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Archive for August, 2008


The dangers of crown copyright

Published August 26th, 2008 in censorship, freedom of expression, open government | 1 Comment »

This is the title of an interesting post by a colleague, Olivier Charbonneau. He writes about how the Harper government is refusing to make public a report by Health Canada that link Global warming to health problems. The government insists that the document is too big, and thus can only be provided on demand. A physician for Health Canada has therefore decided to make the report freely available for download on his blog. More info here and here.

Charbonneau mentions how in the USA, the government does not retain copyright on its publications, and that they are automatically put into the public domain, making them available immediately, without barriers to access. However true that may be, it does not stop the American government from pressuring scientists to submit reports that are convenient to the government, or have those reports rewritten by government policy makers. The Union of Concerned Scientists set up a webpage documenting political interference in science. Here is one example of how the government interefered with (and played down) a Congressional testimony on the dangers of global warming to public health.

Seems like the Harper government is taking notes.

The State of the Publishing Industry in Canada

Published August 7th, 2008 in indie publishing | 1 Comment »

Hugh McGuire has an insightful look at the publishing industry in Canada from the point of view of a first time author:

Chapters/Indigo has reduced space for books from 70% to 60%. The rest is candles and calendars (…) The result is that publishers aren’t taking many new writers. The big presses have kicked out their smaller performers; who are now getting picked up by the mid-range presses, meaning that mid-range presses aren’t taking new young writers any more, and small presses are swamped with manuscripts from both published and unpublished writers…with nowhere to sell their books.

Where do libraries fit in all this? How can libraries help to promote small independent presses and new authors? A post last year on LibrarianActivist gives a short reading list of articles on the topic. Here are a few more:

M. K. Browning. 1984. The Small Press and the Library A View from Confluence. Serials Librarian. 9(1):37-41.

“Small” presses are those which, because of the nature of their operations, put out short runs (250 to over one or two thousand copies) of the best efforts of regional poets and writers. There are a number of these adventitious industries alive and well in the Northwest. Regional and academic librarians should know of and support their efforts because they perform a vital function culturally speaking. They help to set the parameters of a genuine regional literature clearly and advantageously because they can and do foster a certain professional competition at their level.

Byron Anderson. 2006. Alternative Publishers of Books in North America, 6th Edition.

The directory is a unique reference tool that gathers information on significant alternative presses and places this under one cover. The information attempts to educate and bring more awareness of alternative presses to librarians and others interested in these publications.

Byron Anderson. May 2006. Getting Alternative Press Titles into Libraries. Alternatives in Publication Task Force. Social Responsibilities Round Table. American Library Association.

List of ideas for libraries and librarians on how to promote small presses.

Byron Anderson. January 2008. Bibliographic and Web Tools for Alternative Publications. from ALA’s Alternative Media Task Force.

Bookseller with largest collection of books about Afghanistan now online

Published August 5th, 2008 in other | No Comments »

Thanks to Nathan Whitlock of the Quillblog for this link to an article from the CBC, about Afghani bookseller, Shah Muhammad Rais, who you may remember from The Bookseller of Kabul. I couldn’t find the website, if it’s up yet, but there is contact info here.