Leonard Kniffel, editor of American Libraries, the American Library Association’s house publication, write in his blog:

Book burning is the most insidious form of book banning, and just as the American Library Association is preparing to celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, along comes one Rev. Terry Jones of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. The good reverend’s idea of world outreach is to commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 with a public burning of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book.

…

The reverend would do well to use his matches to ignite the pilot light in his brain. Have you ever actually read the Qur’an, Rev. Jones? If you really want illumination, I respectfully suggest you spend Saturday reading instead of burning.

Read more…

Save this date if you’re planning to be in New Orleans next June for the ALA Annual Conference. Saturday, June 25th Library Juice Press, possibly with one or more other groups, will be hosting a party of some kind. What to call it? It will be more lively than a reception or a meet-and-greet, but less wild than some of the things viewed on public computer terminals.

Doesn’t this French quarter penthouse look like a good place for a party?

Please contact me if you’re with a group that has similar interests and would like to co-host our … maybe it should be a cocktail party? Sazeracs, of course.

Come to the reception for Library Juice Press and the Alternative Press Center

Saturday night, June 26th, 7pm to 11pm
M Street Bar and Grill, at the St. Gregory Hotel
2033 M Street Northwest, at 21st and New Hampshire
Cash bar
Good cheese

All of our books will be on display and some of our authors will be in attendance.

Here is a map to the M Street Bar and Grill:

An announcement from SRRT Newsletter Editor Myka Kennedy Stephens:

SRRT Newsletter – Issue 171, June 2010 is now available!
The permanent link is: http://libr.org/srrt/news/srrt171.html

NEW! This is our first issue available in EPUB format:
http://libr.org/srrt/news/srrt171.epub

This graphics-free edition is readable on a variety of e-book readers (Kindle, Nook, etc.) and mobile devices equipped with e-book reader software (e.g. Stanza for iPhone/iPod Touch). Strictly speaking, this is a “beta test” so please let me know if you encounter any difficulties with our EPUB edition.

At any time, access the most current issue of the SRRT Newsletter online by going to http://libr.org/srrt/newsletter.html or subscribe to our RSS feed at http://libr.org/srrt/srrtnewsfeed.xml.

Be aware: If you intend to print this edition of the newsletter for reading offline, it will be approximately 31 pages long. Be green and read it on a screen of your choice!

–
Myka Kennedy Stephens
SRRT Newsletter Editor
mykaks@gmail.com

For your ALA Annual Conference calendar:

Library Juice Press and the Alternative Press Center are going to have a reception and party on Saturday night, June 26th, 7pm.

Details:
Location: 21M Lounge at the M Street Bar & Grill, 2033 M Street, Washington, DC
Time: 7pm ’till close, Saturday, June 26th
Refreshments: Cash bar and service from the restaurant
Hosts: Library Juice Press and the Alternative Press Center

Directions: From the Dupont Circle metro stop, take New Hampshire NW southwest to M street (three blocks).

Library Juice Press will have enough books to show, but not really enough to sell, except perhaps at the end of the night, when they will go at a discount. We are planning to bring a printed 2010 catalog.

APC will have copies of their index and will show some of the periodicals that they cover, and will be there to talk about their work.

I have just learned that the event will be watched over by a giant picture of Marilyn Monroe. Be warned that this image may cause temporary blondeness.

There is a Facebook page for the event.

The Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) was the permanent structure formed out of progressive political organizing in the American Library Association during the revolutionary time of the late 60’s. (For a good history of SRRT’s beginnings, see Toni Samek’s Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility in American Librarianship, 1967-1974 (McFarland, 2003). Since then it has served as the political “conscience of the association,” applying internal pressure from an egalitarian moral and political point of view (e.g. opposing ties to corporate America) and taking a public stand on many issues not directly related to librarianship. When I was in library school in the late 90s, SRRT’s existence and the passion of the people who worked within its structure were deeply encouraging, because it affirmed what I saw as an important tie between librarianship and broader social concerns. I was energized by SRRT and became active within it. It was my primary place of activity in the profession outside of my job over the next decade, and I met most of the people I know in librarianship in the process of contributing energy to SRRT. I owe a tremendous amount to SRRT, so it is with a sense of, I don’t know, guilt actually, that I say what I am going to say.

SRRT has run into a wall.

What do I mean? SRRT is the largest round table in ALA (or it was the last time I checked), with over 2000 members. The leadership of SRRT, that is, the people who are active in SRRT discussions, run for and are elected to office, attend regular meetings and make the decisions, are dedicated and passionate people, with strong politics that stem from a sense of moral responsibility. For the most part, they have been involved in SRRT for a long time, some from its very beginning. They are activists, and pursue activist goals within the framework of SRRT, as it was created for. That SRRT is and should be an activist group has never seriously been questioned, but in fact that isn’t what it is for the majority of its members. For the majority of its members, SRRT is something to join in order to support the activities of this activist group and to show ones identification with the idea of the importance of social concerns within the profession.

Only a handful of SRRT members are interested in using SRRT for activist goals. That group is mostly older SRRT members whose idea of activism comes from the era in which SRRT was formed. Their political priorities, assumptions about the way things are, and modes of acting come from that era. There are some younger SRRT members among the activist group – people in their 30s and 40s – but in my experience we have not been able to change the round table’s direction or ways of doing things, due to the strength and entrenchment of the long-time leaders. That is one reason (of several reasons) that I am no longer active in SRRT.

The past few decades have not been friendly to activists of the SRRT stripe. I think that makes it remarkable that SRRT is still around, and as the largest round table at that. SRRT members should be proud that we have not been beaten down by the forces we’re up against as the country has shifted rightward. But it also has to be acknowledged that those forces have had an impact on SRRT, often making it a place of shared frustration for the activists who keep it alive. Many of the difficulties that SRRT has encountered have amounted to an ongoing clash with a worsening reality, a clash made more painful by the obsolete assumptions on which our actions were often based.

I think that SRRT is now in a period of protracted crisis based on a conflict between the activists at its core and the majority of its membership, who have grown less interested in seeing SRRT pursue activist goals over time. This crisis has been precipitated by the issue of the Cuban “independent librarians.”

I have given up discussing the Cuba issue, because I found that no matter how well I explained SRRT’s position, people would inevitably say they understood it and had heard it before but would not be able to explain the argument if asked, let alone answer it, and seemed to remain unaware of the reasoning that led the SRRT leadership to its conclusions. Because of that, I will not rehash the debate, but will only comment on it to point out a few small things. First, it must be appreciated that there are many possible positions to take on the issue, something people often don’t realize. I can discuss a variety of positions on this issue privately with people who are interested (contact me privately if you want). Second, the ideological nature of the debate has led to such a feeling of disgust, among both participants and observers, that issues surrounding the debate have a bad feeling to them and are more difficult to work out. Third, while I feel that SRRT members’ arguments were often more insightful and fair to the real situation, it also has to be stated that they were often fueled by loyalty to the Cuban revolution as a real, successful socialist revolution, which the majority of SRRT members cannot be expected to appreciate or care about.

To report a bit about my experience serving on SRRT Action Council, when the Cuba issue and other contentious issues came up in our discussions, someone would often suggest that we don’t know what the majority of our members think. The idea of polling the membership would sometimes be raised for the purpose of saying that we shouldn’t do it, the reason being that people who don’t know or care much about an issue are happy to idly fill out a poll and have their vote determine something. Instead, this conversation would always conclude, we need to do a better job educating our members about what we are doing and the reasoning behind our position. Action Council has never been interested in knowing what its members think, even during times when membership was declining. (When membership was declining, there were logical reasons to cite that had nothing to do with what SRRT Action Council was doing or saying.)

I don’t know where SRRT’s membership stands on the issues that SRRT has taken up; I imagine that its views are varied (much more so than the core group, I would think). It does seem clear to me, though, that the majority of SRRT’s members are not activists and don’t view SRRT as an activist organization, while its core members do. And, over time, the awareness of an activist orientation for SRRT and support for that orientation have declined, so that for most SRRT members, SRRT is like other round tables, meaning that it is a place to associate with librarians with a shared interests. Still, the official statements of SRRT and its other activities are known, and the leadership is right to assume implicit support for those statements and actions in members’ ongoing membership. While members are free to join the SRRTAC-L listserv and share their opinions, I can tell you that the leadership for the most part has little interest in what those opinions are. Part of the reason for that is that it is rare for a member who is unknown to the leadership to step up and start talking. When one does, the question in the leaders’ minds is normally, “Who is this person?” and not so much, “How big a part of the membership does this person in effect represent?”

I call this gap between the membership and the leadership a “protracted crisis,” but there are more acute crises from time to time that SRRT deals with, or if not crises, then at least problems. The most current one involves all of these issues, and it is over control of the SRRT Newsletter. The SRRT Newsletter has a new editor, Myka Kennedy Stephens, who is not in the activist mold. It seems to me (and I should probably talk to her before writing this) that she is in SRRT because it is the place where her professional ideals are most alive in the association, but not as an opportunity to be a political activist. The core group in SRRT feels that it goes without saying that being active in SRRT (e.g. newsletter editor) means being a political activist. So, when the Myka decided to run an article by Steve Marquardt, who opposes SRRT on the Cuba question, to use a cliché, “all hell broke loose.” As the newsletter editorial board, the newsletter editor, and Action Council have been trying to work this problem out (read “new rules”), there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding between the newsletter editor and others stemming from these different basic assumptions about what SRRT is and what it means to be involved in it.

So, now it seems that SRRT is facing a question. Is there support among the membership to continue it’s 60s-style activist work within the association? Or do members want SRRT to be more like other round tables? Does the SRRT leadership want to know the answer? Or would it prefer to ask another question, such as, “How can we better sell what we are doing to our members?”

I used to feel that this kind of thing should stay in SRRT, but I no longer feel that way. I think it is good to talk openly about what is happening in SRRT and in other groups that we care about.

Regarding Cuba: I know some readers are going to post about Cuba in response to this, but I would ask that if you do, please don’t ignore what I have written on it in the past. The arguments I have made have been responded to many times but never answered, and I am too tired of the discussion to continue in that manner. Posts concerning Cuba in response to this are off-topic, and I might decide not to approve them if they don’t add anything new.

Just released: SRRT Newsletter – Issue 169, December 2009.

This issue has messages from the editor and the SRRT AC Coordinator; articles about Banned Books Week and Operation Teen Book Drop; speeches from the 40th Anniversary Celebration; Task Force News, a proposed change to the Bylaws, and book reviews.

ALA has announced that they have chosen Barbara M. Jones to be the new head of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, replacing the long-serving Judith Krug, who passed away in April.

The ALA Press Release quotes Jones describing the present day context of intellectual freedom in her letter of application:

Twenty-first century IF issues are evolving quickly from those of the twentieth, due to the following: globalization of intellectual freedom issues; technology and privacy concerns; and an increasingly contentious civic discourse as witnessed in the recent health care Town Meetings…New intellectual freedom issues will need to be articulated in terms of our unchanging IF ideals – to the ALA membership, the general public, and to the organizations with which ALA collaborates.

I am very happy to see the new head of the OIF taking a broader view of Intellectual Freedom. It looks to me like the search committee made a very good choice. It will be very interesting to see what role the new OIF plays in things.

This post is a presentation of two lists of priorities – first, priorities of the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT), and second, a list of the kind of issue that I think SRRT ought to emphasize instead. The first list is as complete a list as I was able to compile of the subjects of SRRT’s official resolutions from mid-2002 to mid-2005 (the time during which I was SRRT Action Council Coordinator). The second is a list of many of the important progressive issues in librarianship according to the way I personally see things. They are the issue areas that have given me my motivation as an activist and now a publisher in librarianship. Because those issues have been my priorities but not always SRRT’s or the Progressive Librarians’ Guild’s, I often felt out of place in those groups even as an insider.

First, the list of topics addressed by SRRT’s official resolutions between mid-2002 and mid-2005 (at least the ones I was able to find):

• Torture
• Health insurance
• The Iraq war (a number of these)
• The war in Afghanistan
• Freedom to travel to Cuba
• Workplace speech
• Disinformation in the public sphere (this one was actually initiated by me)
• Cultural democracy as a core value
• Racist training materials used by the U.S. Military
• ALA partnerships and sponsorships

This is a very partial list, but based on my own memory I think it gives a fair representation of the scope and proportion of SRRT’s resolutions. I personally agreed with a lot of these resolutions.

The resolution on disinformation, which had to do with Bush administration tactics, arose from a discussion within Action Council in which I complained that too many of SRRT’s resolutions were not directly related to library issues or even issues of information ethics in general. In answer to the question, “What do you propose we do instead?” I drafted an earlier, unused version of that resolution. Part of the fallout of that discussion was that some members of action Council began encouraging me to try the Intellectual Freedom Round Table as a better place to pursue my priorities.

Here is my own list, not exhaustive, of the kind of issues and topics that I would like to see addressed from a progressive perspective and in an organized way. Some of them concern intellectual freedom, but most do not. They could all be said to be in the realm of information ethics, and in most cases have a political angle that can be drawn out through a bit of intellectual work.

• Privacy (of library users, web users, and citizens)
• Copyright and the Open Access Movement
• Workplace speech
• Deprofessionalization and deskilling
• Librarians’ pay and status
• “Next generation library catalogs”
• Cataloging trends
• Market effects on intellectual freedom (media monopoly)
• Academic Freedom
• Internet filtering
• Net neutrality
• Information as a public good
• Disinformation
• Government secrecy
• Privatization of information and information services
• Trends favoring casual users over researchers
• The dumbing down of culture and of educational institutions
• Funding crises / library closings
• The decline of publishing / changes in the publishing industry
• Digitization as a funding priority
• Conflict over the foundations of the library profession
• Education 2.0 and critical thinking
• Critical perspectives on multiple literacies and media shift
• The digital divide
• The literacy divide
• The middle class bias of public libraries
• Serving the underserved
• Racism and sexism and libraries
• Capitalism and trends in the information landscape
• Library of Congress priorities
• American Library Association priorities
• OCLC priorities
• Library education and the iSchools
• Media, information overload, and the educational psychology of reading
• Critical pedagogy and library instruction
• Queer theory, information access, and information organization
• Neutrality and advocacy
• Bias in systems of information organization
• The crisis in journalism and its meaning for the public sphere
• Change in the nature of the public sphere
• The digital preservation crisis
• The role of local perspectives and local needs
• Commercialization of libraries
• Corporate funding (of libraries, of ALA)
• Indigenous knowledge and Intellectual Freedom
• Intellectual Freedom and hate literature/hate speech
• Research standards in the profession / bias in research
• Googlization
• Google Books settlement

First, to be fair to the Progressive Librarians’ Guild, I should say that they have often done a better job than SRRT of addressing many of these big-picture issues. Also, to be fair to SRRT, I should mention that many SRRT members are not interested in the resolutions that SRRT Action Council passes and do their work within the issues-based Task Forces that are a part of SRRT, and I have not represented their activities here.

To me, the issues on the second list have as much urgency as the war in Afghanistan, and are within a sphere which we can claim as our own by virtue of being librarians. I would like to see SRRT do more to address these kinds of issues and less to address issues that are not related to libraries. That is not to say that ALA has “no business” addressing non-library issues. I think ALA has a right to talk about the war in Afghanistan and may see the need to make statements on such issues from time to time. But I don’t think it should ever be our primary focus, not when there are urgent matters to address within our own sphere. And just because these issues relate to our professional qualifications does not make them apolitical. Part of the point of addressing these issues from a political angle would be to demonstrate the ways in which our profession is tied up with politics in various ways.

So is this a call for action? I suppose I could make it one:

• More issues of information ethics and information politics in SRRT
• More talking and thinking and writing about these issues

As always, Library Juice Press is accepting manuscripts and book proposals…

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

Events for your calendar this upcoming ALA Annual in Chicago:

Litwin Books and Library Juice Press will be sharing a booth with the Alternative Press Center in the Exhibits Hall. The Exhibits Hall is open from Saturday, July 11 at 9am until Tuesday, July 14 at 2pm. We’ll be at booth 1637. I hope you’ll drop by and say hello, look at our books, and pick up a catalog.

We will be involved in a number of events at the conference.

Saturday night
There will be a reception/party for Litwin Books and Library Juice Press at Quimby’s Books on Saturday, July 11, from 7pm and on (their schedule lists the event as ending at 8pm, but I hope it goes longer). Quimby’s is located at 1854 North Avenue, at Wolcott Street (two blocks East of Damen Ave.) For information you can call them at 773/342-0910.
http://www.quimbys.com/

Sunday morning
There will be a book signing at our booth (1637) on Sunday morning, July 12th, at 10am. Lauren Pressley will be signing her new book, So You Want To Be a Librarian.
http://libraryjuicepress.com/soyouwanttobe.php

Monday night
We will have a table at the Alternative Media Reception/SRRT 40th Anniversary Celebration, which takes place Monday, July 13, from 7pm to 10pm at the Experimental Station, in the Hyde Park neighborhood. We will be contributing a case of wine to the event. Details about it here:
http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/?p=1529

Hope to see you…

Alternative Media Reception at Annual Conference
On Monday, July 13, from 7-10 pm, the Alternative Media Reception (ALA Annual, Chicago) will join forces with the SRRT 40th Anniversary Celebration in a not-to-be-missed event featuring great food, drink, and music as well as books, zines, and other materials from progressive publishers in Chicago and all over North America.

Special guest Paul Buhle, will speak at the event with brief words on the legacy of alternative media and underground papers rooted in the 1960s. Buhle edited the recently published Studs Terkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaptation, and is founding editor of Radical America and co-author of The Encyclopedia of the American Left. We will also celebrate the 40th Anniversary of SRRT with our co-organizer, Alternative Press Center.

The location is at Experimental Station, in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Experimental Station takes its name from a 1901 Frank Lloyd Wright speech, “The Art and Craft of the Machine”, and is occupied by various collaborative projects in independent publishing, contemporary art, experimental music, organic gardening, bulk food purchasing, ecological initiatives and youth education. The event is accessible via public transportation; the Metra Electric Line departing from Millennium Park Station (Michigan Ave. and Randolph St.) services the 59th Street (University of Chicago) Station, a quick walk from Experimental Station. The CTA bus #6 Jackson Park Express also runs from The Loop (via State St.) to Hyde Park.

The all-you-can eat buffet is a reasonable $20, payable at the door. See your old friends, make new friends, catch the latest in independent perspectives, and wish SRRT another 40 years of happy activism!

For more information, contact Lyn Miller-Lachmann, mcreview(at)aol.com; 518-729-3976
Alternatives in Media Task Force http://libr.org/amtf
Alternative Press Center http://www.altpress.org/
Experimental Station http://www.experimentalstation.org/
Metra line http://metrarail.com/Sched/me/me.shtml
CTA bus line http://www.transitchicago.com/riding_cta/busroute.aspx?RouteId=165

The new issue of the SRRT Newsletter is out – Issue #167, June 2009. It has the usual updates from task forces, messages from the coordinator and editor, and book reviews. This issue also has a separate PDF supplement, a flier about SRRT’s activities at the ALA Conference in Chicago coming up.

Library Juice Press and Litwin Books will be sharing a booth with the Alternative Press Center in the exhibits hall at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, July 9-14. We will be at booth number 1637. I hope you’ll drop by and say Hi.

On Saturday night, July 11th, from 7pm to 9pm, there will be a party/reception for Library Juice Press at Quimby’s Books. You’ll be able to mingle, buy books, buy coffee and baked goods from their cafe, etc. Quimby’s is a cool bookstore that specializes in zines and underground press semi-ephemera. They are located at 1854 W. North Avenue in Chicago. The phone number there is 773-342-0910.

I have set up Facebook Events for the booth and the party/reception, so you can add those if you’re into that like me.

Judith Krug, head of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967, has died of stomach cancer at age 69. Library Journal has published an obituary rapidly; I am sure we will see something more extensive soon.

From what I have been told by people who have been a part of librarianship and active in ALA for a very long time, Judith Krug is the person to whom we owe thanks for having Intellectual Freedom as such a major part of the vocabulary of the profession. She leaves behind great achievements and a major gap….