The Kule Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) and the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta are helping bring together a conversation on Libraries, Archives, … Read more Around the World: Libraries, Archives and Public Life
Ramsey Kanaan of AK Press and PM Press talked to Derrick Jensen on Resistance Radio again. (You can listen to a previous interview from August 16, 2015.) Resistance Radio introduces … Read more Ramsey Kanaan on Resistance Radio
Just a brief note about the thing that stuck in my mind the most from ALA Midwinter. It is called MUSICat (i.e. “Music @” as well as Music Catalog, a … Read more MUSICat
Nicolas Beudon reports that last night there were cyberattacks against numerous French library websites, evidently by Islamist groups. They hacked into these sites using vulnerabilities in Drupal, WordPress, and ISS, … Read more Cyberattacks against numerous French library websites
As former editors and writers for The New Republic, we write to express our dismay and sorrow at its destruction in all but name. From its founding in 1914, The … Read more Statement by Former New Republic Editors and Writers
IFLA approved its first Internet Manifesto in 2002. This provided an early recognition of the vital role that the Internet plays in the work of library and information services, and … Read more IFLA Internet Manifesto 2014
“To the givers of this beautiful reward, my thanks, from the heart. My family, my agents, my editors, know that my being here is their doing as well as my … Read more Ursula K Le Guin’s speech at National Book Awards: ‘Books aren’t just commodities’
The French Government has declared books an “essential good.” Daniel Mendelsohn and Mohsin Hamid in the NYT yesterday explore the idea of doing the same thing in the U.S. Here … Read more Should the United States Follow France and Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
In light of the 2014 midterm elections, I am sharing a passage from Morris Berman’s book from a few years ago, The Twilight of American Culture. Berman has generously agreed … Read more Morris Berman on a dumbed-down America
In her January piece on net neutrality in Wired Magazine that I have just now seen, former ALA President Barbara Stripling says, “…[W]ithout net neutrality, we are in danger of … Read more An ironic concern over net neutrality
In the first years of my career as a librarian, I was working on the Reference Desk when an undergraduate student asked for help finding articles on a rather general … Read more Teaching Sophistry
QUIET, PLEASE from Quincy J. Walters on Vimeo. About homeless people who use the library….
There’s a passage from the first part of Jean Baudrillard’s In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities that always resonated with my more pessimistic moments of doing library instruction. There … Read more Baudrillard on the futility of information
Vincent Mosco is Professor Emeritus, Queen’s University, Canada. In his career he has focused on the political economy of information, communication, and the media. Back in the 80s he co-edited … Read more Interview with Vincent Mosco about his new book
An interesting, overlapping discussion about the recent Google Books copyright decision took place on the Progressive Librarians Guild email discussion list and the Social Responsibilities Round Table discussion list over … Read more Email discussion on the recent Google Books copyright decision
A few weeks ago, I attended the opening dedication of the Jean Rice Homeless Liberation Reference Library in the Fordham area of the Bronx. (I’ve written before about Picture the … Read more New NYC Library Curated by and for the Homeless
Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis Editors: Shana Higgins and Lua Gregory Price: $32.00 Published: September 2013 ISBN: 978-1-936117-56-7 Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis extends … Read more New Title: Information Literacy and Social Justice: Radical Professional Praxis
What would have happened, do you suppose, if Malcolm Little, instead of serving six years for petty crimes, had been imprisoned for a much longer time, locked in the conditions … Read more Prison Literature
This great response to an illegitimate takedown notice is going around on Facebook. It’s funny because of how it shows just how unjust these robo-generated takedown notices can be, but … Read more Great Response to an Illegitimate Takedown Notice
I am going to link to an editorial that is not like what we normally link to here, but it is on a favorite topic of mine, one that I … Read more Elitism