For many years Byron Anderson has been producing a bibliography of tools for helping librarians attend to the alternative press. The new edition of his guide is out: Bibliographic and Web Tools for Alternative Media. Updates of this bibliography are regularly published in Counterpoise and posted to the web on the Alternative Media Task Force … Read more Bibliographic and Web Tools for Alternative Media
Canadian and UK readers who’ve wanted to buy Library Juice Press books domestically now can, through Chapters, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.co.uk. Our website now links to pages on those sites for each of our books.
Two press releases in two days, this one from George Eberhart of ALA… Hello, Rory– I wanted to let you know about some important news about American Libraries. 1. Our weekly e-newsletter, American Libraries Direct, is now available to anyone who wants to sign up for it, not just ALA members. The sign-up form, as … Read more American Libraries (magazine) more accessible
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 15, 2008 Librarian documentary to begin DVD sales on website MADISON, WI – The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film today launched sales of the DVD version at its website, www.hollywoodlibrarian.com. The feature length documentary, which premiered in Washington D.C. in June 2007 and has been screened in 13 … Read more Hollywood Librarian press release – DVD on sale
Here’s a short video on the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund, which aids librarians who need financial assistance for legal or other needs when facing the consequences of taking a stand for a principle in their workplaces. It’s from the ALA OIF blog.
ALA has an important policy, Policy 61, on library services to poor people. This policy was brought about in the mid-90s through the dedicated work of SRRT’s Homelessness, Hunger, and Poverty Task Force (HHPTF), with the leadership of Sandy Berman. The HHPTF is still going strong as one of SRRT’s more active Task Forces, and … Read more Survey report on library services to the poor
Noting an article of interest: “Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship” Science 18 July 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5887, pp. 395 – 399 DOI: 10.1126/science.1150473 James Evans finds that scholars’ access to online journals tends to reduce the breadth of the citations to other articles in their work; that is, articles outside … Read more Electronic journal access found to reduce breadth of citations
Want to know if something is in the public domain or under copyright? Use the ALA OIT’s new digital copyright slider to find out. They’ve had an actual slide-rule like physical one in publication for a few years, and many people have asked for a digital version. I’m pleased to see it.
If you’d like to purchase Questioning Library Neutrality for your library but need to supply a review from a mainstream source in order to justify it, the answer is here. In the July issue of Library Journal there is a nice review of the book that should do the trick.
In my view, one of the most important documents and position statements that ALA has produced in the last few years was its June 2007 report, “Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions.” This was produced by a subcommittee of the Intellectual Freedom Committee, now dissolved, called the Subcommittee on the Impact of Media … Read more ALA IFC’s Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries, and ALA’s grey literature in general
You (or your library) can now place a standing order for books published by Library Juice Press or Litwin Books. Standing orders will get a 25% discount from the cover price. Also, when you place a standing order you’ll have the opportunity to purchase any of our previously published books at the same 25% discount. … Read more LJP Standing Orders
Jeff Lilburn has reviewed Questioning Library Neutrality for the blog LibrarianActivist. His review is careful not to be overly excited by the book, but is much appreciated as the first review of the book to hit the screens, and by a person who understands what the book is trying to say. Thank you Jeff and … Read more Review of Questioning Library Neutrality
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
Are you going to be at the ALA Conference in Anaheim later this month? Litwin Books / Library Juice Press will be holding a reception. I will be showing the eight books we have published so far and networking with readers and authors. I look forward to meeting you at the reception if you’re interested … Read more Library Juice Press / Litwin Books Reception at ALA in Anaheim
Thomas Mann’s Foreword to David Bade’s Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems: There is a kind of “code word” situation that has developed in the library profession in recent decades; it is manifested in an appeal to a set of beliefs that, while largely unarticulated, is nonetheless socially endorsed without a perceived need for … Read more Thomas Mann’s Foreword to Responsible Librarianship
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?
Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian Editor: Alison Lewis Price: $18.00 Published: April 2008 ISBN: 978-0-9778617-7-4 Printed on acid-free paper Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian presents essays that relate to neutrality in librarianship in a philosophical or practical sense, and sometimes both. They are a selection of essays originally published in Progressive … Read more New from LJP: Questioning Library Neutrality
Popline, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a government-funded public database for research on population issues and reproductive health. I’ve been aware of it as an excellent resource for some time. The news: Gloria Won, a medical librarian at the University of California, San Francisco, noticed on Monday that the word “abortion” has … Read more Popline blocking searches on “abortion”
David Bade pointed me to this very interesting talk (in transcript form) by Andrew Abbott of the University of Chicago, given as the Windsor Lecture at the University of Illinois this month: Library Research and Its Infrastructure in the Twentieth Century. This paper is the author’s own ethnography of library research by scholars in the … Read more How library research is really done
Byron Anderson is the compiler of Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, now in its sixth edition, from Library Juice Press. I asked Byron to talk a bit about this reference work for Library Juice Readers. Byron, why don’t you describe this resource and say how it got started? Byron: Alternative Publishers of Books … Read more Interview with APBNA compiler Byron Anderson