If you’re like me, you work in a library that is facing tough decisions (no irony intended by that cliché phrase) as a result of budget cuts during the economic … Read more The economic crisis and the preservation function of libraries
From the Izzy Award site: The first annual Izzy Award for “special achievement in independent media” was presented March 31, 2009, to blogger Glenn Greenwald and Democracy Now! host and … Read more Goodman & Greenwald win Izzy indy media award
Gathering at the Waters: Embracing Our Spirits, Telling Our Stories Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) October 11-15, 2006, Dallas, Texas Edited by Gladys … Read more JCLC Conference Proceedings
Since the second half of last year I’ve been reading a lot of financial news, where the major theme of the financial crisis is the “crisis of trust” – banks … Read more The Other Crisis of Trust (and a question about what it means for Info Lit)
The Fair Copyright Act is to fair copyright what the Patriot Act was to patriotism. It would repeal the OA policy at the NIH and prevent similar OA policies at … Read more The Conyers Bill is Back (copyright)
You may have seen this already, but I have to share it: Bound to the Word: Guardians of truth and knowledge, librarians must be thanked for their role as champions … Read more Barack Obama on libraries
New article by Lincoln Cushing: Privatizing the Commons: The Commodification of New Deal Public Art. Lincoln Cushing is an important person in the world of political graphic art, having put … Read more Privatizing the Commons: The Commodification of New Deal Public Art
President-elect Obama’s letter declaring intentions regarding the EPA, including EPA libraries: October 20, 2008 John Gage National President American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO 80 F Street, NW Washington, DC … Read more Obama’s letter on the EPA
I have not been following this, but apparently OCLC has issued proposed new policy guidelines that would allow it to claim ownership of its catalog records, with serious consequences for … Read more OCLC Powergrab?
From Lincoln Cushing to the PLG list: The “Archives of Dissent” panel held at U.C. Berkeley 9/18/2008 can now be seen on YouTube: It includes presentations by: • Julie Herrada, … Read more Archives of Dissent – video of conference
Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission International Conference April 24-26, 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology CALL FOR PAPERS (MIT site) In his seminal essay “The Bias … Read more Call for papers: Media in Transition 6: stone and papyrus, storage and transmission
Minerva Research Initiative: Searching for the Truth or Denying the Iraqis the Rights to Know the Truth? by Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library and Archives “What has prompted me to … Read more The Minerva Controversy (Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library)
Call for Papers Digital Labour: Workers, Authors, Citizens. A conference hosted by the Digital Labour Group (DLG), Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, October 16-18, 2009, … Read more Call for Papers: Digital Labour: Workers, Authors, Citizens
Kevin Arthur has posted a few paragraphs from recent article by Lewis Lapham on the education and intellectual life in the United States. Kevin picked out a few choice parts … Read more Lewis Lapham on education and intellectual life in the postmodern USA
Over time, Radical Reference moved from being simply an experimental virtual reference service for political radicals to being an activist organization sharing the same space as PLG and SRRT, but … Read more A question for Radical Reference
Nanette Perez of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom sent out a link to this AOL study on web users’ behavior and statements regarding data privacy. The study finds, unsurprisingly, that … Read more Privacy and markets
Public Knowledge, the DC public interest group, has a very informative discussion of ACTA – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. ACTA is an international trade agreement now being worked out behind … Read more ACTA – Policy laundering IP
Jon Wiener has an editorial in Friday’s Los Angeles Times: “Pillaging Iraqi history: Shortly after Baghdad fell in 2003, the Baath Party archives were shipped to the U.S. It’s time … Read more LA Times: “Pillaging Iraqi history”
A Marxist Analysis of the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (PDF) Policy Futures in Education Volume 4 Number 4, 2006 RUTH RIKOWSKI London South … Read more Ruth Rikowski on the WTO and intellectual property rights
ALA has an important policy, Policy 61, on library services to poor people. This policy was brought about in the mid-90s through the dedicated work of SRRT’s Homelessness, Hunger, and … Read more Survey report on library services to the poor