Progressive Librarians Guild Calls for Elsevier to End Corrupt Publishing Practices and for Library Associations to Take Advocacy Role on Behalf of Scientific Integrity http://libr.org/plg/elsevier.php Progressive Librarians Guild. May 12, 2009. Elsevier, which describes itself as the “world’s leading publisher of scientific and health information,” was partner to the efforts of Merck & Co. to … Read more PLG statement on Elsevier’s fake journals
MIT has posted podcasts from the five plenary sessions at Media in Transition 6, at the Comparative Media Studies program’s podcast page. The plenary sessions were on “Archives and History,” “New Media, Civic Media,” “Institutional Perspectives on Storage,” “The Future of Publishing,” and “Summary Perspectives.” I think these plenary sessions were the best part of … Read more Media in Transition 6 – Podcasts
I attended Media in Transition 6: Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission in Cambridge, MA, April 24-26. (Follow that link for a summary of what the conference was about.) Here are my thoughts about the conference after returning home. Of primary interest to me, coming from Duluth, MN, where it was below freezing yesterday, was … Read more Media in Transition 6… Reactions…
The following obituary for Franklin Rosemont was written by Séamas Cain, a writer I know here in the Duluth, Minnesota area. Franklin Rosemont, surrealist poet, artist, historian, street speaker, & labor activist, died of an aneurysm on Sunday, April 12th in Chicago, Illinois. He was 65 years old. With his partner & comrade, Penelope Rosemont, … Read more Franklin Rosemont has passed on
In the most recent issue of ALA’s email newsletter, AL Direct, there is an item (“More authors turn to web publishing”) about the growing popularity of author services companies like Lulu.com and Author Solutions as mainstream publishers cut back on the numbers of titles that they take on during the economic downturn. That’s true as … Read more POD vs. author services publishing
Stephen L. Carter, a law professor who writes about democracy, has an article in The Daily Beast entitled, “Where’s the Bailout for the Publishing Industry?” It begins: Like a lot of writers, I am wondering when Congress and the administration will propose a bailout for the publishing industry. Carnage is everywhere. Advances slashed, editors fired, … Read more Stephen L. Carter – Where’s the Bailout for the Publishing Industry?
The details of the upcoming Media in Transition 6 conference have been posted to the web. On the site you can now find the full program and abstracts of all the papers being presented. Full papers are being added as they come in. This conference, which has no fee for registration, is going to be … Read more Media in Transition 6 conference details
I mentioned in an earlier post how Robbie Franklin, owner of McFarland Publishers, advised me, when I was first getting Library Juice Press off the ground, to publish some conservative books along with liberal books, in order to show that I’m running a publishing house, not an advocacy group. I knew at that time that … Read more Publication and endorsement
Librarians facing an expanse of free time this economic season, please contact me with your project ideas for Library Juice Press. I know from first-hand experience how good unemployment can be for creative projects, and how creative projects can end up leading to employment or at least things to boast about on a resumé. Let … Read more Open Invitation
March is Small Press Month. From the site: Small Press Month is a nationwide celebration highlighting the valuable work produced by independent publishers. Held annually in March, Small Press Month raises awareness about the need for broader venues of literary expression. From March 1st-31st, independent, literary events will take place from coast-to-coast, showcasing some of … Read more March is Small Press Month
When I started Library Juice Press, I was aware of some librarian-publishers who came before me, whose presses are still around. There may be others. I like to think that despite changes in publishing that make it easier to dive in I am more in line with this tradition of librarian-publishers than I am with … Read more Some other librarian-publishers
Salon.com has also published an article about Black Wednesday and the dire straits that the publishing industry is in: Read It and Weep, by Jason Book. (Click past the ad in the upper right of the page to get to the article.) The end of days is here for the publishing industry — or it … Read more More on Black Wednesday
If you’re interested in changes that the publishing industry has been seeing recently, you’ll want to read Tom Engelhardt’s piece in the current issue of The Nation, titled “Reading in an Age of Depression.” His insider’s insight is chilling, in that things are worse than we thought. In his view, however, small independent publishers have … Read more Black Wednesday and On…
From the site: The Izzy Award is named after legendary maverick journalist I. F. Stone, who launched I. F. Stone Weekly in 1953 and exposed government deception, McCarthyism, and racial bigotry. Presented annually for “special achievement in independent media,” the Izzy Award will go to an independent outlet, journalist, or producer for contributions to our … Read more The Izzy Award – Call for Nominations
ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy had its annual retreat this month. Barbara Fister, frequent poster to the ACRL blog and a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, presented a talk there called “Open Access and Books in a Digital World – What Role Should Libraries Play?” Her talk is an interesting exploration of … Read more Barbara Fister on Google and OA
Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission International Conference April 24-26, 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology CALL FOR PAPERS (MIT site) In his seminal essay “The Bias of Communication” Harold Innis distinguishes between time-based and space-based media. Time-based media such as stone or clay, Innis agues, can be seen as durable, while … Read more Call for papers: Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission
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
CALL FOR PAPERS The Society for Textual Scholarship Fourteenth Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference March 18-21, 2009, New York University Program Co-Chairs: Andrew Stauffer, Boston University [astauff@bu.edu]; John Young, Marshall University [youngj@marshall.edu] Deadline for Proposals: October 31, 2008 The Program Chairs invite the submission of full panels or individual papers devoted to interdisciplinary discussion of current … Read more Call for Papers: The Society for Textual Scholarship
From the current issue of The Believer, an article by Rolf Potts on Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, publisher of those 5-cent “Little Blue Books” that educated the masses in the 1920s: “The Henry Ford of Literature.” Here’s how it starts: …Selling for as little as five cents and small enough to fit in a trouser pocket, these … Read more Emanuel Haldeman-Julius and his Little Blue Books
Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge has an hour-long program this week on libraries, books and reading. Interviewed are Maryanne Wolfe, author of “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain” (which has some pessimistic things to say about the internet); Geraldine Brooks, who talks about the rare … Read more Some good listening