librarian.net

prison library confidentiality

I read this short essay in the NYTimes magazine section. A little slice of life of a prison librarian, soon to be part of an upcoming book called “Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian” Enjoyed the anecdote and yet, oddly, felt weird about seeing the titles of the books listed. Old habits die hard.

Libraries are full of hints to lifeâ€™s great puzzles. For the mystery of which recently released, 5-foot-10 or so Latino man still owed two books, the prison library offered a name, and the two books he owed: â€œIntroduction to Astrologyâ€ and â€œThe Astrology of Human Relationships.â€ But regarding the mystery of what he discovered in his study of the cosmos, the prison library was completely silent.

Thomas Mann interviewed by Joshua Kitlas

Posted on 06Oct10 by jessamyn

Library student Joshua Kitlas interviewed LoC reference librarian Thomas Mann for one of his classes at Syracuse. I am a Mann Fan, so it was fun to get to read this.

“The profession is radically getting dumbed down. There is so much more to search than Google or OCLC. You need to see relationships between subjects and their headings. Tags by users are simply no substitute. Theyâ€™re okay as supplements to controlled vocabularies–but not substitutes. Thereâ€™s a need to go beyond the internet and look at the systems librarians and publishers have developed that are not accessible by Google or the other engines.”

librarians’ search for neutrality a precursor to debate over Google rankings

Posted on 05Oct10 by jessamyn

“The idea that search engines can, or should, be neutral can be traced back to a movement of leftist librarians in the 1970s. Led by Sanford Berman, one of the first to bring social rebellion into the library, radical librarians argued that the system used to organize books was inherently biased and racist because it reflected a Western perspective.”

did you follow a library on Friday?

Posted on 04Oct10 by jessamyn

I made a little video for Follow a Library Day and so did a lot of other people. I enjoyed this small awareness-raising exercise. It made me look up a few new libraries on Twitter, it helped me meet a few new Twitter-aware librarians in the larger blogosphere and it was fun watching it ripple across my group of friends on Twitter. No nagging, no hectoring. If you were into it, you could post a little something. If not, no big deal. Nice successful campaign folks, good job.

Banned Books Week as seen through its funders’ eyes

Posted on 27Sep1027Sep10 by jessamyn

More on the Chicago Defender.
Here are my old Banned Books Weeks posts: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. I skipped 2005.

It’s time for a review of Banned Books Week. This year most of my BBW information comes from Twitter. Amusingly BBW on Twitter can mean two very different things. This is the note I put on Twitter yesterday.

“Oh look an actual attempt at, well not book banning exactly. Weird old Pentagon. http://bit.ly/cqg9PL Happy [sort of] Banned Books Week.”

Pretty sketchy story. The Pentagon bought up the entire first printing of a book published by St Martin’s Press because it “contained information which could cause damage to national security.” The second edition has come out, heavily redacted. This is one of the closer “government is telling you what you can’t read” stories that I’ve seen this year. Here’s another look at the websites that are linked from ALA’s offical BBW website ala.org/bbooks, a page that is linked from the front page, but only as one of the six “slides” that revolve through the top of the page. So, Banned Books Week is sponsored by these organizations. Let’s see what their websites look like.

American Booksellers Association has a link to this functional site from the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, much better than last year. This blog post (from August) seems to summarize what they’ve been up to. Nothing on their Twitter. They also run the website BannedBooks.org which has been updated a little for this year.
The American Library Association – has one of the six slides linked to their BBW page. The press kit page is more interesting. The full list of books that were challenged or banned last year is hidden away in a PDF. Mostly school challenges. A few interesting public library cases. ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom is posting a lot on their Twitter and their blog.
American Society of Journalists and Authors has a button for sale in their store, no other mention that I could find including on their Twitter and on facebook.
Association of American Publishers has a short bloggish post talking about what some publishers are up to this week, linked from the front page. Is anyone else freaked out that the URL includes a misspelling of the word “archives”? I remember that from last year.
the National Association of College Stores has nothing, as usual.
It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress but no mention that I can see.

One of the interesting thigns to note about the ALA list of challenges is how many of the public library challenges seem to be centered around just a few library systems. Most of these stories are ones that hit the national news and so I’ve heard about them and you probably have also.

There are also good websites to go to to learn about censorship and the larger (to me) issue of chilling effects on people’s right to live free from fear and free from silencing. Here are a few things I’ve been reading lately

The National Coalition Against Censorship has protested book ratings in a sensible and clear headed way.
A Few Words About Public Libraries and MPAA Ratings (pdf)
An interesting discussion on a unicycle forum about the public library and whether they should buy “cleaned up” versions of popular music.
Online books about censorship, from the Online Books Page’s banned books page.
I always find something interesting to read at Project Censored.

Join me in a rousing song celebrating free expression, won’t you?