There was a good article about WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Paul Assange, by Raffi Khatchadourian, in the June 7 issue of the New Yorker.

Information for Social Change has posted a review of Mark Abendroth’s Rebel Literacy: Cuba’s National Literacy Campaign and Critical Global Citizenship.

We have posted the Introduction to Mark Abendroth’s Rebel Literacy: Cuba’s National Literacy Campaign and Critical Global Citizenship to the web. It’s a good read, a little lengthy for the web. Of interest to anyone who follows Cuba-related issues or radical pedagogy.

This is an interesting tidbit coming from Vancouver, BC, site of history’s largest librarian’s strike in 2007.

Library management has sent branches a list of “do’s and don’t’s” concerning the upcoming Olympics. Branches must not allow Olympic-related library events to be sponsored by sponsors other than those with official relations with VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Committee). So, it has to be McDonalds, not Wendy’s, and it has to be Coke, and not Pepsi. Furthermore, there are audio-visual technology companies sponsoring the Olympics as well, so if you have a technician in from another company to help with the event, their company t-shirt must be covered.

Isn’t that just a little too much?

Here is the article: Librarians Told to Stand on Guard for 2010 Sponsors, The Tyee, January 12, by Geoff Dembicki.

LIS Critique is an international (primarily Latin American), independent open access journal founded in 2008. The full title is Library & Information Science Critique: Journal of the Sciences of Information Recorded in Documents. The second issue has just been released. Most of the articles are in Spanish, but they have translated the issue’s editorial into English and are interested in maintaining a presence in the U.S. I think it’s good to see what librarians are thinking about in Latin America. Like Progressive Librarian, it is an intellectually-oriented journal situated outside of academia.

One of the first books from Library Juice Press was Ed D’Angelo’s Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library: How Postmodern Consumer Capitalism Threatens Democracy, Civil Education and the Public Good, and it has been our best selling book so far.

We’re pleased to announce that the book has been translated into Japanese and published for the Japanese market by Kyoto University. Here is what it looks like:

Restoring Order: The Ecole des Chartes and the Organization of Archives and Libraries in France, 1820-1870

This book is on sale through November and December if purchased through the website (using the link above). Regular price is $32, sale price is $20.

We have excess inventory of this title and need to sell some copies.

Press release:

London, ON Unionized librarians and archivists at the University of Western Ontario have voted overwhelmingly to support strike action to back their bargaining goals of fair evaluations, job security and equitable salaries and benefits.

A total of 88% of UWOFA-LA members voted in favour of authorizing their union to call a strike. The ballots were cast over two days, September 25 and 28. Librarians and Archivists have been without a contract since July 1, 2009.

“This vote demonstrates the determination of our members to ensure a fair and equitable settlement,” said Regna Darnell, UWOFA president. “The work of librarians and archivists is at the heart of university life, and should be recognized as such.”

Conciliation to help advance contract negotiations began Thursday September 24. Further meetings with conciliator John Quinn are scheduled through to the end of October. UWOFA-LA members will not be in a legal strike position until a no-board report has been requested and sixteen days have passed after its receipt by the Minister of Labour.

“Our negotiating team is committed to use the scheduled meetings to achieve a fair deal,” said Darnell.

The 55 Librarians and Archivists at Western rank 91st out of 113 research libraries in North America when it comes to salaries and benefits.

For further information:

Regna Darnell, UWOFA President (519-661-3016)

From: Franck Hurinville
To: ifla-l@infoserv.inist.fr
Subject: [IFLA-L] French IFLA National Committee : please visit our blog
Date: Aug 18, 2009 9:54 AM

dear IFLA Colleagues,

the Comité Français IFLA – French IFLA National Committee is an independent umbrella association of library, information, documentation associations, institutions and professionals in France. It is committed to supporting the interests of library and information services and their users in France.It promote the fundamental principles of IFLA at a national level within the framework of French libraries. The Committee especially furthers the French language inside IFLA, with the view to promoting cultural and linguistic diversity according to IFLA language policy

Its new blog aims to be one of the main instruments of communication between IFLA’s French and French-speaking members.

Please visit our blog… and practise your French !

leblogducfi.over-blog.com

Franck Hurinville
Vice-president and Webmaster
on behalf of the French IFLA National Committee

ALA Council Report to SRRT, Chicago, July 2009

Before reporting on the business of the meetings, let me first honor the life of E.J. Josey, who died just before Annual Meeting. EJ was a founding member of SRRT and the founding father of the Black Caucus of ALA, the first black male President of ALA (1984-85), an ALA Councilor for 29 years,, and a fighter for justice for his entire career, both inside the library profession and outside in the community, nation, and world. EJ was instrumental in desegregating the ALA state chapters in the South and developing ALA policy to support the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He was a prolific author (more than 400 articles and 12 books), and wrote the path-breaking book, The Black Librarian in 1970. He was responsible for organizing already existing groups for official recognition into a SRRT Coretta Scott King Book Awards Task Force in 1980 (now part of EMIERT). As a young librarian, EJ inspired me with his outrageous interruption of the 1985 Chicago IFLA meeting. He rose from the audience at the first plenary session to castigate the IFLA leadership for continuing to allow the membership of libraries that enforced the policy of apartheid and also the apartheid South African Library Association. I started my library activism at this meeting. For more about EJ , see Memorial Resolution #13.

Despite the economic meltdown, the ALA Annual Meeting had record attendance, 28,941 people. However there certainly was a sense of crisis, and the Council passed a resolution calling for ALA to develop “An Action Plan to Remedy Current Library Budget Crisis (ALA Council Document #56). ALA itself has had to make cutbacks, reducing staff by 9.6 FTE (including 2 layoffs) and requiring staff to take 5 “furlough” days and accrued vacation days.

SRRT had one resolution for ALA Council, “Resolution on Libraries and the Continuing Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” It was passed by the ALA Membership Meeting (Membership Meeting document #5) without any debate and by a large majority of members voting. However, the ALA Council defeated it by a large margin after several emotional speeches (ALA Council Document #55). In my presentation, I noted that Council had called for the withdrawal of the US military from Iraq at the 2005 Midwinter meeting (ALA Council Document #62). It was interesting that two long-time Councilors were ready to challenge the existence of the 2005 resolution until we produced a copy for them. Besides the usual argument that this is not a “library issue,” others seemed to support the Obama position of withdrawing from Iraq but escalating the war in Afghanistan. There were also assertions that the US was upholding women’s rights in Afghanistan. The Council usually follows public opinion, rarely taking a leadership position. We only passed the 2005 resolution on Iraq because it was clear that the country was fed up with the Bush Administration’s war. Sadly, I expect we will have to wait for public opinion to rise against the Afghanistan war before we get Council to act.

SRRT endorsed 4 resolutions developed by other ALA bodies and councilors. One of these also came through the ALA Membership Meeting, “Resolution on Civil Marriage Equality Regardless of Sexual Orientation” (Membership Meeting Document #6). I was very pleased to see that it passed Council with only a few dissenters (ALA Council Document #53). The resolutions on “Accessibility of Library Websites” (Council Document #51) and “Purchasing of Accessible Electronic Resources Resolution” (Council Document #52 Revised) sailed through easily. These bring ALA policy into conformance with several guidelines and laws concerning people with disabilities. Some of us were surprised with the amount of resistance to the “Resolution Endorsing Legislative Proposals for [Single Payer,] Universal Health Care (Council Document #54). ALA endorsed single-payer health care in 2006 but now that the national debate has seriously heated up, the Council took a step backwards. It looked like the resolution would be defeated until a compromise saved the day. Larry Romans substituted the wording “Reaffirms its support for affordable universal health care program, including the option of single payer health care program.” (The title was amended to remove the words “Single Payer.”)

SRRT Action Council also took a position on the “Organizational Dues Rate Proposal” (Council Document #44 Revised). It changes the criteria from size of budget to size of library in various categories. It provides for an average 28% increase over two years. SRRT reiterated its support for a progressive dues structure for individuals as well as organizations. Others voiced the opinion that because of the economy, this was the wrong time to increase dues. However the proposal was approved by a large majority.

Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act was again hotly contested. This is the section that concerns “business records,” the section that most directly affects libraries. It is the only section of the act that ALA has ever officially addressed. Jonathan Betz-Zall referred to “dueling motions.” Separate motions came out of the Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC) and the Legislation Committee. The IFC resolution was much better. “Resolution of the Reauthorization of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act resolved that Section 215 be allowed to sunset (end) on December 31, 2009 as scheduled (Council Document #19.9). The Legislation Committee’s resolution recommended 9 changes to Section 215 (Council Document #20.8). After much debate, the Council passed the IFC resolution and sent the Legislation Committee’s recommendations to the ALA Washington Office for their use if it looks like reauthorization is going ahead. I spoke to the point that the Washington Office should initially hold firm, and only go to the back-up recommendations at a later stage. I wanted this in the legislative record because the Washington Office is often much too ready to cave in. Furthermore, I reminded the Council that SRRT is opposed to the entire USA Patriot Act.

Council passed 2 other resolutions from the Legislation Committee of particular interest. The first resolved that ALA convene a widely representative group to continue to assess the Google Book Search Settlement and make recommendations to the membership and the Association (Council Document #20.3). The other resolution looks very simple at first glance but is actually based on troubling trends. The “Resolution Supporting GPO’s Digitization of Historical Federal Publications” (Council Document #20.6) urges Congressional support, asks that all digitization efforts adhere to Title 44 of the US Code and GPO guidance, and ALA’s principles of Digital Content, and that GPO and partner depository libraries become trusted repositories for preservation and access. The background to this resolution may be a Midwest “Big Ten” (CIC) proposal to maintain print copies only in its 3 regional depository libraries. This leaves the other depositories to do what they like with their print collections, including moving them in mass across state lines and so-called “destructive digitization.” I think the debate on this will heat up in the coming year.

The Intellectual Freedom Committee presented and Council approved 4 new or revised interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights. They are: “Access to Digital Information, Services, and Networks” (Council Document #19.5), “Importance of Education to Intellectual Freedom” (Council Document #19.6), “Labeling and Rating Systems (Council Document #19.7), and “Minors and Internet Activity (Council Document #19.8). Of course, the death of Judith Krug highlighted the IFC’s work. Judith founded the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom and the Freedom to Read Foundation. She initiated “Banned Books Week” and developed the Intellectual Freedom Manual. Although SRRT has occasionally tangled with the Intellectual Freedom bodies over the years, Judith stuck to her principles in a forthright way. She will be missed.

There were two other successful resolutions of interest. The first was “Resolution Promoting Sunday, October 4, 2009, as Intergeneration Day Means Libraries” (Council Document #50). This asks us to support multigenerational activities in our libraries and asks ALA bodies to do the same including promoting this on their websites. The other was “Resolution to Expand Electronic Participation.” Instead of waiting for ALA committees and staff to figure our when and where we will start electronic access to governance, this resolution mandated member access to Council meetings for Midwinter 2010. Considering the cost estimates presented, the easiest and cheapest option is a podcast. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and if there is extensive member interest.

The ALA Allied Professional Association (APA) Council passed one resolution after extensive debate. “Resolution on Support for Overtime Pay Protection” (APA CD#8.4) puts ALA-APA on record in favor of eliminating the exemptions for white collar staff that were enacted in 2003, amending the Fair Labor Standards Act. It also encourages other associations to speak out in favor of low-wage library workers and actively enforcing existing regulations.

This is my last report as your SRRT Councilor. After ten years as your first SRRT representative to the ALA Council, I can truly say how honored I feel to have had your trust for my time in office. Although there were many times when frustration almost got the better of me, on the whole I think the work has been extremely satisfying. Whether or not we won our issues, we always were able to do some education. In some cases, we were able to persevere and win our issues a few years later. I think this is not only a marker for me but an end to an era for SRRT. Elaine Harger and Jonathan Betz-Zall have also finished their work as ALA Councilors. They are both stalwarts and deserve our praise and thanks. I am sure all the old-timers, including the generation before Elaine, Jonathan and me, look forward to new younger librarians asserting themselves in favor of SRRT issues on the ALA Council floor. I stand ready to help in any way that I can. On the 40th anniversary of SRRT, let’s remember that we are still the largest round table. We also make the biggest splash of all the round tables in the ALA Council. We should be proud of what SRRT has accomplished.

Al Kagan
SRRT Councilor, 1999-2009
akagan@illinois.edu

It’s easy to think that politics has no place in the production of reference materials and that objective reference works are by nature apolitical. Yes, solid reference sources tend to work against ideologically and rhetorically-based thinking and in favor of fact-based reasoning and questioning, that is true, but one should not conclude from that than an apolitical position is the result.

Case in point: the role of a Greek-Macedonian Dictionary (and attempts to destroy it) in the fight for and against Macedonian statehood….

Attempted Censorship by U.S. Attorney — A Book to Watch!

By Ann Sparanese

On June 16, the paperback edition of Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI by Peter Lance will be released by HarperCollins. This is happening despite a prominent U.S. Attorney’s best efforts to stop it.

Since this book was first published in hardcover in 2006, Patrick Fitzgerald, US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago (the same Patrick Fitzgerald of the Valerie Plame investigation) has repeatedly attempted to have the publisher bury the book, and to prevent publication of the paperback edition. Lance, who is a five-time Emmy-winning investigative reporter with other books on terrorism under his belt, spent four years compiling “evidence that the best and the brightest in the two bin Laden offices of origin…had committed multiple acts of negligence in the 12 years leading up to 9/11 in their failure to stop the al Qaeda cell, trained by Ali Mohamed.”

U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald sent three threatening letters to the publisher charging libel, and held up the publication of the paperback edition for 18 months. [Just yesterday Fitzgerald sent an additional letter to HarperCollins, threatening to sue; things are heating up.] Initially, HarperCollins did not react to the threats, calling the book “an important work of investigative journalism,” but when Fitzgerald continued to protest, using U.S. Attorney Chicago letterhead, a U.S. Attorney Chicago fax machine on one occasion [Correction via Sparanese 6/5/09] the publisher decided to re-vet the entire book, which took a year. When finished, only inconsequential sentences were rewritten or corrected, leaving the essential arguments, evidence and documentation completely intact. This is an instance of a publisher standing up to one of the most powerful government officials in the U.S., but it is also an example of the chilling effect of censorship attempts, because for over a year Lance could do no other work than re-vetting every sentence of his book. Not a great situation for any author but perhaps the most responsible action by HCP in this case because now the situation is clear: though Fitzgerald’s name no longer appears in the title, Lance’s book remains intact and contains some new material, including a section on Fitzgerald’s attempts to kill the book.

I’ve been in communication with this author, and I really believe his is a book and an issue to watch. Until this new edition of Triple Cross hits the stands on June 16, it is still in jeopardy. The first edition of Triple Cross received no major reviews, and most likely you do not have a copy in your library. I have a feeling the publisher does not intend to make a big splash of it! Please read about it on Lance’s website and order it to make sure your library users have access to this information: ISBN 978-0-06-118941-8.

Whether or not you are totally convinced by the arguments in this book (meticulously researched material, definitely NOT conspiracy theories) what is important is that Triple Cross holds high level government officials accountable for negligence in their dealings with known terrorist operatives during the period leading up to the 9/11 attacks. It is unacceptable that this particular high-level government official has acted so aggressively to stop a book because it is critical of him – this must be the case, since nothing libelous was written. If anything, we need more genuine investigative journalism and discussion of this kind.

And there is something else: For me, as someone who fought, along with many of you in ALA and other organizations, against the USA PATRIOT Act, illegal surveillance, torture policies, and other violations of civil liberties that have been foisted upon us in the name of the “War on Terror,” Triple Cross is important because it makes a clear and compelling case that official negligence, misplaced priorities, turf wars, and arrogance – not lack of the appropriate laws and methods to fight terrorism – contributed greatly to the debacles that have since befallen the American and, indeed, the people of the world. And not one person high in the chain of command has been held accountable for any of it! So (1) tell HarperCollins you appreciate them standing behind this book and (2) please purchase it for your library. Don’t let it be buried. Let it lead to more public examination and discussion of ongoing U.S. policies and priorities.

Peter Lance will be holding a press conference to detail the attempted book-banning on June 16th in the John Peter Zenger Room of The National Press Club. You can learn more about Triple Cross and get updates on Lance’s anti-censorship campaign at http://www.peterlance.com. If you want more information about how Lance’s critical coverage of Fitzgerald might have led to Fitzgerald’s attempts to bury the book, you can read his attached article, “The Chilling Effect.”

Ann Sparanese, MLS
Head, Adult & YA Services
Englewood Public Library
Englewood, NJ
sparanese@yahoo.com

The African Studies Center with MATRIX digital humanities center at Michigan State University’s announce the launch of the new African Activist Archive Project (http://africanactivist.msu.edu).

This project is preserving records and memories of activism in the United States that supported the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. This is one of the most significant modern American movements having defeated the foreign policy of a sitting President (Ronald Reagan), whose veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was overturned by Congress, signaling the end of U.S. government support for the apartheid government. And it was based in more than 100 local community, university, religious, NGO, and labor organizations as well as city, county, and state governments.

The project is assembling excellent materials for teaching about community mobilizations, including:

• an online archive of historical materials – pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and videorecordings
  
• personal remembrances and interviews with activists
  
• a directory to the many archives of organizations and individuals deposited in libraries and historical societies that are available for further research

The earliest documents on the website are about the 1962 American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa which included Martin Luther King, Jr. and other key civil rights leaders of that time. The website also includes documents of the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, Winnie Mandela Solidarity Coalition, and the Pan-African Liberation Committee at Harvard University. Among the audio materials is Harry Belafonte welcoming African National Congress President Oliver Tambo to a 1987 reception in New York.

The website now contains 1350 items of all types of media, including

• more than 800 documents
• 19 streaming videos and 11 streaming audio files
• a new T-shirt collection – with up to four images of each (with more T-shirts coming in the months ahead) and
• galleries of posters, photos, and buttons

There is representation from many organizations from across the country – 74 US organizations, most of them local groups, in 21 states and the District of Columbia. We have newsletters from 18 organizations, brief descriptions of more than 100 US organizations, and information about many physical archives.

There are many ways to navigate around the site. You can start from Galleries (including Remembrances or types of media, e.g. photos, documents, video) or begin on the Browse page with the organization name, a U.S. state, or the African country that is the focus of organizing. The Advanced Search page allows you to search across all types of media. Also, from each page displaying an item (e.g. photo, document, video), you can link to other items of the same organization or of the same African country of focus.

We are eager to communicate with people who have activist materials that they might wish to have included in this online archive. The project would particularly like to document more solidarity work by African American organizations. Donations of physical archives also are possible to the MSU Library’s expanding African Activist Archive Special Collections. If interested, please contact Project Director Richard Knight in New York (rknight1@juno.com) or MSU director David
Wiley (wiley@msu.edu).

Just published:

Information and Liberation: Writings on the Politics of Information and Librarianship

Author: Shiraz Durrani
Price: $45.00 (or £22.00)
ISBN: 978-0-9802004-0-9
7″ by 10″
385 Pages
Printed on acid-free paper.

Information and Liberation is a retrospective collection of Shiraz Durrani’s articles and conference papers on the politics of information. The book documents the struggle for progressive and relevant information policies and practices over a period of 25 years in Kenya, Britain, and other countries. The book records also the vision, struggles and achievements of many progressive librarians and activists to develop a system and a society which can meet the information, social and cultural needs of all, particularly those marginalised by forces of capitalism and imperialism.

Many standard books on information and librarianship take capitalism and imperialism as a “given” and develop visions of an “information society” within this overall economic and political context. They attempt to resolve issues of equality, exclusion and “information poverty” in isolation of the social, economic and political context in which libraries and information exist.

Durrani’s approach differs in that he seeks to link information liberation with active struggles for economic and social justice for all. A theme that runs throughout the book is that the struggle for information equality needs to be waged as part of a struggle against capitalist exploitation of human and natural resources. The theme is based on an assumption that “people have the right to the information they need.” The role of librarians and information activists is seen as one of providing relevant information to people as their basic human right. For this to happen, information workers and activists need to be empowered – or to empower themselves – to develop systems that meet the needs of their communities.

In addition to communicating a vision of a society where information is provided as a human right, the book records various innovative projects which put the progressive ideas into practice. It provides a rare record of a process of putting ideas and policies into practice, making available a useful resource for others involved in similar struggles, highlighting possible hurdles and showing the tools that can be used for success.

It is noteworthy that the book records this struggle in Kenya, a country of the South where many of the oppressive policies associated with corporate globalisation were first tried out before being used in Europe, USA and other parts of the world. The experience gained in addressing this stranglehold in Kenya thus has a greater, global significance. The focus of the book then shifts to England where a similar struggle is also recorded – perhaps indicating that the need for a more active and united struggle against capitalism and corporate globalization is as urgent in the industrialized world as it is in Kenya.

While this “information” struggle is waged wherever there is oppression, few such struggles are recorded from the people’s point of view and with the firsthand experience and social commitment that Information and liberation seeks to provide.

Durrani graduated from the University of East Africa in 1968 and got his library qualifications from the University of Wales. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). He worked at the University of Nairobi Library from 1968 to 1984. Durrani was an active member of the then underground December Twelve Movement in the late 1970s and 1980s. Following the publication of his articles on the history of Kenyan anti-imperialist, liberation struggle in national press, Durrani left Kenya and moved to Britain in September 1984. In Britain he worked at Hackney and Merton public libraries before taking up the post of Senior Lecturer in Information Management in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the London Metropolitan University.

Durrani’s main interest is the politics of information. His book, Never be silent; publishing and imperialism in Kenya, 1884-1963, was published in 2006 (London: Vita Books). His earlier short book, Kimaathi, Mau Mau’s first Prime Minister of Kenya (1986, London: Vita Books) remains an important resource for political activists in Kenya today.

Gavin Baker posted yesterday on the Open Access News blog an item on the new portal of the Réseau francophone des bibliothèques nationales numériques [Francophone Network of National Digital Libraries].

“[At the portal], Web users will thus have the opportunity to consult newspapers, journals, books, and maps, as well as digitized archives from the collections of ten or so institutions from French-speaking places …”