June 2003

Thanks to Susan Dillinger for This One on Gov. Jeb Bush’s ill-fated plans to streamline the Florida State
Library.
They say in the end, the biggest casualty was the myth of the shy and retiring
librarian.

“As long as the public light is shining, it should be all right for now,”
Wilkins said.

steven bell writes “Take a look at Newsday editorial cartoonist Walt Handelsman’s take on CIPA and Internet filtering in libraries – the “Fleeber Filter”.
Go to Newsday.com

And then proceed to cartoon 3 of 19 or use the drop box (scroll down the top frame)to jump to June 26, 2003. “

Gary Deane spotted School books being censored, quietly that says behind closed doors, teachers and school librarians are increasingly opting for bland classroom materials, Sarah Schmidt discovers.

\”\’Why teach one that could be challenged?\’\” Mr. Jenkinson heard an experienced educator in the crowd ask. \”Saying this to a brand new teacher, what message is that? Take the path of least resistance?\”

Grateful Dead drummer and part-time ethnomusicologist Mickey Hart has teamed up with Librarian of Congress James Billington to digitize the LOC\’s vast holdings of sound recordings, creating, according to Hart, \”a digital Alexandria.\” The mission of the Save our Sounds project, part of the American Folklife Center of the LOC, is to digitize, preserve, and make accessible, the LOC\’s wealth of sound recordings. Some of the holdings include slave narratives recorded on wax cylinders and American Indian music.
Hart has just released a book, \”Songcatchers: In Search of the World\’s Music,\” published by National Geographic. It traces the history of recorded music and sounds a call for world-wide preservation. Hart and the rest of the Dead, practice what they preach, offering digitally mastered recordings of their summer tour shows at www.dead.net. The rest of this swell article here at the Washington Times.

CNN has This One on Jacquelyn Mitchard who just finished a 23-city tour to promote her latest book, “Twelve Times Blessed.” She attributes much of her success to Oprah Winfrey, whom she calls her “fairy godmother.”

Mitchard was a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, struggling to raise three young children and a high schooler on her own after her first husband died from cancer, when Winfrey selected the writer’s first novel, “The Deep End of the Ocean,” for her book club, in 1996.

Information for Social Change is now an electronic-only
publication.

Issue 17, Summer 2003, is now published and on the web at
http://libr.org/ISC/TOC.html

The issue is available as a single Word document or as
individual html
articles.

Table of Contents, No. 17, Summer 2003

Editorial.

Developing a Needs Based Library Service. John Pateman


Activist and Archivist. Martin Lowe

Globalisation, Libraries and Information. Ruth Rikowski


Library privatization: fact or fiction?. Ruth Rikowski


Still at your service? GATS, privatization and public
services in the UK.
Ruth Rikowski

Free trade with library services: no ‘all clear’ regarding
GATS. Anders
Ericon interviews Frode Bakken

Framework for the future. John Pateman

The People’s Network. John Pateman

Building Better Library Services. John Pateman

Overdue: how to create a modern public library service.
John Pateman

Here’s the editorial from this issue:

Information for Social Change is now an electronic-only
publication.

Issue 17, Summer 2003, is now published and on the web at
http://libr.org/ISC/TOC.html

The issue is available as a single Word document or as
individual html
articles.

Table of Contents, No. 17, Summer 2003

Editorial.

Developing a Needs Based Library Service. John Pateman


Activist and Archivist. Martin Lowe

Globalisation, Libraries and Information. Ruth Rikowski


Library privatization: fact or fiction?. Ruth Rikowski


Still at your service? GATS, privatization and public
services in the UK.
Ruth Rikowski

Free trade with library services: no ‘all clear’ regarding
GATS. Anders
Ericon interviews Frode Bakken

Framework for the future. John Pateman

The People’s Network. John Pateman

Building Better Library Services. John Pateman

Overdue: how to create a modern public library service.
John Pateman

Here’s the editorial from this issue:
Welcome to issue 17 of Information for Social Change. In
common with many
other LIS journals we have now become an electronic
publication. This means
that we will no longer be producing hard copies of ISC. If
you want a hard
copy go to our website at www.libr.org/ISC/ and download a
copy to print
out.

This issue is in three parts. Part one features articles
by John Pateman
(Developing a Needs Based Library Service) and Martyn Lowe
(Activism and
Archivist). These are intended to stir up interest and
debate so please
send us your views.

Part two continues our theme of discussing the impact of
globalization and
privatization on library services. Ruth Rikowski has
become our resident
expert on this subject and she has made three further
valuable
contributions to this debate in this issue :
Globalisation, libraries and
information; Library Privatisation: fact or fiction?; and
Still at your
service – GATS, privatization and public services in the
UK. We also
feature an interview by Anders Ericson with Frode Bakken,
on the subject of
Free trade with library services ? no “All clear”
regarding GATS.

Part three is a round up of recent publications which
affect public
libraries in the UK – Framework for the future; The
People’s Network;
Building Better Library Services; Overdue ? how to create
a modern public
library service. This last title, by Charles Leadbetter of
Demos, is
particularly thought provoking. Its final sentence –
“Libraries are sleep
walking to disaster; it is time they woke up” – should
give us all food for
thought.

Our next issue, due out in January 2004, will include a
report on the
Libraries in the Third World Forum which is being held
during the Culture
and Development 3rd Congress in Havana, Cuba, between 9-12
June 2003.
Participants at the Forum include ISC editor John Pateman,
who will be
taking part in a Round Table discussion on the theme of
“libraries
contribution to solidarity and social justice in a world
of neo-liberal
globalization”.

We are also exploring the possibility, with our sister
organization in the
US, the Progressive Librarians Guild, of producing a joint
issue of ISC and
PLG, possibly on the theme of how the so-called “war on
terror” is
affecting library and information services.

The debate within ALA over Cuban libraries makes it to the New York Times:

In one of the last places you might expect a debate over free expression is the American Library Association, the world\’s oldest and largest organization of its kind and a longtime champion of open access to information. But when the subject is as politically charged as Cuba, anything is possible.

Complete article (registration required).

Tim Wu, writer over over at Slate takes on the aggressive worldwide legal campaign against the unauthorized Potter takeoffs in This Article.

It began last year when Rowling and Time-Warner threatened the publishers of Chinese Potter, who agreed to stop publication. On April 4 of this year, Rowling persuaded a Dutch court to block the import of Tanya Grotter to Holland. Harry Potter in Calcutta, in which Harry meets up with various characters from Bengali literature, was recently pulled by its Indian publisher under threat. Potter takeoffs have become international contraband.

“Comic books deserve a permanent place in public libraries and a legitimate spot in the pantheon of children’s literature, says a B.C. librarian who is making the case for this oft-derided art form to an international gathering of the children’s book world.”

“People think they’re easier to read, but they’re not,” said Kirsten Anderson, who works in the young adult section of the Richmond Public Library. “The word count is high, the language level is just as high…. A comic book is not lowbrow.” (from The National Post)

Perhaps the Harry Potter craze has finally gone too far?

A burglar who broke into Canonsburg Public Library made off with two copies of the best-seller “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” and caused more than $800 in damage to a security camera.
One of the stolen copies of “Order of the Phoenix” had been held underneath the front desk for a patron. The other copy was displayed on top of the desk. Crouse said the book was going to be raffled off to raise money for the library.

The really ironic part is The police department is directly above the library on the second floor of municipal building at 68 E. Pike St. This is the second break-in at the library in two months.

Full Story.