It has been a while since I checked in on the Bellydancing Librarian. Now there is a whole gallery of other bellydancing librarians too!
in which gay librarian goes to Nashville
The Anti-Adventures of a Gay Male Librarian, where else but at Gaylibrarian.net
an old chestnut from Bruce Sterling
Speaking of free-as-knowledge [nod to Melvil Dewey], here is an old speech by Bruce Sterling about the intersection of money and the public good, and the benefits of Deep Archiving, when he spoke to LITA in 1992.
People talk a lot about the power and glory of specialized knowledge and technical expertise. Knowledge is power — but if so, why aren’t knowledgeable people in power? And it’s true there’s a Library of Congress. But how many librarians are there in Congress?
comments on the article from yesterday
Fred over at commons-blog has some good critique of Jason Griffey’s article from yesterday.
reading assignment for today
Isn’t it great that as librarians we have such good stuff to read online? For today’s assignment, please read “Lawfully Surfing the Net: Disabling Public Library Internet Filters to Avoid More Lawsuits in the United States” Even though I date a law student, I’m all in favor of fewer lawsuits.
If you’ve never heard a librarian sputter, just get one talking about CIPA and staff computers. Many librarians correctly determine that, since all staff are adults (with the exception of any under 17 who should be treated differently), they have the right to disable the filters….Why install them in the first place, many argue, causing untold hassles in maintenance and sometimes significantly increased fees? This is a reasonable position. Yet the text of the law says “any of its computers with Internet access” [thanks raizel]