CALL FOR PAPERS 2nd Milwaukee Conference on the Ethics of Information Organization June 15 – 16, 2012 Milwaukee, WI Information organization, like other major functions of the information professions, faces … Read more CFP – 2nd Milwaukee Conference on the Ethics of Information Organization
CFP: Queers Online: LGBT Digital Practices in Libraries, Archives, and Museums (An Edited Collection to be published as part of the Series on Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies) Litwin … Read more CFP: Queers Online: LGBT Digital Practices in Libraries, Archives, and Museums
Here is a guest post from Julie Teglovic, an MLIS student at the University of Denver, where students have been protesting a decision regarding the library… Library as Space: University … Read more Students at the University of Denver Want Books
I was just reading a bit of Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and came across a section that I think applies to the bibliometric obsessions with impact factors, h- and g-indexes, … Read more Kierkegaard on impact factors
Not exactly a library issue, but one which rests on the same ideals. It seems urgent to me that we legalize making video recordings of on-duty police officers. (Only illegal … Read more An Illinois Man Is Facing 75 Years In Jail For Filming Police (video)
Some of my colleagues in the Progressive Librarians Guild used to complain that Banned Books Week was an unfortunate distraction from the greater problem of a propagandistic media system. I … Read more My problem with Banned Books Week
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is coming to the defense of biologist Charles Monnett, who is being hounded by the Interior Department because of a 2006 publication that communicated alarming … Read more Suppression of science has continued, despite Obama’s Scientific Integrity Initiative
CFP: Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis (An Edited Collection) Editors: Shana Higgins and Lua Gregory are instruction and reference librarians at University of Redlands. They recently co-taught … Read more CFP: Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis (An Edited Collection)
As a friend pointed out to me that The Daily Show has noted, the debate about the debt ceiling is ongoing because of a bullshit problem. I realized this while … Read more The bullshit problem #debtceiling
Just sharing this link to a nice-sized collection of articles on media studies and media ecology, most with a Canadian-theory slant. These articles are not heavy reading, and provide a … Read more Articles on Canadian Media Studies
No comment on this other than to say that Koofers is incredibly slimy, and it rankles me that they seem to be getting some tacit support from legitimate institutions. Here … Read more Koofers – stealing students’ work to help other students cheat
Media in Transition 7 (MiT 7), a small conference at MIT, is starting Friday and running ’till Sunday. I will be there; if you will be there too please say … Read more MiT 7
Here is a scary if unsurprising bit of news: a report in PC world on a recent study by Christopher Soghoian: “US Police Increasingly Peeping at E-mail, Instant Messages.” Soghoian’s … Read more And our privacy quietly erodes as state power grows
Here is one of my favorite philosophers on one of my favorite problems: From Socrates to Expert Systems: The Limits and Dangers of Calculative Rationality (Hubert Dreyfus). This relates to … Read more Hubert Dreyfus on expert systems
The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies Author: Philippe Breton Translator: David Bade Price: $22.00 Published: March 2011 ISBN: 978-1-936117-41-3 Printed on … Read more New book: The Culture of the Internet and the Internet as Cult: Social Fears and Religious Fantasies
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, … Read more Some links for you…
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 … Read more A whole other basket of FOIA exceptions – statutes
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 … 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 … 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.