Hi. I’m off to Boston for five days today. Updates here will be sparse after today. Updates on the DNC blog should be much more frequent.
some forms of library dust hazardous to health
While I was looking for Michael McGrorty’s page to link to another wonderful essay of his, I found this interesting page about library dust.
why review books?
This is the entry I was trying to link to: On Reviewing Books by Michael McGrorty. I heartily concur. My book reviews are online here.
A librarian should review books because the product of that effort is a useful tool; because the exercise is an expression of the special relationship between the librarian and the book, and because the practice provides proof, practice and reinforcement of the librarian’s essential role.
govdocs libraries via P2P
Meanwhile, while the DoJ’s memo trying to get depository documents destroyed has made the big time, OutragedModerates.org is offering goverment documents via P2P networks, including a draft of PATRIOT II, a DoJ report on USA PATRIOT Act violations and the 9/11 Commission’s report. Please check out Download for Democracy. Remember: “the net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it”
libraries accentuating the digital divide?
[D]ue to recent legislation and court decisions, libraries have been forced to take steps which restrict, and sometimes monitor, the information available to library patrons via the Internet. As a result, fewer and fewer public libraries in the United States are allowed to offer free and equal access to information to their patrons. State and federal legislation as well as bureaucratic procedural decisions have firmly entrenched the perpetuation of the Digital Divide as the great un-sung reality of public library services in the United States today. Instead of hanging their heads in shame at these developments in librarianship, some librarians continue to deceive their patrons and to applaud these reprehensible decisions. The purpose of this web site is to provide everyone interested in these developments with information about such things as the Patriot Act and CIPA and the implications they have for services to library patrons.