AnnaKh

Library Juice has just published some correspondence from this past May on Mitch Freedman’s Better Salaries Initiative. Rory Litwin raised some critical questions about the whole better salaries movement, in the context of other professions and other countries, suggesting that we’re not so badly paid after all and that librarians are motivated by more than money. Luis Acosta, Mark Hudson, and Mary Ann Meyers offered intelligent responses.

Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, gave a talk at the ALA/CLA Annual Conference in Toronto entitled, Librarianship as a Revolutionary Choice. I published it in the latest issue of Library Juice, and it may also be available elsewhere. In this talk Klein was inspiring in her understanding of the values that motivate so many librarians to do what they do, very impressive for a non-librarian. She also tied these values in with her own knowledge and understanding of the corporate globalization movement, providing interesting information about some of the details of trade agreements such as GATS that could have an impact on libraries, through the initial wedge of “partial privatization.”

More stuff by Naomi Klein…

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.

In prison, there are two things to do for healthy
recreation: pump iron or
read. As a result, the library at Eastern New York
Correctional Facility is
filled with enormous men looking for books. They kill time
in the reading
room, leafing through magazines or newspapers while they
wait to pick out a
book. They watch a video. By threes, they may browse in
the cramped stacks
among the 11,000 titles. Shoulders and heads bob silently
over the
chest-high rows.

So begins the article The
Great Escape, by Holbrook Sample, originally published
in City Limits, and republished in Library Juice this past
week. It’s a longie but very interesting reading touching
on what motivates librarians to be librarians.

FREE SPEECH FOR
LIBRARIANS? A REVIEW OF SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE
LIBRARIANSHIP, 1967-1999, by Taralee Alcock, outlines
the social responsibility movement in librarianship since
the 60’s in the context of intellectual freedom. She
works in the development of the Library Bill of Rights,
the Berninghausen debate, and the issue of resistance to
social responsibility in librarianship during this period.
Social Responsibility vs. Intellectual Freedom, library
vs. non-library issues: Alcock makes the point that these
dichotomies are artificially constructed for political
ends.

The ALA Web Site Advisory Committee is composed of ALA
members representing the Divisions
and is charged with advising Council and ALA Staff about
web site issues. We’ve been partially involved in the
process of designing the new site (giving feedback on
iterations of the design based on partial information),
but not as involved as we would like to have been. I
wrote an article
about
our experience with ALA staff in the web site development
process. It should be interesting reading for people who
are concerned about the new website and about ALA.

For some odd reason, the previous petition by librarians
opposed to the war failed to
prevent the war from starting. Now that the war is on,
librarians around the world are signing a new petition,
titled “
Librarians Say ‘Stop the War Now!’.” You can add your
signature on the site, or simply leave a message heckling
us.

Translations of the petition into French and Spanish are
on the site.

The petition is part of a larger collection of documents
and petitions at http://libr.org/peace/.

“Intellectual
Freedom within the Profession: A Look back at Freedom of
Expression And the Alternative Library Press” is an
article by Professor Toni Samek, originally published in
Counterpoise 4(1/2), Spring 2000, and updated for
publication in Library Juice this week. The article
traces the lineage of today’s alternative library sites
you are familiar with on the web, like librarian.net, Library Juice, Information for Social
Change, and New
Pages, and provides a view of some important history.

If you’re the kind of library student I was, you’re
finding library school somewhat disappointing. Isn’t
graduate school supposed to be intellectually stimulating
and challenging?

I’ve written a collection
of paper topics (or ideas for paper topics) that you
can bring to your instructors to liven things up a bit.
(Many of them are probably on topics that are already
being done, but with a slightly different approach).

And if you’re not in school and want to do some research,
or if you just like to think and discuss interesting
questions in LIS, you might enjoy these also.

(This is from the current Library Juice.)

ALA Presidential Candidates Herman Totten and Carol Brey
give a long interview
in the current issue of Library Juice. Robert
Newlen never replied to my request for an interview. A
friend of his says he’s been out of town and may get back
to me when he returns. For now, it’s just the two
nominated candidates.