Trenchant and insightful article in The Nation by Jeffrey Chester: The Google YouTube Tango. This article focuses on how corporate claims-staking such as Google’s buyout of YouTube and Rupert Murdoch’s … Read more The Nation on the YouTube/Google deal – leading edge of corporate takeover of the web
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which provides data on Federal “enforcement, staffing, and spending,” reported in March of this year that IRS data obtained through FOIA requests showed that … Read more The IRS keeping audit statistics secret; covering up higher audit rates of the poor than the rich
For academic librarians: We think that our undergrads go to Google because it’s easier to search than our databases, with their powerful syntaxes and fields, and we’re plowing ahead with … Read more The real reason students like Google better than our databases
A non-librarian friend recommended this story to me recently, and on reading it I felt surprised never to have seen it before. It’s an inspiring story about literacy and learning. … Read more The Ballad of Old Man Peters
The New York Review of Books discusses Google’s massive scanning project and general ascendency in a review essay that touches on five recent books…
This has been available online for a while, but I just recently found it: Language: A Key Mechanism of Control: Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo. In retrospect it is clear … Read more Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo
The new issue of Information for Social Change, issue 23, is now online. It is a bigger-than-usual issue with some provocative and interesting articles. Information for Social Change is a … Read more Information for Social Change #23
…Directing your attention to an article in yesterday’s Washington Post by Michael Grunwald: The Education Issue, which examines the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. Regarding the $1 … Read more No Child Left Behind: $55 Billion Boondoggle?
IFLA and SCECSAL Report to SRRT September 29, 2006 By Al Kagan Diverging from my usual report, this time I am reporting on two meetings held in the summer of … Read more Al Kagan’s IFLA report
In literature and film, we are drawn into a story and care about it because we believe, at some level, in the truth of the narrative. This requires what’s called … Read more Torture
There’s a brief article in Counterpunch about the National Book Festival, which features our very non-warlike First Lady. It is intended as a happier source of news than the complete … Read more Are you proud of our “National Book Festival?”
Today the Reuters news service is reporting on the message of Prince Karim Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of 15 million Shia Ismaili Muslims, delivered to a group of journalists … Read more Aga Khan: Not a clash of civilizations, but a conflict of ignorance…
Today is the International Day of Peace, as declared in United Nations General Assembly Resolution UN/A/RES/36/67 in 1981. It is meant to be a global day of ceasefire as well … Read more International Day of Peace
For years the IMLS has been offering grants for LIS research and the education of librarians not appreciably different the one announced today on the IMLS website, except that this … Read more Laura Bush appropriates title of IMLS grant for librarians
From the AP story: WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt … Read more FCC study on media ownership ordered destroyed
Really interesting reading about myspace at Valleywag: Myspace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition). This article points out a number of things about myspace that I wish I had … Read more Myspace: the business of Spam 2.0
I’ve replaced the simple one-page placeholder with a true website for Library Juice Press, LLC. Explore the site for an idea of what we’ll be publishing in the next few … Read more Library Juice Press website
In a way I think it is unfortunate that this story is about Cuba, because being about Cuba means that a lot of people just aren’t going to want to … Read more 10 Miami Herald journalists on US gov’t payroll
Fiction and Fact about the “Independent Librarians” of Cuba: ONCE AGAIN Prepared by Ann Sparanese, MLS ALA Councilor August 6, 2006 THE ISSUE: A version of this paper was prepared … Read more Fiction and Fact about the “Independent Librarians” of Cuba: ONCE AGAIN
Very impressive piece of work by Mother Jones Magazine – a continually growing database/timeline documenting the lies that led up to the current war in Iraq. The creators of this … Read more Lie by Lie – the Bush War Timeline