How many copies of the 9/11 Commission Report does your library have? Massachusetts Representative William Delahunt, hearing that his constituents were having trouble getting the book from their libraries bought copies for all 60 public libraries in his district. It was also heartening to hear that some libraries were showing their patrons how to access the content of the book on the internet as a backup. [thanks kate]
Author: jessamyn
who is keeping government accountable? librarians?
The Columbia Journalism Review has an article about the responsibility of journalists to demand accountability from their government. It includes a little blurb noting that librarians’ response to the USA PATRIOT Act is one of the things that keeps USAPA on people’s radar screens, and helps keep people aware of their rights — pre-USAPA and post-USAPA.
Librarians participated in rallies, challenging Attorney General John Ashcroft when his road show promoting the Patriot Act came to some towns in the summer of 2003. They expect to collect one million signatures by the end of September to support amending the act. This from librarians. Where are the journalists? A fundamental tenet of the American system is that a free flow of information is essential to democracy. That flow is being pinched like never before. Instead of passively standing by, journalism should be working against this dangerous trend. [thanks chris]
hi – 07sep
Hi. In the interests of screen real estate, I’ve made the archives for month and category into pulldown menus and removed the counts from the category lists. If this breaks on any of your browsers, please let me know. The actual archival pages will still have the old lengthy list format.
two good articles from Library Juice
Library Juice has two very good articles this issue, a short outline of the Radical Reference project from last week’s DNC and. Even better, he has written a longer piece about the “librarian image” told from the personal point of view of someone who hits many of the librareotype bullet points [as I do, as many of us do] and doesn’t think it’s all bad.
In a sense, I am saying that we should embrace our stereotype in order to emphasize its positive aspects (without allowing ourselves to be reduced to that stereotype, as that would rob us of our individuality and diversity). The stereotype fits only a few of us perfectly, but anger over not being represented fairly by it shouldn’t lead us to deny the ways in which we do fit the traditional understanding of what a librarian is like, because there is much that is true and positive in that idea. We should be proud of being librarians according to what the word “librarian” is commonly understood to mean, and should assert our value on that basis – not on the basis that the public has misconceptions about us….
hi – 06sep
Hi. I just got back from my trip and boy did I see some lovely libraries. The ones I went into included the Haskell Free Library in Derby Line [free WiFi, even when the library is closed] which had a wonderful librarian with one of those ALA buttons who gave us a free tour of the opera house as she went through to turn off the lights. Also saw the Alice Ward Library in Canaan which has unusual architecture and historical society exhibits upstairs. I have some pictures, they’ll be online sometime soon. In the meantime, check out this little birthday web page that my Mom made me about the Monhegan Library on Monhegan Library in Maine.