Toni Samek wins first annual Library Journal Teaching Award
This is good news. Toni Samek, the subject of the last post here, has been picked for the first annual Library Journal Teaching Award. Read the article byLJ’s John N. Berry III….
Interview with Toni Samek
The BCLA IFC blog has an interview with Toni Samek, who is a very progressive LIS professor at the University Alberta. Toni writes and teaches on topics in critical librarianship, and had a book published earlier this year from Chandos Press: Librarianship and Human Rights: A Twenty-First Century Guide. The interview at the BCLA IFC … Read more Interview with Toni Samek
LJP Facebook Page
Library Juice Press now has its own Facebook Page…. Facebook Pages are different from Facebook Groups in that they are profiles that companies, organizations, or other entities set up in their own right. For example, anybody could set up a group for members of the ACLU, but only the ACLU (or a chapter) could set … Read more LJP Facebook Page
Pig Latin Bible
My first experiment as a publisher was a Pig Latin translation of the Book of Psalms and the Book of Proverbs. I have not been very public about this project, but as the months have passed I’ve gradually grown more comfortable with the idea of letting people know about it. I will say that it’s … Read more Pig Latin Bible
A couple of interesting links
I found these on Arts & Letters Daily. A comment about that site after the links. First, an article from the New Yorker by Anthony Grafton: Future Reading: Digitization and Its Discontents. This is a thoughtful meditation on Google’s Library Project and the general effect of digitization on reading, from a well-informed historical perspective. I’m … Read more A couple of interesting links
Censorship at the Canadian Border
I have long been aware that that Canadian postal service will stop delivery of materials it deems obscene or otherwise censorship-worthy. I was not aware that they published a list (actually it’s the Canadian Border Services Agency that does it) of all the materials that it stops. The British Columbia Library Association IFC blog has … Read more Censorship at the Canadian Border
LJP Facebook group
Library Juice Press Facebook group….
All about Peter Suber
Peter Suber is a major leader in the Open Access movement. (His Open Access News is an indispensible source – extremely detailed and up to date.) Today Richard Poynder of the Open and Shut? blog gives us a nice biographical post on Suber followed by an interview (part of his Basement Interviews series). Thanks to … Read more All about Peter Suber
New issue of Information for Social Change
The new issue of Information for Social Change, issue 25, is available online. It is another theme issue, this time dealing with libraries and information workers in conflict situations. Examples of what’s in it include articles in disinformation during wartime, truth commissions in Latin American countries and libraries in relation to them, women living under … Read more New issue of Information for Social Change
“The truth is somewhere in between” as a way to avoid thinking
Here is a diagnosis of a certain malady in our body politic: the “both sides have a point” reflex. It stems from a desire for fairness and from the recognition that real issues are more complex than their advocates often allow, but leads to a pathological bypass of healthy brain function. Sometimes it also appears … Read more “The truth is somewhere in between” as a way to avoid thinking
Two articles of interest from The Nation
First, Jeffrey Chester’s Google and Data-Seizure, about the significance of Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick, the internet marketing and company whose business is based on showing banner ads and tracking users’ web surfing. The article is primarily about privacy and what Google’s continuing acquisition of websites means for it (as the data is conglomerated). Second, Tom … Read more Two articles of interest from The Nation
Socialism and print culture
Here’s an interesting article from the July-August isssue of New Left Review relating the history of socialism to the history of print culture. It suggests, without quite stating it, that the decline of socialism is tied to the decline of print culture, and that by extension the future of socialism will be tied to a … Read more Socialism and print culture
I’m shocked and appalled that you’re shocked and appalled
A creative MIT student made a thing out of a circuit board and some LEDs and wore it on her shirt. She’s young, 19, so it’s understandable that she didn’t quite understand how things are in airports these days, and when she walked into Logan Airport she was surrounded at gunpoint by security men who … Read more I’m shocked and appalled that you’re shocked and appalled
British Columbia Library Association IFC blog
The British Columbia Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee has a new blog, which I will read regularly. It’s been going since late August, and in that time I’d say it’s shown that the BC IFC is a group that’s doing some interesting things relating to intellectual freedom and information policy and having fun while they’re … Read more British Columbia Library Association IFC blog
Books on libraries and the public sphere
Kathleen de la Pe?±a McCook recommends some books on libraries and the public sphere. This list is a good prescription for getting reinspired as an ethically and politically grounded professional.
PLG endorses the Iraq Moratorium
The Progressive Librarians Guild has endorsed the Iraq Moratorium, an organized method of protest for the third Friday of each month.
Coming up from Library Juice Press
Library Juice Press has a number of book projects forthcoming in the Winter and Spring. Coming up soonest are these two: Mrs. Magavero: A History Based on the Career of an Academic Librarian, by Jane Brodsky Fitzpatrick Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems, by David Bade Shortly following on those will be a compilation … Read more Coming up from Library Juice Press
No intellectual freedom in U.S. prison chapel libraries
The New York Tims has a story dated yesterday about a change dictated from the top in the libraries of U.S. Federal Prisons, called the “Standardized Chapel Library Project.” With the rationale of preventing violent religious extremism among prisoners, religious books in Federal prison libraries will now be a standardized collection – 150 books for … Read more No intellectual freedom in U.S. prison chapel libraries
OncologySTAT: end run around objectivity
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a brief news item today about a Reed-Elsevier web portal for oncologists called OncologySTAT, which provides free access to medical research in journals that are otherwise mainly accessed through library subscriptions, and pays for the service by showing ads to users. The kind of ad-based model in use here … Read more OncologySTAT: end run around objectivity
Terje Hillesund on the future of books
The new First Monday has an article by Terje Hillesund that’s worth reading if you’re interested in the question of the future of the book: Reading Books in the Digital Age after Amazon, Google and the long tail. Here is the abstract: Presenting a wide range of literature, this article explores the state of art … Read more Terje Hillesund on the future of books