Noted as an example of what I think can be called political censorship in the American South: “GSC professor teaches the importance of art as his own work comes under fire,” by Brandee A. Thomas, Gainesville Times.
Librarians have responded to the internet and other technologies that have reduced people’s demand for our services in a couple of complementary ways over the past 20 years or so (or more). On the one hand, we have pointed out all of the reasons that libraries are still needed and still heavily used, and on … Read more Turning the Reference Desk into a Reference Bureau
The new issue of Libraries and the Cultural Record has a review of LJP publication The Great Depression: Its Impact on Forty-Six Large American Public Libraries, an Analysis of Published Writings of Their Directors, by Robert Scott Kramp. Arthur P. Young wrote the review. Libraries and the Cultural Record is the leading journal in the … Read more Review in Libraries and the Cultural Record
Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians Editor: Tracy Nectoux Price: $30.00 Published: May 2011 ISBN: 978-1-936117-03-1 Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians is an anthology of personal accounts by librarians and library workers relating experiences of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or queer at work. A broad spectrum of … Read more New book: Out Behind the Desk
I was in Cambridge, MA last weekend for MiT7: unstable platforms: the promise and peril of transition. This conference is put on every two years jointly by MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program and the MIT Communication Forum. The conference is concerned with new media and new communication technologies and their broad implications. Presenters came to … Read more Thoughts on MiT7
No comment on this other than to say that Koofers is incredibly slimy, and it rankles me that they seem to be getting some tacit support from legitimate institutions. Here is a post by my friend Nicole Pagowsky on how Koofers ripped off one of her student papers and posted it to their for-profit site … Read more Koofers – stealing students’ work to help other students cheat
An interesting library-related paper from MiT7, by a media studies scholar: Knowledge Experiments: Technology and the Library, Paulina Mickiewicz Abstract: In April of 2005, the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec opened in Montreal, a library project of unprecedented scale in the city. This paper seeks to focus on the programming and technologies of the Grande Bibliothèque. … Read more Paulina Mickiewicz on library architecture
Best Libri Student Paper Announcement from Libri: Since 1950, through 61 volumes, Libri: International Journal of Libraries and Information Services has been a leader among scholarly journals in the international library world. As part of its strategy to remain one of the premier library journals, Libri is issuing a call for “Best Student Paper of … Read more Libri best student paper award
MiT7 was a great conference – intimate, warm, stimulating, interdisciplinary, and cutting-edge. There were some brilliant minds at work. I plan to post a few comments on the conference later. For now, here are links to podcasts from the three topical plenary sessions: Media in Transition 7: Unstable Platforms Archives and Cultural Memory Power and … Read more MiT7 podcasts
I find this quite a good statement of the reason librarianship should require a master’s degree. I also found the video interesting in the way that it mixes media together.
Media in Transition 7 (MiT 7), a small conference at MIT, is starting Friday and running ’till Sunday. I will be there; if you will be there too please say hello. Anyone wanting to follow the Twitter hash tag can look for #mit7.
Press release: NEW YORK (JTA) — JTA [a Jewish newswire] has launched a digital archive containing 250,000 articles dating from 1923. The JTA Jewish News Archive, which is searchable and free for the public to use, was launched officially Tuesday evening with a celebration at the Center for Jewish History in New York. Highlights of … Read more JTA News Archive
The attack on NPR during the present budget scare has been symbolic, but for more reasons than one. It’s been observed that the attack is symbolic because the proposed cuts in funding are not a very significant amount of money in light of the Federal budget problems. But the other reason it is symbolic is … Read more Say it isn’t so, NPR
John Miedema’s book, Slow Reading, has been translated into Portuguese by Editora Octavo. Isildo de Paula Souza at Octavo worked with us to enable this to happen, and we are thankful for his interest in publishing the book in Brazil.
Philippe Breton: a brief introduction …by David Bade, the translator of Breton’s book Le culte de l’Internet: Une menace pour le lien social?, which Litwin Books has published under the English title: The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies… I discovered the work of Philippe Breton when … Read more Philippe Breton
Here is a scary if unsurprising bit of news: a report in PC world on a recent study by Christopher Soghoian: “US Police Increasingly Peeping at E-mail, Instant Messages.” Soghoian’s paper is linked in the article, which begins: Law enforcement organizations are making tens of thousands of requests for private electronic information from companies such … Read more And our privacy quietly erodes as state power grows
Librarians doing bibliographic instruction in college settings will most likely find little in this study out of the citation project that they didn’t already know from first-hand experience, but it is very good to see it as a research finding: ATLANTA — An analysis of research papers written in first-year composition courses at 15 colleges … Read more Study finds college students not engaged in their research projects
There is an very good article by David Remnick in the February 28th issue of the New Yorker about Ha’aretz, the Israeli newspaper that has set the standard for accuracy in news there for many years while also providing the main support for pro-Peace viewpoints among Israelis. If you are interested in the role of … Read more Very good article on the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz
Here is one of my favorite philosophers on one of my favorite problems: From Socrates to Expert Systems: The Limits and Dangers of Calculative Rationality (Hubert Dreyfus). This relates to Library Juice posts from 9/22/2010, 10/4/2009, 5/19/2009, 7/31/2008, and 4/25/2008.
The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies Author: Philippe Breton Translator: David Bade Price: $22.00 Published: March 2011 ISBN: 978-1-936117-41-3 Printed on acid-free paper French author Philippe Breton examines the Internet and the culture surrounding it through the lens of its philosophical and cultural background. Central in … Read more New book: The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies