Month: September 2004

Borges bio review

Posted on by jessamyn

The Economist reviews a new Borges biography.

It is a challenge to write a biography of a man who did little more than read and think, whose myopia turned to blindness in middle age, who was an auto-didact whose only real job was as a librarian, and who lived with his mother and her housekeeper in a poky Buenos Aires flat until she died at 99, when he was 75. Shortly before that, he wrote gloomily: “My father’s library has been the chief event in my life…the truth is that I have never emerged from it.”

do you have YOUR card?

Posted on by jessamyn

I spent the day at work on Tuesday working on my outreach display for National Library Card Sign-up Month. We have a lot of storefronts in the downtown area that are vacant. I spoke to the real estate agency that handles them and asked if we could use one of the windows — the one by the bus stop — for a library display. They said “sure” so now we have our READ posters and lots and lots of information about our library cards available to people who might not want to schlep up the hill to learn about them otherwise.

Posted in me!

does your library have enough copies of the 9/11 report?

Posted on by jessamyn

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]

who is keeping government accountable? librarians?

Posted on by jessamyn

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]