jessamyn – Page 589 – librarian.net

past entry 20sep

Oh, hey, it’s banned books week. And again people debate the relevance of the name. Russ Kick who manages the very useful site The Memory Hole has written one of my favorite essays about BBW.

The majority of books on the Banned Books Week list haven’t been banned, but rather have been challenged. They are shelved in libraries and bookstores and included in school curricula across the nation. Virtually every book that is published can be purchased or checked out in the United States.

Or, as I like to call it Brand Books Week. Celebrate your freedom the American way, by shopping!

Lis has really pulled out the salient parts of this whole Ashcroft mess of late.

How to get Movable Type to do faceted classification.

Just Give it to Me Straight; A Case Against Filtering the Internet. [ thanks sethf ]

A real dilemma: being a library manager when only some of your employees are on strike…

What does it mean to be “too sexy” for an Ivy league library? Well, a lawsuit, for one. [ thanks jim ]

Hi. I am starting to make San Diego plans. I will be in San Diego for ALA from roughly the 9th through the 14th of January. I would like a free or possibly cheap place to stay. Couches are fine. Let me know if you have some leads.

Special issue of the Juice out this week. In Rory’s words “Special issue on the RIAA’s lawsuit against a child for file sharing and ALA’s legal counsel, the law firm Jenner & Block.”

PATRIOT Watch: I am sorry, I do love this country but I don’t believe my government. Their memos claim no feds snooping in libraries using the broad power of the USA PATRIOT Act. But what about this survey? Are all those librarians just wrong? We know we can be a little — what was it Mr Ashcroft? — hysterical sometimes, but still, that’s a big margin for error, don’t you think? [ thanks all ]

Or, as the DNC puts it: Librarians: 1, Ashcroft: 0 [ thanks greg ]

PATRIOT Watch: Humor. Would be more funny if it didn’t seem so close to true.

Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act
WASHINGTON, DC — President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. “Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public’s access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism,” Bush said at a press conference Monday. “For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself.” [ thanks kevin ]

past entry 17sep

Posted on 17Sep03 by jessamyn

Good thing there’s a new NYT login because you’ll need it to read about uber-paranoiac John Ashcroft ragging on librarians. How dare he? I think what ALA says is right on. [ NYT ]

“If he’s coming after us so specifically, we must be having an impact,” said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of [ALA’s] Washington office.

Some responses to the batty Mr. Ashcroft. ALA, Wisconsin, Ohio, Bernie Sanders, Virginia & California, so far.

The travels and travails of one of the world’s smallest dictionaries. [ thanks dsdlc ]

past entry 16sep

Posted on 16Sep03 by jessamyn

Hi. I changed the NYTimes login because, well, the old one stopped working. Sorry about lack of topicality lately, I’m experiencing a renaissance of love for classification schemes since I now work in a library and don’t know DDC.

Please note that just because whitehouse.org is not representing an official branch of the government, they are still pretty damned funny. Please see: Terrorist Reading Lists. [ thanks erica ]

But what if I wrote a book on quiddich… what’s that DDC?
Let’s not forget that old favorite, faceted classification. They use it on the web, you know.

Then there’s the Weine System, an adaptation of the DDC for Judaica. See also David Elazar’s Classification for Libraries of Judaica. Dewey, sometimes accused of anti-semitism, files all Jewish books under 296.