Terry Eagleton has a rather sad article in Saturday’s UK Guardian: Only Pinter remains: British literature’s long and rich tradition of politically engaged writers has come to an end. Eagleton tells how England’s major writers have moved to the right in recent years, and talks about the Left politics of its great writers of the … Read more Only Pinter remains
I was tickled to see today’s NY Times article in the Fashion section, “A Hipper Crowd of Shushers,” about how hip and cool younger librarians are now, in contrast to a generation ago. Throughout Kara Jesella’s article there are specific markers of hipness that distinguish the new breed of librarians as superior to their elders … Read more The judgment of taste and the “hipper crowd of shushers”
Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 Author: Lara Moore Expected: Spring 2008 Printed on acid-free paper Between 1789 and 1793, the revolutionary French state nationalized thousands of libraries and archival depositories, thus becoming the proprietor of many millions of books and documents, ranging from Montesquieu’s … Read more Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870 (forthcoming)
ALA Council Report to SRRT July 3, 2007 Greetings to the members of the Social Responsibilities Round Table. SRRT took a break in proposing resolutions at the ALA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Perhaps we were worn out by the unsympathetic reception to our efforts at the Midwinter Meeting. SRRT did however endorse one resolution, … Read more SRRT Councilor’s Report on the ALA Conference
What is ALA-APA? It is the ALA Allied Professional Association. It was created a few years ago because the restrictions of ALA’s 501(c)(3) tax status. ALA-APA has a different tax status, which allows it to promote the welfare of a professional group, and not just the public interest. (That is the basic distinction in the … Read more ALA-APA
From ALA’s Don Wood: Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions (PDF) This guideline is designed to provide libraries, library consortia, and library networks with a centralized list of strategies and actions to help them fulfill one of their key responsibilities: to provide access to a diverse collection of resources and services. Special attention … Read more Media Diversity in Libraries
I will simply refer you to the ALA blog District Dispatch and let you read it there…
Elaine Harger, outgoing coordinator of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table, compiled a list of resolutions by ALA Council on the War on Terror, for distribution to congressional offices on Tuesday, which was a day of lobbying during the ALA Conference in Washington, DC. The list is online in PDF form, and also here: American … Read more American Library Association statements re: the “War on Terror”
Monika Antonelli is developing what I think is an important new conceptual direction for libraries, on the basis of ideas from the permaculture movement. She has just started a website, Greenlibraries.org, still mostly undeveloped, which will be a resource for support and documentation for making libraries more ecologically sustainable. Making libraries more sustainable is the … Read more Green Libraries
Mary Sue Brown of ALA/SRRT’s Alternative Media Task Force (AMTF) has compiled a bibliography of “sources for, reviews of, and film subscriptions to alternative media in film,” titled, “Beyond Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” It is available in a six-page pdf on the AMTF website, and also here: Beyond Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ALA … Read more “Beyond Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” – Video Resources
From the introduction of the forthcoming Eugène Morel: pioneer of public libraries in France, by Gaëtan Benoît: This study is a critical account of the works of Eugène Morel (1869-1934), a French Librarian who, along the lines of such eminent public library pioneers as Edward Edwards and Melvil Dewey, made a remarkable contribution towards the … Read more Eugène Morel: pioneer of public libraries in France (forthcoming)
New essay by Thomas Mann, “The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and Scholarship in Research Libraries” (June 13, 2007). PDF, 41 pp. ABSTRACT: The paper is an examination of the overall principles and practices of both reference service and cataloging operations in the promotion of scholarly research, pointing out important differences not … Read more Thomas Mann’s new one
Resolution on Southeast Asia Conflict Whereas, the stated objective of the American Library Association is the promotion and improvement of library service and librarianship, and Whereas, continued and improved library service to the American public requires sustained support form public monies, and Whereas, the continuing U.S. involvement in the conflict in Southeast Asia has so … Read more ALA Council Resolution on Southeast Asia Conflict (1971)
Media Release Contact: Dr. Alison M. Lewis Chair, Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Committee Progressive Librarians Guild Phone: 215/895-2765 FAX: 215/895-2070 E-Mail: alewis@drexel.edu June 6, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Winner Announced (Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA) ‚Äì The Progressive Librarians Guild is pleased to announce the winner of the 2007 Miriam Braverman Memorial … Read more Braverman Prize winner (student essay contest)
In mid-April I posted an item about the campaign to get Reed Elsevier out of the arms trade business, which had a link to a well-organized petition drive. I found out about the issue from Mark Rosenzweig, who tried to bring the issue up for discussion on the ALA Council list, where it was ignored. … Read more Reed Elsevier to stop organizing arms fairs
Two items regarding recent mainstream news reports telling the story that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is cracking down on free speech in refusing to renew RCTV’s license. First, Robert McChesney unpacks the issue and provides some of the facts and context that have been buried, showing how “the US media coverage of Venezuela‚Äôs RCTV controversy says … Read more Venezuela’s media and the U.S. media
From ALA’s Washington Office: Please contact your Senators and ask them to support the OPEN Government Act of 2007 (S. 849), and to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid or Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to support bringing the bill to the floor in early June. Unfortunately — and ironically, since this is an open government bill … Read more OPEN Government Act of 2007
SRRT Newsletter issue 158/159, June 2007, is published and on the web, and will be showing up in SRRT members’ (postal) mailboxes soon. Newsletter editor Erik Estep wishes to extend special thanks to former editor Jane Ingold for her help with this issue. The new issue includes: Info about SRRT’s activities at the ALA Conference … Read more New SRRT Newsletter
Library Juice Press has a number of book projects in the works. Four of them are far-enough along that I feel I can announce them at this point: Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian, edited by Alison Lewis Information and Liberation: Writings on the Politics of Information and Librarianship, by Shiraz Durrani Information for … Read more Forthcoming books
Is our society gradually forgetting the value of privacy, in libraries and elsewhere? Michael Zimmer, who writes on media ecology, technology, and privacy, gives some attention to online privacy in libraries in a post from yesterday. He links to a blog entry from an anonymous blog called Chronicles of Dissent, comments, and links to some … Read more Some attention to library privacy