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
From Al Kagan: One of my colleagues here has encouraged me to distribute this letter more widely, so here it is. It appears in the latest issue of the IFLA … Read more Al Kagan, letter to IFLA Journal on Freedom of the Press, Social Responsibility and the Danish Cartoons
For several years I hosted Joel Kahn’s “Frankentoons,” a fun fair-use protest site, on Libr.org, and took it down due to a change in my hosting situation. I just received … Read more Frankentoons back online
Kathleen de la Peña McCook has just received the Florida Library Association Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is presented to a librarian whose distinguished record of professional achievements and accomplishments … Read more Kathleen de la Peña McCook wins Florida Library Association Lifetime Achievement Award
Anti-intellectualism must be at its peak. Nerdy glasses are in fashion; I hope they promise a recovery of intellectual values in the post-Bush years. Regarding the thinking of anti-intellectuals… They … Read more Brief observation about anti-intellectualism
I urge everybody to read Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s post on her main blog, Fighting the Bush Doctrine of Disinformation is a Librarian’s Mandate. She hits the nail on … Read more Fighting the Bush Doctrine of Disinformation is a Librarian’s Mandate
Text from the ALA campaign for this legislation: Next week, to celebrate National Library Week, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) plans to introduce the Librarian Act of 2007. The Librarian Act … Read more The Librarian Act of 2007
Kurt Vonnegut died last night, at the age of 84. At one point he wrote, “Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just … Read more Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007)
Forthcoming from Library Juice Press Information and liberation: Writings on the politics of information and librarianship By Shiraz Durrani Information and liberation is a retrospective collection of Shiraz Durrani’s articles … Read more Forthcoming from Library Juice Press: Shiraz Durrani
Erik Estep, SRRT Newsletter editor, has asked me to post this call for contributions…. Fellow SRRTers: I hope everyone is having a nice spring. The deadline for submissions for the … Read more SRRT Newsletter – call for contributions
Tom Englehardt (Tomdispatch.com) has posted an article by Chip Ward about the homeless problem and libraries. Chip Ward is the retired director of the Salt Lake City Public Library. (Is … Read more Chip Ward on homeless people and libraries
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
Regarding the Facebook group, No, I don’t look like a librarian!…. Yes, you do look like a librarian! I am not joining the group – because I think really I … Read more Yes, you do look like a librarian!
The Globe-Wernicke Vertical File
This is so f-ing typical of the Bush Administration… White House staffers are using private internet domains for much of their work by email in order to avoid the accountability … Read more White House using private email to avoid the accountability of a public paper trail
I think we will be hearing this idea increasingly over the coming years, that the library listserv should go, and we should switch to web-based forums with RSS-type updates instead. … Read more Voices calling for an end to the library listserv
Michael Dowling of the ALA Chapter Relations Office has forwarded to the IFLA list a link to an audio version of a PBS interview with Saad Eskander, the new head … Read more Saad Eskander
The justice department has been abusing a provision in the PATRIOT Act allowing them to issue “national security letters” to obtain information on citizens (140,000 so far) without a court … Read more 140,000 National Security Letters
I am going to take another stab at outlining my views on “library and non-library issues.” Last time I did it I was sloppy in the way that I stated … Read more Library and non-library issues