No comment about this or predictions about where the case may be headed or whether there will be broader implications for privacy down the road, except to say to anyone out there who uses an email account set up by a public university: Best to keep as much as possible on your own private email … Read more Professors’ email may be public
I haven’t been posting much, but I do have some links to share: By Steve Coll, in the New York Review of Books: The Internet: For Better or for Worse, a review of two books skeptical of the idea of the internet as a force for liberation. By Richard Dorment, also in the NYRB: What … Read more Some links for you…
I am not personally diving into the discussion of Judge Chin’s decision on the Google Settlement, because I am too war-weary of fighting it out with other librarians on issues where I feel like a lone dissenter, but I will go as far as to say that I like this post on the topic by … Read more Smart commentary on Judge Chin’s decision
Susan Maret sent an interesting link to the PLG listserv to an article about statutes that create new exemptions to FOIA. If you’re interested in access to government information, this is something you should be aware of.
Librarians interested in intellectual freedom should take note of a case of censorship by copyright lawsuit. Danish artist Nadia Plesner has used an image of a Louis Vuitton handbag in some biting artwork about the genocide in Darfur to show our culpability in not bridging the gap between the tragedy there and our shallow consumerist … Read more Nadia Plesner free speech case
Title: Archival Anxiety and the Vocational Calling Author: Richard J. Cox Price: $35.00 ISBN: 978-1-936117-49-9 6″ by 9″ 372 Pages Published: March 2011 Richard J. Cox’s fifteenth book on archival studies related topics, this collection of essays responds to anxieties affecting the archival profession as societal changes highlight the importance of archives and records-keeping and … Read more New book from Richard J. Cox: Archival Anxiety and the Vocational Calling
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Are you an LIS student interested in activism and the struggle for social justice? Do you stay awake at night thinking about how your politics might inform your professional practice? The MIRIAM BRAVERMAN MEMORIAL PRIZE, a presentation of the Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG), is awarded each year for the best paper about … Read more Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize – Call for Submissions (student paper contest)
The use of certain library statistics, mainly related to circulation and its electronic semi-equivalents, has taken on a high degree of importance in library management since 1979, when Charlie Robinson introduced the “give ’em what they want” philosophy of collection development at Baltimore County Public Library. Circulation statistics provide an easy way present an argument … Read more Some objections to our use of library statistics
Litwin Books will soon be publishing an English translation of Philippe Breton’s 2000 book, Le culte de l’Internet: Une menace pour le lien social?, under the English title: The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies. Here is a bit from Chapter Four that comes to mind for … Read more Selection from Philippe Breton, relating to Wikileaks
I recommend a post by James Jacobs on the freegovinfo.info site and the comments following it for a good summary of the debate over Wikileaks within the library community.
Adam Gopnik, frequent contributor to the New Yorker, has an article in the new issue called, “The Information: How the Internet Gets Inside Us.” It’s actually a really good bibliographic essay to recommend to someone wanting an overview of this literature. The scale of the transformation is such that an ever-expanding literature has emerged to … Read more Adam Gopnik on books about the internet age
A bit of satire in response to the question, “How many control freaks does it take to screw in a light bulb?” Any resemblance to organizations you may have heard of is completely coincidental. —————- To the Control Freak Light Bulb Screwing-In Community: A friendly member of our committee has asked a question of us, … Read more How many control freaks does it take to screw in a light bulb?
“The HMC announces an open call for entries to exhibit at Raday Konyveshaz & Gallery, Budapest, exhibition opening on August 24, 2011. … Submission deadline is March 15.” How influenced the digitalized area the traditional reading culture? Is it finished the Gutenberg area? We are waiting artist books, artworks on or of paper may be … Read more Call for entries (artwork) – Library Thoughts – Gondolatok a könyvtárban
Jason Epstein has a review of John B. Thompson’s Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century in the current New York Review of Books: “Books: Onward to the Digital Revolution.” The book is published by Polity Press and seems to be an important snapshot of the publishing industry in its current (but … Read more Jason Epstein reviews Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century
Byron Anderson has updated his “Bibliographic and Web Tools for Alternative Media,” which is published regularly in Counterpoise. Sections include Reference Books/Online Databases; Web Sources; Distributors; Organizations; Small Press/Alternative Media: News, Reviews, Awards, Reprints; and Related works. Also see Byron’s guide to “Getting Alternative Press Titles into Libraries and Promoting Alternative Presses in the Library.“
As I have announced, all of our books are available in ebook form, from Powells.com and Google. We are now offering a few of our books on Amazon for the Kindle platform: Speaking of Information: The Library Juice Quotation Book Humanism and Libraries: An Essay on the Philosophy of Librarianship So You Want To Be … Read more Some Kindle ebooks from LJP
Michael Bugeja, author of Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age, has an article in today’s Inside Higher Ed about the current state of journalism: Stewart, Assange and Journalism Education: Satirist Jon Stewart and activist Julian Assange are symbols of a world without journalism — a largely … Read more Michael Bugeja on Stewart, Assange and Journalism Education
Toni Samek (winner of Library Journal‘s first annual teaching award in 2007) has a review of R. J. Cox’s The Demise of the Library School: Personal Reflections on Professional Education in the Modern Corporate University in the new issue of the CAUT Bulletin (Canadian Association of University Teachers). Her review begins: Library and information education … Read more Toni Samek reviews R. J. Cox’s The Demise of the Library School
From Diedre Conklin: The Amelia Bloomer Project, a product of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table’s (SRRT) Feminist Taskforce, announced the 2011 Amelia Bloomer List at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in San Diego. The bibliography consists of well-written and illustrated books with significant feminist content, intended for young readers from birth to 18 years old. This … Read more 2011 Amelia Bloomer Project List