I also had a strong reaction to Rory’s recent post on “Deprofessionalization and the Library Blogosphere.” Others have made good points about his criticism of library blog-discourse, and I won’t … Read more Expertise and Psychology (And a Mention of the Blogosphere)
Something that never fails to charm me is discovering the ways that acquaintances use the library, especially when it comes up before they find out that I work there. That’s … Read more Philosophy and Democracy in the Public Library
The most recent Weekend Edition Saturday on NPR had a story about a different kind of archive: a vault containing seeds from the world’s grains, for preservation purposes. Central to … Read more A Different Kind of Archive: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
I want to provide a link to some admirable and important work being done by the Center for Media and Democracy: ALEC Exposed. (ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, … Read more ALEC Exposed, and some food for thought
Libraries and the Enlightenment Author: Wayne Bivens-Tatum Price: $25.00 Published: March 2012 ISBN: 978-1-936117-42-0 Contemporary American libraries are products of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment–the intellectual and political movement that emerged … Read more New Book: Libraries and the Enlightenment
A low-paid outsourced content screener in Morocco has apparently leaked the “Abuse Standards” guidelines that are in effect at Facebook. Gawker.com published the next update to those standards shortly after … Read more Facebook Abuse Standards Leaked
Excerpted from Barney Rosset’s obituary: By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times February 23, 2012 Barney Rosset, the renegade founder of Grove Press who fought groundbreaking legal battles against censorship and … Read more Obituary: Barney Rossett, groundbreaking publisher at Grove Press, lived to 89
We have posted Robert Jensen’s foreword to our recently published book, Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Press Critics of the Progressive Era, by Amy Reynolds and Gary Hicks. It’s a … Read more Robert Jensen’s foreword to Prophets of the Fourth Estate
An illuminating article in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week: “The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia,” by historian Timothy Messer-Kruse. It illustrates a problem with the protocol in … Read more On the “undue weight” rule in Wikipedia
The latest issue of InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies (Volume 8, Issue 1) is available at interactions.gseis.ucla.edu. Table of Contents: Articles Stop Speaking For Us: Women-of-Color Bloggers, … Read more New issue of InterActions
There is a new issue of Women in Libraries, formerly a print publication, is now online. It has items on the Occupy Wall Street Librarians on feminism, activism & librarianship; … Read more Women in Libraries – February 2012 issue
If you’re headed to the iSchool conference, something to read if you haven’t yet is a paper that was rejected for inclusion in the 2008 iSchool conference, by Jonathan Furner … Read more The Humanistic iSchool
As we’ve been reminded again recently, in case we somehow forgot, the “facts” of news reporting are not actually neutral. Just plain data is part of a political context, too. … Read more Who Does Your Data?
Library Juice blogger Alan Mattlage has posted a review of Prophets of the Fourth Estate: Broadsides by Press Critics of the Progressive Era, on his own blog. His review provides … Read more Alan Mattlage reviews Prophets of the Fourth Estate
Susan Cain offers a most welcome statement in yesterday’s New York Times: “The Rise of the New Groupthink.”
The CEO of an internet business in Kenya called Mocality has posted a report to his blog about what seem to be some unethical and probably illegal business practices by … Read more Evidence of Evil at Google, from a faraway land
Arthur Brisbane is New York Times Public Editor, a position outside the regular editorial team that is supposed to act as the reader’s representative. Followers of this blog have probably … Read more The New York Times, Compromise, and the Past
A site set up by tricky spammers, potentially useful in information literacy instruction: “CNBC” report on “income at home system.”
Litwin Books, LLC is starting a new imprint. Auslander & Fox will publish “books with originality, wit, and perspective,” for a general audience. Publications coming up include a children’s book … Read more Auslander & Fox
Robert Darnton, frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books on libraries and author of The Case for Books: Past, Present and Future, was interviewed prior to a talk … Read more Robert Darnton Interview at Cardiff University