The current issue of LRC: Literary Review of Canada has a light essay by an acquaintance of Marshall McLuhan, discussing what the man was like and assessing his influence: In … Read more Bob Rodgers remembers Marshall McLuhan
Okay, though it tends to bring in the trolls, here is another post about something that’s hotly discussed on general political blogs… I’ve been reading Al Gore’s new book, The … Read more Pardon me for not realizing before now that Al Gore is really smart
This was just covered in the Chronicle of Higher Education daily email, with a link to a post in Ars Technica, a blog about technology. Doris Lessing delivered her Nobel … Read more Doris Lessing critical of the influences of technology, in her Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Remember the National Endowment for the Arts study on reading in 2004, the one that noted a sharp decline in literary reading? One of the implicit causes was that computer … Read more NEA study: all types of reading in decline
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 … Read more A couple of interesting links
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 … Read more Socialism and print culture
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 … Read more Only Pinter remains
Media critic and theorist Robert McChesney is spearheading the campaign against the postal rate hike, which has Time Warner and other major magazine publishers’ money behind it. This is from … Read more Postal Rate Hike would hurt independent publishers
March 2007 is Small Press Month. Especially note the ten things to do for Small Press Month for bookstores and libraries. The effort is cosponsored by a range of organizations … Read more March is Small Press Month
Library Juice Concentrate Edited by Rory Litwin Preface by Kathleen de la Peña McCook Price: $25.00 ISBN-10: 0-9778617-3-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-9778617-3-6 6″ by 9″ Published: December 2006 Library Juice Concentrate is … Read more New from LJP: Library Juice Concentrate
Library Daylight: Tracings of Modern Librarianship, 1874 to 1922 Edited by Rory Litwin Introduction by Suzanne Stauffer, Ph.D. Price: $25.00 ISBN-10: 0-9778617-4-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-9778617-4-3 6″ by 9″ Published: December 2006 … Read more New from LJP: Library Daylight
This is a cute visual argument for the value of printed books. A friend at work sent it to me….
I think I neglected to emphasize this… Nancy Kranich’s preface to the 6th edition of Alternative Publishers of Books in North America is online. It’s good reading about the importance … Read more On the importance of alternative literature in libraries
“The real culture of America is not corporate monoculture and television. It’s the writers, teachers, universities, libraries and librarians. That’s the mainstream culture of America.” – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, announcing the … Read more Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s memorable comment
Ben Vershobow in if:book just now posted a brief discussion of the University of California’s just-released contract with Google to digitize its library holdings. The contract reveals that Google has … Read more Showtiming our libraries (if:book)
Kim Leeder at Envirolibrarian has a brief review of the 1997 book by David Shenk, Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut, which says that the amount of information easily available … Read more Data Smog
The International Committee of the Blue Shield has released a statement on threatened cultural property in the Middle East conflict. The statement simply states the group’s concern about the conflict … Read more International Committee of the Blue Shield statement on threatened cultural property in the Middle East conflict
Check out Barbara Fister’s thoughts on Library 2.0 and the culture of reading in her posting on the ACRL blog. She refers and links to a discussion in the mainstream … Read more Barbara Fister on Library 2.0 and the culture of reading
Here’s a riddle: What does the musical interval of a fifth have to do with discussions of multiple literacies, the millenials, and Marshall McLuhan’s predicted decline of print literacy and … Read more Print virtue and the ontology of the Bo-ring
Perhaps the most pressing issue facing librarianship is one that is unlikely to receive serious scholarly attention. It is, to put it simply, a battle presently being fought between two … Read more Geeks and Nerds Battle for the Soul of Librarianship