ALA has started up some blogs. Some belong to staff members, but there are many that belong to units. Check out the Office for Intellectual Freedom blog, and then look at some of the others linked at the top of the top level ALA blogs page…
Library Juice Concentrate Edited by Rory Litwin Preface by Kathleen de la Peña McCook Price: $25.00 ISBN-10: 0-9778617-3-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-9778617-3-6 6″ by 9″ Published: December 2006 Library Juice Concentrate is a compilation of the best of Library Juice, an e-zine published by Rory Litwin between 1998 and 2005 that dealt with foundational questions of librarianship … Read more New from LJP: Library Juice Concentrate
Library Daylight: Tracings of Modern Librarianship, 1874 to 1922 Edited by Rory Litwin Introduction by Suzanne Stauffer, Ph.D. Price: $25.00 ISBN-10: 0-9778617-4-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-9778617-4-3 6″ by 9″ Published: December 2006 Library Daylight: Tracings of Modern Librarianship, 1874 to 1922 is an eclectic collection of thirty-six articles about libraries and librarianship published between 1874 and 1922. … Read more New from LJP: Library Daylight
This post is a compilation of web resources having to do with alternative literature and libraries. It replaces an out-of-date page on my personal site. By “alternative literature” I mean books, magazines, and other written media coming from any of a myriad Left perspectives (socialist, anarchist, green, feminist, queer, or specific-issue-based) and published independently of … Read more Alternative Lit and Libraries
ALA’s Don Wood has a blog that he uses as a channel for his communications on libraries and intellectual freedom. Today he has a post about the ALA Washington Office and their response to statements by the director of the FBI that they say reveals the Bureau’s continued lack of understanding of libraries and the … Read more Privacy, Libraries, ALA and FBI
The new issue of the SRRT Newsletter, which is combined issue 156/157, January 2007, is finished and now online. Paper copies will be mailed to SRRT members and other subscribers soon. Erik Estep has put together a nice issue, with articles by some new voices in SRRT. Carol Gulyas, chair of the Alternatives in Publications … Read more SRRT Newsletter 156/157
The Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) has an Information Ethics Special Interest Group (IE-SIG) that has recently completed a Position Statement on Information Ethics in LIS Education. I have been waiting to blog this for news about whether it is going to be officially adopted by ALISE or what authority it has … Read more ALISE Information Ethics Special Interests Group
In the past few years, the New York Public Library has sold off important assets in order to raise money to continue operations. In the same period, compensation for their top administrators has increased dramatically. (The President and CEO now makes around $800,000.) The link is to an article in the New York Times dated … Read more NYPL executive pay
New from Library Juice Press: Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library: How Postmodern Consumer Capitalism Threatens Democracy, Civil Education and the Public Good By Ed D’Angelo November 2006. 139. paperback. $18 ISBN 978-0-9778617-1-2 Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library is a philosophical and historical analysis of how the rise of consumerism … Read more New from LJP: Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh District Services has sent an email to branch heads offering to distribute to interested branches 50 copies of the 2006 Voter Guide from the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which the email calls “a non-profit, non-partisan research and education organization that analyzes public policies and cultural trends for their impact on the … Read more Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh distributing right wing voter guides
A non-librarian friend recommended this story to me recently, and on reading it I felt surprised never to have seen it before. It’s an inspiring story about literacy and learning. It’s very Reader’s Digest-y (in fact it was actually published there) and corny, but nevertheless enjoyable and inspiring, and made me feel proud to be … Read more The Ballad of Old Man Peters
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
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
Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Board OKs Union Vote. (That’s the headline from the Indianapolis Star.) Read about it at the Union Librarian blog…
RESOLVED, that the Progressive Librarians Guild support sister and fellow librarians in Indianapolis, Indiana in gaining union representation. Below is PLG’s position and letter of support: Progressive Librarians Guild Rider University Library 2083 Lawrenceville Rd. Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 August 8, 2006 Library Board Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library P.O. Box 211 Indianapolis, IN 46206-0211 Dear Indianapolis-Marion … Read more PLG supports Indianapolis librarians
I found this on the Librarian 2 blog: New Orleans Public Library has set up a wish list through the online book vendor Alibris, to help channel people’s desire to help them rebuild in more productive ways than sending them all kinds of random, falling-apart, donated books that NOPL has no need for anyway. NOPL … Read more New Orleans Public Library Wish List at Alibris
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)
Over the next few days I’ll be reporting on aspects of the ALA Conference that just took place in New Orleans, and talking about some of the things that ALA as an organization has been working on. It seems to me that ALA members like me who are very involved in the association could do … Read more Conference reports coming up
Jo Ann Pinder, a completely mainstream librarian and longtime head of the Gwinnett County, Georgia, library system, was recently fired from her job by the library board, with no explanation given, after a local conservative organization set up a website that aimed to “harmonize [their] library system with the conservative values of Gwinnett County families.” … Read more Conservative campaign forces Georgia librarian from post