Here’s a riddle: What does the musical interval of a fifth have to do with discussions of multiple literacies, the millenials, and Marshall McLuhan’s predicted decline of print literacy and the corresponding rise of a more multi-sensory way of being, thinking, and judging? Answer: play the high note and followed by the low note of … Read more Print virtue and the ontology of the Bo-ring
“Critical thinkers can be parodied either as disgruntled and bitter subversives, or as elitist mockers of others’ well-meant efforts. The pejorative associations surrounding the word critical have meant that advocating critical thinking is a form of social and educational bad taste.” – STEPHEN D. BROOKFIELD; Developing Critical Thinkers, 1987. Quotation from International Education Quotations Encyclopaedia, … Read more CRITICAL THINKING
This open letter has been circulating elsewhere, but deserves the widest circulation possible, in my opinion…. “I’m sharing this open letter from Patricia Polacco because it raises chilling questions about intellectual freedom. Many of you heard Polocco speak at the ALSC preconference last year and will recall that she was very critical of NCLB.” Kathleen … Read more Open letter from Patricia Polacco RE: International Reading Association Conference
Free Exchange on Campus, a coalition of academic and public interest groups formed in response to David Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights” initiative campaign, has just released a major report refuting Horowitz’s book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. The coalition’s researchers introduce the report… After conducting interviews with the professors in … Read more “Facts Count”: Examination of David Horowitz’s Dangerous Academics book
Christopher Phelps, a history professor at Ohio State University, Mansfield, asked me to post his letter to the Dispatch in response to their coverage of the situation involving the anti-gay book selection for the freshman “unifying reading experience” and the subsequent harrassment charge. Here it is: THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH “Newspaper off base in criticism of … Read more More on the Mansfield situation, from a Mansfield professor
I decided to do something a little different with the blog. Let me know if you have seen this elsewhere. In my right-hand sidebar I’ve added a section of book authors, which links to searches for their books on Red Light Green. I read books, so why should I link only to blogs and online … Read more Book Authors in the Sidebar
Here’s an article in Wired Magazine about RFID hacking, which means using your own equipment in place of the official equipment to send and receive data connected with RFID tags. Hackers can do things like steal the code off a key card in someone’s pocket and then use it to get through a door, or … Read more RFID Hacking
Interesting story behind Harvard student-author Kaavya Viswanathan, the one whose hit novel turned out to be somewhat plagiarized… She was working for (or with?) a company called Alloy Entertainment, which does “book packaging” for the YA book world, handling authors and book concepts and working with publishing companies. It seems that Alloy’s postmodern-capitalist way of … Read more The Death of the Author, as a Business Model
I would like to turn your attention to a thoughtful post by Argentinian librarian Edgardo Civallero on Cuba and the debate surrounding the “independent library movement.” Edgardo blogs mostly in Spanish, but also in English, for our benefit. Though he is a self-identified anarchist and anti-authoritarian he’s sympathetic toward Cuba and sees that society from … Read more Argentinian library blogger on Cuba
“Why Kent State is important today,” an editorial by journalism student Michael Corcoran in today’s Boston Globe.
A preprint of a paper by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., to be published in Information Technology and Libraries 25, no. 3 (2006): “Strong Copyright + DRM + Weak Net Neutrality = Digital Dystopia?” (pdf) The title kind of says it.
Check out this informative, link-laded post on NARA’s reclassification of documents and a recent audit relating to it, over at LawLibrary Blog. We knew that the present administration was crazy for secrecy, and that U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein was a controversial choice because of signs of his willingness to fulfill the gov’t’s interest in greater … Read more Audit of NARA reclassification of documents
CALL FOR PAPERS You are invited to submit proposals and manuscripts for a special issue of Library Philosophy and Practice entitled: “Shape Shifters: Librarians Evolve Yet Again in the Age of Google.” The issue, which will appear in Winter 2007, will be guest edited by Jill Cirasella and Mariana Regalado of Brooklyn College, City University … Read more Call for Papers
The results of the 2006 ALA Election are in. Congratulations to Loriene Roy, who was elected ALA President by a landslide, and to Councilors Mark Rosenzweig, Ginny Moore, and David Easterbrook. Here are the results. I find it worth noting that conservative blogger Greg McClay, who campaigned hard to be the sole voice of the … Read more ALA Election Results
Media Release Contact: Dr. Alison M. Lewis Chair, Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Committee Progressive Librarians Guild Phone: 215/895-2765 FAX: 215/895-2070 E-Mail: alewis@drexel.edu May 1, 2006 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize Winner Announced (Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA) – The Progressive Librarians Guild is pleased to announce the winner of the 2006 Miriam Braverman Memorial … Read more Braverman Prize Winner Announced
Here’s a good article about the Bush administration’s habit of picking and choosing what science by gov’t agencies gets published and what doesn’t, according to its political litmus test. The Bush administration and its supporters are the biggest users of the word FREEDOM, pounding fists on tables when they say it and saying it loud, … Read more Bush & Co. Censorship of Science It Doesn’t Like
I always loved doing that “quote for the week” and I miss it. Here’s a link to a nice collection of politically-related quotations. A lot of them relate to media and culture, but aside from that they’re rather far-afield. I am hereby giving myself, and by extension, you, my readers, permission to indulge in non-library … Read more Non-library quotations
The Bush administration is preparing to introduce sweeping new intellectual property legislation, called the The Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006. Among other things, this bill would create a new Federal crime, punishable by ten years in prison, for attempting to commit copyright violation; it would give the Justice Department new powers to prosecute “IP … Read more Scary New Intellectual Property Bill
Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression, edited by Robert Atkins and Svetlana Mintcheva and just coming out from The New Press, is about a range of new and subtle forms of censorship of artistic expression. I’m excited about this book and expect to be of special interest to librarians.
In some back-and-forth with Rick Anderson in the comments on my posting about him from March 14th, I recommended three articles from Progressive Librarian that I think illustrate how the Progressive Librarians Guild represents a counter-trend in opposition to what he has been up to. It occurs to me that those three articles also relate … Read more Three articles for thinking about tech