Jo Ann Pinder, a completely mainstream librarian and longtime head of the Gwinnett County, Georgia, library system, was recently fired from her job by the library board, with no explanation given, after a local conservative organization set up a website that aimed to “harmonize [their] library system with the conservative values of Gwinnett County families.” … Read more Conservative campaign forces Georgia librarian from post
Here is a bit of depressing but not surprising news. Kathleen de la Peña McCook was thrown off of the Higher Education Service Learning discussion list for addressing a bit of Bush administration disinformation. Dr. McCook is not some unhinged anarchist who goes around trying to stir up trouble on discussion lists. She is a … Read more Kathleen McCook thrown off HE-SL discussion list for addressing disinformation
This open letter has been circulating elsewhere, but deserves the widest circulation possible, in my opinion…. “I’m sharing this open letter from Patricia Polacco because it raises chilling questions about intellectual freedom. Many of you heard Polocco speak at the ALSC preconference last year and will recall that she was very critical of NCLB.” Kathleen … Read more Open letter from Patricia Polacco RE: International Reading Association Conference
In some back-and-forth with Rick Anderson in the comments on my posting about him from March 14th, I recommended three articles from Progressive Librarian that I think illustrate how the Progressive Librarians Guild represents a counter-trend in opposition to what he has been up to. It occurs to me that those three articles also relate … Read more Three articles for thinking about tech
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 camps of librarians. Some may cite generational conflict as the primary conflict in librarianship today; baby-boomers representing traditional knowledge of librarianship as well as bibliographic … Read more Geeks and Nerds Battle for the Soul of Librarianship
By John Buschman, Library Philosophy and Practice Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 2006) The American Library Association (ALA) Committee on Professional Ethics is undertaking a several-year review of the Code of Ethics, nominally for reasons stated in various Annual Conference announcements: “Relevant or relic? Does [it] live up to the challenges of the new millennium?” … Read more On Not Revising the ALA Code of Ethics: an Alternate Proposal
Today is National Library Workers Day, which is shaping up to be a sort of a Secretary’s Day for library workers, judging from these celebration ideas offered by the sponsoring ALA/APA Allied Professional Association. Some hoped that this would be more of a day centered around worker organizing and union activity, but that doesn’t seem … Read more “Create humorous awards for the staff”
Now that I’ve officially had my blog for almost month, I can reflect a little bit. Things might still change, but I have to confess that at the moment I feel somewhat outside the mainstream of library blogging culture. My blog entries aren’t getting a lot of links to them and I don’t feel much … Read more Questioning the Techie Mission
Ten years ago, in the Spring of 1996, I was learning of my acceptance to library school and introducing myself to the world-expanding wonders of the internet. (I intend that sentence to be read without irony, as I can recall clearly what a revelation it was when I first browsed the web, sent and read … Read more Information Literacy versus “The Librarian’s Stamp of Approval”
I said earlier that I would comment further on Rick Anderson’s provocative recommendation that we not “teach a man to fish” at the reference desk. What he was saying was that it is a waste of patrons’ and students’ time to teach them how to use our abstruse database interfaces when their time would be … Read more Not teaching a man to fish
We generally have a pretty good idea of the type of person who becomes a librarian and the values that we share. I am wondering, just wondering, what kind of person enters the leadership circle of the world of information destruction. What values and traits lead a person into that particular profession? I’m not going … Read more The Information Destruction Leadership Circle
Another person in focus, this time because I’m trying to get his telegenic mug out of my brain. An hour or so ago I walked out of a TV presentation from the College of DuPage (in their “Soaring to Excellence” series) that our head of reference asked us to watch on the idea that it … Read more Rick Anderson