From ALA’s Don Wood: Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions (PDF) This guideline is designed to provide libraries, library consortia, and library networks with a centralized list of … Read more Media Diversity in Libraries
In mid-April I posted an item about the campaign to get Reed Elsevier out of the arms trade business, which had a link to a well-organized petition drive. I found … Read more Reed Elsevier to stop organizing arms fairs
There is unavoidably a moral dimension to business decisions. To make decisions that work from a practical standpoint we constantly make compromises with humanistic and environmental ideals. It is difficult … Read more Reed Elsevier and arms trade
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
Byron Anderson, compiler of Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, does an annual update to his “Bibliographic and Web Tools for Alternative Publications,” a helpful resource also published in … Read more Bibliographic tools for alternative publications
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
At the ALA Midwinter in Seattle, two SRRT task forces were combined into one. The Alternatives In Print Task Force was one of SRRT’s original task forces, and has consistently … Read more Alternative Media Task Force
Just briefly mentioning two important things that I have neglected to follow here. 1). The 9th Circuit Court’s rejection of Brewster Kahle’s constitutional challenge to copyright laws that prevent people … Read more 9th Circuit rejects Kahle vs. Gonzales, AAP PR
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
This post is a compilation of web resources having to do with alternative literature and libraries. It replaces an out-of-date page on my personal site. By “alternative literature” I mean … Read more Alternative Lit and Libraries
This is a cute visual argument for the value of printed books. A friend at work sent it to me….
Why do I care so much about France? I don’t know, maybe just because it’s the traditional first stop for a semi-cosmopolitan anglophone and I am less culturally far-reaching than … Read more Four top French book awards go to non-French authors
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
Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, 6th Edition, by Byron Anderson, is officially published, and available from Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Yankee Book Peddler, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. … Read more Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, 6th Edition
The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA), if passed, would mandate that research by Federal government agencies (publicly funded research) automatically go into publicly accessible open access repositories. … Read more American Anthropological Association opposition to Open Access: a letter from the AnthroSource Steering Committee on FRPAA
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
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
In a blog post on if:Book titled the myth of universal knowledge 2: hyper-nodes and one-way flows, Ben Vershbow reports on a set of interesting discussions about international information flows, … Read more if:Book on the “trade imbalance” in international information flows…
Students of media consolidation and market censorship are well aware of the importance of small, independent and alternative publishers in providing balanced viewpoints in libraries. In our practice as librarians … Read more Resources for the Alternative Press
The Wall Street Journal published an article on Monday claiming that science journals routinely manipulate impact factors by encouraging contributors to cite heavily prior articles from the same journals. (The … Read more WSJ claims STM journals rig impact factors