If you’re like me, you work in a library that is facing tough decisions (no irony intended by that cliché phrase) as a result of budget cuts during the economic crisis. The choice between cutting staff and cutting the budget for materials is the easy one – protect the people who work in the library … Read more The economic crisis and the preservation function of libraries
From the Izzy Award site: The first annual Izzy Award for “special achievement in independent media” was presented March 31, 2009, to blogger Glenn Greenwald and Democracy Now! host and executive producer Amy Goodman. Roughly 800 people attended the award ceremony at Ithaca’s State Theatre – including Izzy Stone’s son Jeremy, who spoke briefly. The … Read more Goodman & Greenwald win Izzy indy media award
LIBREAS – Library Ideas is a LIS journal out of Germany that publishes articles in German and English. The Call for Papers for the next issue is out. Issue #15 of LIBREAS is going to be all about semiotics. If you’ll look at the CFP you’ll see that the issue has a rather narrow focus … Read more CFP – Semiotics and LIS… A whole issue of LIBREAS on it…
I’ve started a LibraryThing group for Library Juice Press. I decided to start it as “a group for readers and authors of books from Library Juice Press and Litwin Books. Discuss books, ask questions of the authors, suggest ideas…” I hope a whole buncha people join and discuss books. I like Library Thing. I hope … Read more LJP LibraryThing group
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?
Richard J. Cox has posted a review of John Ridener’s From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory. Thanks to Dr. Cox for the review.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians (a working title), edited by Tracy Nectoux and published by Library Juice Press as part of the series Gender and Sexuality in Librarianship. Seeking submissions for an anthology of personal accounts by librarians and library workers relating experiences of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, … Read more Call for submissions: Out Behind the Desk
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
The new issue of Information for Social Change, issue #28, is now online. The topic of this issue is “lifelong learners.” Here is a list of the articles: Learning, Learning Communities and Globalisation (Dr Ray Shore) Back to the Future?- Lifelong learning in libraries (Andrew Hudson) Developing a NEETS Based Library Service (John Pateman) Policing … Read more Information for Social Change #28
Chapter two of John Miedema’s Slow Reading, “Slow Reading in an Information Ecology,” is now online at the Litwin Books site. The first two paragraphs here: Isaac Asimov (1969) tells a story of a future in which a character is asked to demonstrate his astonishing talent to the president. The talent is to perform basic … Read more Chapter Two of Slow Reading
Librarians, in my experience, are mostly ambivalent about Wikipedia, and we have good reason for our ambivalence. Wikipedia is a new phenomenon, which means it requires reflection and thought in order to understand where it is valuable and where it is not appropriate for us to use. I think that for many of us, our … Read more Wikipedia as an auxiliary reference tool
The new issue of the SRRT Newsletter has a review of Shiraz Durrani’s book, Information and Liberation: Writings on the Politics of Information and Librarianship. Jenny Bossaller, an Assistant Professor of Library and Information Science at University of Southern Mississippi, wrote the review. It’s a thoughtful piece, which I always like to see. Thanks to … Read more Review of Shiraz Durrani’s Information and Liberation
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
Author: John Miedema Price: $12.00 Published: March 2009 ISBN: 978-0-9802004-4-7 Printed on acid-free paper https://staging.litwinbooks.com/slowreading.php In the face of ever-increasing demands for speed-reading of volumes of information fragments, some readers are choosing to slow down. While it often seems necessary to read quickly, many readers share a conviction that reading slowly is essential to enjoyment … Read more Slow Reading
I’ll be at the [Midwest] Library Technology Conference 2009 next week. I’ll be presenting a poster on our library’s widgets along with Doreen Hansen, a member of our Computer Work Team. Say hello if you’ll be there and you know me from here. I haven’t networked in Minnesota like I should…
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
Issue 166, March 2009, of the SRRT Newsletter is just published. This issue contains the minutes from Midwinter’s meetings in Denver, where Action Council decided to publish the newsletter on the web only, and to move to a quarterly publication schedule. For some time, the newsletter was SRRT’s largest single expense, even at a twice-yearly … Read more SRRT Newsletter 166
I have a stock of “irregulars” – books in early versions with lots of typos. Anybody want to buy some cheap? $5 a copy plus shipping. Copies of the following books are available as irregulars: Slow Reading Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory If … Read more Bargain alert: Typo-laden copies cheap
I’m giving the keynote lecture at the 4th Annual University of Arizona SIRLS Graduate Symposium this Saturday. My talk is called “From duality to dilemma: balancing the library on mission, community, and democracy.” (It had a longer, bulkier title that is still floating around out there.) If anybody is interested, I have posted handouts from … Read more From Duality to Dilemma
The African Studies Center with MATRIX digital humanities center at Michigan State University’s announce the launch of the new African Activist Archive Project (http://africanactivist.msu.edu). This project is preserving records and memories of activism in the United States that supported the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the … Read more African Activist Archive Project