Dueling Paradigm Shifts
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
Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience
Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience is an important new book by James B. Rule, who also wrote an influential … Read more Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience
Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
The New York Times Book Review published a review last week of Lee Siegel’s Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. The reviewer, John Lanchester, … Read more Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
Rainbow Project – GLBTQ book list for youth
RAINBOW PROJECT ANNOUNCES FIRST ANNUAL GLBTQ BOOK LIST FOR YOUTH Philadelphia, PA, January 2008 Co-sponsored by the American Library Association‚Äôs Social Responsibility Round Table and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and … Read more Rainbow Project – GLBTQ book list for youth
2008 Amelia Bloomer List
In its seventh year now, the Amelia Bloomer List is a recommended reading list of feminist books for girls, that is, books for girls (ranging from beginning readers to teens) … Read more 2008 Amelia Bloomer List
Arthur and Esther
I have not seen this and make no endorsement: Arthur and Esther, A Dark Comedy about Libraries, Lakes, and Lost Love…
ALA Council Actions at Midwinter
Diedre Conkling has created a wiki page for keeping a record of ALA Council actions. It presently has the actions taken at Midwinter, as well as the full text of … Read more ALA Council Actions at Midwinter
Habermas on Web 2.0
The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralised access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to … Read more Habermas on Web 2.0
David Bade’s Responsible Librarianship
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
Kenya
ALA Council passed a resolution on the crisis in Kenya, focusing on the issue of press freedoms. The resolution is below. One thing that helped sway Council to pass the … Read more Kenya
Celeste West passes on
Celeste West was a pioneering radical librarian whose works still inspire alternative minded librarians, especially anarchist librarians, today. She was one of the founders of the Bay Area Reference Center, … Read more Celeste West passes on
Hoover Institution to Accession Looted Documents
This is rather unbelievable. Two shipping containers of records from the Baath Party of Iraq – about seven million pages – are being transferred to the Hoover Institution at Stanford … Read more Hoover Institution to Accession Looted Documents
Al Kagan’s Council Report
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
ALISE Information Ethics Statement
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
Call for Papers – Information for Social Change – Science and Technology for Utopias
INFORMATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (ISC) ISSN 1364-694X CALL FOR PAPERS (please feel free to forward to other lists) — The Summer 2009 issue of the online journal Information for Social … Read more Call for Papers – Information for Social Change – Science and Technology for Utopias
Not In Worldcat (really entertaining blog)
Just a plug for a really fun blog: Not In Worldcat. The tagline is “rare, interesting, unusual books and book-like things.” Pictures of covers of said things, with descriptions, and … Read more Not In Worldcat (really entertaining blog)
More on the decline in reading
Jerome Weeks comments on two new articles on the decline in reading: one by Caleb Crain in the New Yorker arguing that we are losing not only the habit of … Read more More on the decline in reading
Annotated list of things not to forget (in the 2.0 craze)…
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)…
New version of Bibliographic and Web Tools for the Alternative Press
Byron Anderson of the SRRT Alternative Media Task Force (AMTF) and compiler of Alternative Publishers of Books in North America has finished a new version of his helpful bibliography, Bibliographic … Read more New version of Bibliographic and Web Tools for the Alternative Press
Walter Lippman’s Liberty and the News (1920)
The Nation has an interesting review of the new edition of Walter Lippman’s 1920 book, Liberty and the News. This book is about the relation between journalism and democracy, and … Read more Walter Lippman’s Liberty and the News (1920)