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Related Links Librarians for Fairness posted by Blake on 04:57 PM November 19th, 2006 from the democratic-values dept. " A Weary Librarian" sent along a link to Librarians for Fairness : "A librarians' association that advocates for academic balance in our libraries
Related Stories LibrariansForFairness Front Group for Ad Agency While the phrase Librarians for Fairness conjures up librarians running out to right the wrongs of biases, in reality the group (or at least it's domain) is a front for the PR group Rothstein & Memsic .
How do we know this? By analyzing whois registrations. First we look up the whois record for librariansforfairness.org and find:
Domain ID:D104508833-LRORDomain Name:LIBRARIANSFORFAIRNESS.ORGCreated On:08-Jun-2004 17:12:27 UTCLast Updated On:24-Mar-2006 23:27:15 UTCExpiration Date:08-Jun-2009 17:12:27 UTCSponsoring Registrar:Go Daddy Software, Inc. (R91-LROR)Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITEDStatus:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITEDStatus:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITEDStatus:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITEDRegistrant ID:GODA-06880655Registrant Name:Roz RothsteinRegistrant Organization:StandWithUsRegistrant Street1:332 N. La Brea Ave.Registrant Street2:Registrant Street3:Registrant City:Los AngelesRegistrant State/Province:CaliforniaRegistrant Postal Code:90036 Standwithus , according to its web site, is "A pro Israel advocacy organization advocates for a secure future for Israel", and it lists librariansforfairness as one of its sub sites. A quick Google search shows that Roz Rothstein is StandWithUs' National Director and a frequent contributer to Front Page Magazine. Couldn't find whether she had a library degree.
The whois registration for StandWithUs.com provides this info:
Registrant: Rothstein & Memsic Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: STANDWITHUS.COM Domain servers in listed order: NS1.WEBCONTROLCENTER.COM NS2.WEBCONTROLCENTER.COM This Rothstein & Memsic appears to be a PR Firm and I didn't see any other likely contenders. If you find any, please leave a comment.
I don't know about you, but I dislike astroturf groups. Whoever R&M's client is should just come forward and deal with librarians directly instead of pretending to be colleagues.
Update: 11/21 14:13 GMT by B :For those of you who missed it, this one might not make much sense... This is an update to This Post I made on Sunday.
Update:11/26 - Daniel withdrew his assertion that LfF is a front group for the advertising firm Rothstein & Memsic
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