue 23, is now online. It is a bigger-than-usual issue with some provocative and interesting articles. Information for Social Change is a British organization of radical library workers. Here is the table of contents: Contents and Editorial * Contents * Editorial: Education for Social Change – by … Read more Information for Social Change #23
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
In literature and film, we are drawn into a story and care about it because we believe, at some level, in the truth of the narrative. This requires what’s called a “suspension of disbelief.” Of course, we also know about what is actually going on in the world through media that present us with narratives. … Read more Torture
Today the Reuters news service is reporting on the message of Prince Karim Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims, delivered to a group of journalists in New Delhi. His message? That today’s world conflict is not a clash between Muslim and Western civilizations, but a conflict of ignorance, to which … Read more Aga Khan: Not a clash of civilizations, but a conflict of ignorance…
Today is the International Day of Peace, as declared in United Nations General Assembly Resolution UN/A/RES/36/67 in 1981. It is meant to be a global day of ceasefire as well as a day for considering and promoting the ideals of peace…
In a way I think it is unfortunate that this story is about Cuba, because being about Cuba means that a lot of people just aren’t going to want to hear it. But it is something that should be well understood. 10 journalists working for the Miami Herald and its Spanish-Language sister paper were discovered … Read more 10 Miami Herald journalists on US gov’t payroll
Fiction and Fact about the “Independent Librarians” of Cuba: ONCE AGAIN Prepared by Ann Sparanese, MLS ALA Councilor August 6, 2006 THE ISSUE: A version of this paper was prepared for the June 2006 ALA Annual conference. At that time the ALA Council was being pressured by a group of anti-Cuba activists, led by Robert … Read more Fiction and Fact about the “Independent Librarians” of Cuba: ONCE AGAIN
This may be old news to some, but it hasn’t gotten a lot of play. At IFLA, the Lithuanian and Latvian delegations were planning to present a resolution condemning Cuba for imprisoning dissident “independent librarians.” Robert Kent & Co. floated news of this in advance and pressured ALA Council to instruct ALA’s IFLA delegate to … Read more Lithuanian librarians apologize for being duped by Robert Kent over Cuba
The Nation magazine posted a web-only article yesterday by Joseph Huff-Hannon titled, “Librarians at the Gates,” which takes an admiring look at American librarians. It discusses librarians’ responses to anti-immigration legislation (with a link to REFORMA’s website); our responses to the USA PATRIOT Act, responses to censorship attempts, four paragraphs about the National Security Archive … Read more The Nation takes an admiring look at librarians
Le blog bibliban is a French language blog by French and Lebanese librarians to discuss the situation of libraries in Lebanon and the Lebanese cultural infrastructure in general. Currently on the blog are a letter to IFLA, an item about the Lebanese National Library, and a map showing public libraries that have been closed because … Read more Un blog pour les biblioth?ɬ®ques du Liban
Prior to Wednesday, the muqata’a was a large government building in Nablus, Palestine, originally built by the British in the 1920s and used until this week for civil government functions. It contained the archives of civil documents of the region, containing “hundreds of thousands of file cases and documents — birth and death certificates, identification … Read more Israel targets Nablus administrative records for destruction
The International Committee of the Blue Shield has released a statement on threatened cultural property in the Middle East conflict. The statement simply states the group’s concern about the conflict and the threat it poses to cultural property (artifacts, documents, art), and calls upon governments to ratify the The Hague Convention for the Protection of … Read more International Committee of the Blue Shield statement on threatened cultural property in the Middle East conflict
Hymne ?ɬ† l’?ɬ©galit?ɬ© par Marie-Joseph CH?É‚Ä?NIER (1764-1811) ?É‚Ä?galit?ɬ© douce et touchante, Sur qui reposent nos destins, C’est aujourd’hui que l’on te chante, Parmi les jeux et les festins. Ce jour est saint pour la patrie ; Il est fameux par tes bienfaits C’est le jour o?ɬ? ta voix ch?ɬ©rie Vint rapprocher tous les Fran?ɬßais Tu … Read more Hymne ?ɬ† l’?ɬ©galit?ɬ©
The Dade County, FL, school board’s attempt to ban Vamos a Cuba, the children’s book that local Cuban expatriats complain paints too rosy a picture of life in the socialist country (blogged here on June 14th), is presently being held up as a result of the ACLU’s legal challenge. At the time of the ALA … Read more Vamos a Cuba update
In a blog post on if:Book titled the myth of universal knowledge 2: hyper-nodes and one-way flows, Ben Vershbow reports on a set of interesting discussions about international information flows, specifically the dominance of Western cultural products (including print and digital texts) in international markets, and what it means.
Libraries in the UK have been in a state of crisis for the last decade or more far beyond the degree of troubles we’ve seen in the U.S. Library use is way down and so are budgets, and the cutbacks in hours and the closures of branches have been much worse than here. Part of … Read more The “Love Libraries” campaign (UK)
Susan Maret has an article in the latest issue of Progressive Librarian titled Formats are a Tool for the Quest for Truth: HURIDOCS Human Rights Materials for Library and Human Rights Workers. It is an interesting overview of the well-developed documentation system for human rights abuses.
The New Orleans Times Picayune published an article on Sunday about Madeleine Albright’s appearance at the ALA Conference. The article was focused on Albright’s comments about the Cuban “independent librarians,” which really only amounted to a couple of sentences, and provided background on the situation from an anti-Castro perspective. Clearly Robert Kent got to the … Read more Ann Sparanese’s letter to the Times-Picayune