Blogs

I thought this was the funniest e-mail when it came through on the Library Underground list on March 10, 2004. Every once in a while something reminds me to look for it again. Somehow it's only posted on two other Internet sites, so I thought I'd add it here.

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For new librarians in public libraries, some career advice from a bunch of veterans sitting around having one too many beers. Thank goodness one of us was sober enough to take notes! This message may be freely disseminated provided it remains intact and no one dishonestly claims authorship. The authors are anonymous and intend to stay that way.

Historically, journalists have been charged with informing the democracy.

But their future will depend not on only how well they inform but how well they encourage and enable conversations with citizens. That is the challenge. Websites like Webdiary understand the importance of Dan Gillmor’s basic premise: "My readers know more than I do - and that's an opportunity." The ability of anyone to make the news has given new voice to people who used to feel voiceless—and whose words we need to hear. According to Dan, webdiarists and citizen journalists are "showing all of us—citizen, journalist, newsmaker—new ways of talking, of learning. In the end, they may help spark a renaissance of the notion, now threatened, of a truly informed citizenry
• We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People

The Second Annual Madison Zine Fest is just two weeks away and we have finalized the schedule! Join local and national zinesters and others in celebrating of underground and independent publishing!
For more information, check out: www.madisonzinefest.org or email librarian@madisonzinefest.org

Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor, Jeff Jarvis with many others provide the dynamic platform for the robust debate about the relationship between journalists and bloggers.

The world has really, really changed and will keep changing and we in mainstream media may not like it but it’s a fact and we have to embrace it or we will die: And when will there be a museum of blogging?

Library Thing says it lets you create your own book catalog online (200 books free, or you can get a lifetime membership for $10 with unlimited catalog).

Sunday toast For who has some familiarity with the English, access to the InterNet and thinks about fichar its library. A small farm makes success that receives the heading from a book, searchs it in the Library of the Congress of the United States, captures its fiche and plays it in the archive of the customer. Librarything.com is called and was created by Tim Spalding, an American pc hacker with the feet in the classic culture. It is in the version Beta (with the risks that this means) and leaves favour for who wants to catalogue up to 200 books. For bigger libraries, it charges USS 10 for the limitless use of the instrument. In less of one month, librarything joined four a thousand users who ficharam 177 a thousand books. It gained news article in the "The Guardian" and the forecast of that somebody goes to gain money with this business. If it will not be Spalding, will be another person. The Library of the Congress is a colossus. Its catalogue has 28 book million in 470 languages. For example: 18 headings of Fernando Gabeira. (who to want to sapear, an acknowledgment: the instrument of not accepted search accents nor cedilhas.)

Know anybody with librarian superpowers? Able to leap tall stacks or parse XML in their sleep? Then nominate that person for the 2006 LJ Movers and Shakers awards. But do it soon! Deadline for submissions is November 1, 2005!!

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi

Gary Sauer-Thompson knows well why we need more journalists and less reporters... 'What they [the senior Canberra Press Gallery] can perhaps be accused of is lack of leadership; along with other gallery veterans such as Michelle Grattan, they have let the Government get away with far too much over the years. It is true that Howard exercises a more totalitarian control over government information than any of his predecessors and that he has instituted something of a reign of terror in the public service, but that is no excuse for meekly accepting ridiculous strictures in the name of commercial-in-confidence, or privacy considerations, or the all-purpose national security. Kelly, Oakes and Grattan never would have copped it in the old days.'

On Wednesday evening I went to a meeting of the Federal Legislation Committee of the New York City Bill of Rights Defense Campaign (NYCBORDC). The talk was of how best to educate and mobilize people about the PATRIOT Act -- get people to lobby their elected officials, generally make our fellow citizens understand what's at state in terms of threats to our civil liberties. Discussion was spirited. When do we try to "reform" something we're against (or publicly support one mediocre option just because it's better than the alternative), and when do we stand firm and say we will settle for nothing less than, say, the repeal of the entire PATRIOT Act?

Expanding on the issue of protection of journalists’ sources, Helen Ester looks at a range of factors affecting the Press Gallery’s role in public accountability
These include not only government pursuit of whistleblowers but also a weak freedom of information regime making journalists overly dependent on leaks, and a hollowing out of the press gallery, meaning many gallery journalists are relatively inexperienced ...

forwarded to Anarchist Librarians and Zine Librarians discussion lists: NOLA Bookfair and beyond