We get our sense of where the country is at largely from the media. When elections and opinion polls tell a different story, we have to ask questions about the … Read more Who is out of step with the country, really?
Thoughtul article in the new Marginal Librarian, McGill’s library school student e-zine: Public libraries: who or what is “public”? This article has to do with Montréal’s new anti-homeless policies (that’s … Read more Circumscribing the “public” in public libraries
Bank of America execs exchange their souls for money in front of a camera. Not specifically library related except inasmuch as it paints a good picture of what we’re up … Read more One Love, One Bank
INFORMATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (ISC) ISSN 1364-694X CALL FOR PAPERS The summer 2007 issue of the online journal Information for Social Change (ISC) will focus on the urgent theme of … Read more Information for Social Change – Call for Papers
According to the Brussells Tribunal, an international group of artists, intellectuals and activists opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the intellectual and academic community of Iraq is being destroyed: … Read more Liquidation of Iraqi academics
Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, 6th Edition, by Byron Anderson, is officially published, and available from Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Yankee Book Peddler, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. … Read more Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, 6th Edition
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh District Services has sent an email to branch heads offering to distribute to interested branches 50 copies of the 2006 Voter Guide from the Pennsylvania … Read more Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh distributing right wing voter guides
The Progressive Librarians Guild approved endorsement of the following Amnesty International statement last night… AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA PRESS RELEASE Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Amnesty International Vows to Push for Clarification … Read more The Progressive Librarian’s Guild stands with Amnesty International
Are other people getting the same result when they add these things up? Pentagon monitoring peace activists’ email to “combat terrorism”…. suspending habeas corpus to prevent the fate of (pre-judged) … Read more Doing the math
AFSCME has a new page about their representation of library workers. AFSCME represents more library workers than any other union. The page is nice, and so is the logo:
“The real culture of America is not corporate monoculture and television. It’s the writers, teachers, universities, libraries and librarians. That’s the mainstream culture of America.” – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, announcing the … Read more Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s memorable comment
NYU historian Tony Judt is a strong critic of Israel and a proponent, along with Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said, of a secular, binational state as the solution … Read more Historian Tony Judt’s talks in NYC cancelled due to ADL pressure
The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA), if passed, would mandate that research by Federal government agencies (publicly funded research) automatically go into publicly accessible open access repositories. … Read more American Anthropological Association opposition to Open Access: a letter from the AnthroSource Steering Committee on FRPAA
Trenchant and insightful article in The Nation by Jeffrey Chester: The Google YouTube Tango. This article focuses on how corporate claims-staking such as Google’s buyout of YouTube and Rupert Murdoch’s … Read more The Nation on the YouTube/Google deal – leading edge of corporate takeover of the web
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which provides data on Federal “enforcement, staffing, and spending,” reported in March of this year that IRS data obtained through FOIA requests showed that … Read more The IRS keeping audit statistics secret; covering up higher audit rates of the poor than the rich
For academic librarians: We think that our undergrads go to Google because it’s easier to search than our databases, with their powerful syntaxes and fields, and we’re plowing ahead with … Read more The real reason students like Google better than our databases
A non-librarian friend recommended this story to me recently, and on reading it I felt surprised never to have seen it before. It’s an inspiring story about literacy and learning. … Read more The Ballad of Old Man Peters
The New York Review of Books discusses Google’s massive scanning project and general ascendency in a review essay that touches on five recent books…
This has been available online for a while, but I just recently found it: Language: A Key Mechanism of Control: Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo. In retrospect it is clear … Read more Newt Gingrich’s 1996 GOPAC memo
The new issue of Information for Social Change, issue 23, is now online. It is a bigger-than-usual issue with some provocative and interesting articles. Information for Social Change is a … Read more Information for Social Change #23