July 2004 Archives

a public/private partnership I can get behind

Divine marketing opportunity. Collect donations for people not to buy your book, but to put your book in a public library. The indie press No Media Kings crowd would like you to do just that in their NO MEDIA KINGS, YES LIBRARY BLING drive. Don’t miss their how to make a book section.

I’m interested in strengthening the ties between indie culture and public libraries, because it’s a political alliance: we both fight corporate power. Just by being there we provide an alternative to our increasingly commodified culture and preserve the diversity of the public sphere. I think there’s a lot of really interesting things that can be done between these two communities, once we become aware of each other’s intersecting mutual interests.

Michael McGrorty – writer/librarian/advice columnist

Posted on 15Jul04 by jessamyn

Does anyone read Michael McGrorty’s blog over at Library Dust and say “Man, that guy is almost too erudite to be a librarian”? I know I sometimes do. One of his latest gems is about Nancy Pearl, and what makes her so special, and by a related tangent, what we are all looking for in a special librarian.

I certainly expect you to know, and to say, and then to show. What that means is that I consider it necessary that the librarian have done a considerable amount of reading—close, critical reading at that, and that she keep reading as if her livelihood depended upon it. Because it does. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t hire anybody to work a reference desk who couldn’t be awakened from a dead sleep to give a book talk to a reading club.

USAPA in the field

Posted on 15Jul04 by jessamyn

The Justice Department has just released a report [pdf] that gives over 30 examples of how the USA PATRIOT Act has been used so far to fight terrorism. The ACLU responds.

The report also sidesteps any mention of the Patriot Act’s use against innocent Americans whose records have been turned over to the FBI, and fails to mention the frequency of intrusive investigations that did not result in prosecutions.

are advertiser-supported search engines really giving us the answers we need?

Posted on 14Jul04 by jessamyn

Search Engines: Clogged with Commerce and Begging for an Upgrade asks whether our search engine results are being clogged with for-profit sites at the expense of solid information. For commerce sites can afford good design, placement and Googleability. Can your local community-based center?

“The consensus opinion across all these sources is that families should seek local, community-based programs that treat the whole family, not just the teen. And luckily, plenty of community-based programs are available…. I was stunned to discover that none of this information appeared when I searched on the phrase ‘troubled teen’ at Google and Yahoo, even when I waded through 100 search results at each site. Instead, I was confronted with a staggering number of listings all pointing to one commercial option: coercive residential treatment centers (RTCs) that include boot camps, wilderness programs or behavior modification programs.”

hi – 13jul

Posted on 13Jul04 by jessamyn

Hi. I’ve started a DNC blog that is different from this one because I’m sure not all my readers care about the DNC. It’s linked over on the left with its own RSS feeds and slightly different look and function. If something particularly librarianish happens there, I’ll cross post.