It’s so great to read an editorial like this written by a library user describing how disappointed she was to find vandalism in a library book. She directs her anger and frustration at the person with the highlighter, not the librarians. She suggests the scribbler buy a new copy of the book, take it to [...]
I’m not exactly sure why this is breaking news, but the BBC is circulating a story of a twelve-year-old who found several errors in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading too many articles about encyclopedias lately or I know a smidge about the publishing industry and how encyclopedias are written, but [...]
The Dowbrigade takes a look at issues related to merging news outlets in major cities by highlighting the merger of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Metro.
One of my news library colleagues brought Dan Gillmor’s comments about news archives to my attention via Newslib. (Thanks for sharing!) He presents several arguments about why news archives could benefit from being open and free instead of locked down by retrieval fees. Advertising revenue might increase because the number of site visitors will certainly [...]
I had a great conversation with someone the other day about what makes a source credible. One of his gripes is that there don’t seem to be any standards, especially across different fields. What I as a news librarian think of as credible may not map to what one of my customers considers credible which [...]
A friend often interrogates–a word he’ll think is much too harsh, but that’s what it feels like to me–me about certain things related to my profession. Sometimes the conversations make me feel very aggravated. “That’s just how it is! Can’t you just understand that? That’s what they taught us in library school.” I’m tempted to [...]
Via my referers page, I noticed someone followed the link to this blog from my Orkut profile. Hhhmmm … It didn’t seem to be enough to convince them to offer Orkut friendship, though.
I’m working on a massive project for the third week now. It’s kept me in my office way later with more regularity than anything else I’ve done before. For the third or fourth time, one of the cleaning staff has opened my office door and jumped a few feet after realizing there’s someone sitting at [...]
Several times, I’ve wanted to start a category for items about free speech and the First Amendment. There’s one now. It includes items about Banned Books Week and challenged library materials, too. Addendum 3/15: There is going to be some overlap with the Reading department. I’ll try to put items emphasizing the freedom to read [...]
When I was at a comic book store this weekend my awesome penpal highly recommends, I noticed a collection jar on the counter for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: Defending the Comic Industry’s First Amendment Rights Since 1986. Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, the nonprofit grew out of donations collected in 1986 to defend someone [...]