Let’s start from the common premise that an important part of being a librarian in this time of rapid change is to keep a close eye on trends. How are … Read more Library trendspotting if you happen to like Susan Jacoby
Slate Magazine has an interesting photographic item featuring eight pictures of library buildings, with a bit of thoughtful discussion about the architecture of library buildings in the digital age. I … Read more Library architecture in Slate Magazine
We’re presently awash in talk about a great paradigm shift that puts the user at the center of our planning for services. This is sometimes referred to simply as user-centered … Read more Dueling Paradigm Shifts
I have not seen this and make no endorsement: Arthur and Esther, A Dark Comedy about Libraries, Lakes, and Lost Love…
Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems Author: David Bade Price: $22.00 ISBN: 978-0-9778617-6-7 Printed on acid-free paper The three papers in this volume were written in the wake of … Read more David Bade’s Responsible Librarianship
Report on ALA Council to SRRT, Midwinter 2008, Philadelphia Although we did not get everything we advocated, SRRT‚Äôs initiatives and interventions in the work of ALA Council went quite well … Read more Al Kagan’s Council Report
Toni Samek and other library educators concerned with the declining place of information ethics, intellectual freedom, and matters having to do with the unique ethos of librarianship formed a Special … Read more ALISE Information Ethics Statement
I’ve been brainstorming about some essential facets of librarianship – skills, roles, services, problems – that while they have not lost any relevance have lately been ignored, passed over, forgotten, … Read more Annotated list of things not to forget (in the 2.0 craze)…
“You must be willing to Embrace Change.” We hear this with such frequency now, and always coming from certain speakers in certain contexts, that it is probably few of us … Read more Embracing Change – an analogy
The new issue of the SRRT Newsletter is out, issue 160/161. It is available online in PDF, and being mailed to members in hardcopy. This issue is full of reports, … Read more SRRT Newsletter 160/161
CUPE 391, the union representing Vancouver, BC’s striking library workers, has posted a video of former ALA President Mitch Freedman’s supportive speech before them on October 24th. Mitch took a … Read more Mitch Freedman – video of speech before striking Vancouver librarians
There’s a good little article in the new issue of In These Times on privatization of core library services and functions: “Public Libraries for Profit,” by Akito Yoshikane. Though it’s … Read more In These Times on library privatization
Notwithstanding today’s earlier post and many other posts here about what is wrong in the world of information, I’d like to observe American Thanksgiving by noting that we have much … Read more Thanksgiving
Kathleen de la Pe?±a McCook recommends some books on libraries and the public sphere. This list is a good prescription for getting reinspired as an ethically and politically grounded professional.
Don’t let the everyday name fool you, Edgardo Civallero and Sara Plaza’s blog, The Log of a Librarian, an English translation of their Spanish language blog from Argentina, is full … Read more Civallero and Plaza
After offering reference help to a student the other day and having it refused, I had what I can only call an evil thought. I’d like to share this evil … Read more Are we the friendly produce consultants of the information age?
Information, Society and Justice an inter-disciplinary electronic journal (website under construction) Information, Society and Justice is a peer-review, open-access electronic journal based in the Department of Applied Social Sciences (DASS) … Read more New journal: Information, Society and Justice
The Progressive Librarians Guild had representatives at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta in March, in partnership with representatives from Radical Reference. Elaine Harger and Kathleen de la Peña McCook … Read more PLG Report from the U.S. Social Forum
First, two new ethnographic studies of undergraduate research habits, each offering a corrective to assumptions at the foundation of Library 2.0 thinking: Anthropologist Nancy Foster led a study at the … Read more Two minor correctives and one broadside on Library 2.0 madness
Here’s some great library PR from regular San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius. It’s an example of the kind of newspaper coverage that I think we mostly want.