ALA drawing the line on social activism?

Is there really a line to be drawn on social justice? Is it possible to separate our role as providers of information and through this information, making the world a just and more equitable place for all? Unfortunately, ALA seems to think so:

ALA MEMBERSHIP MEETING I
Saturday, June 26, 2004
3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
Room 415A
Featured Topic: ALA and Social Activism: Where to Draw the Line?
ALA members can give their views on whether ALA should increase or decrease its social action efforts

source: NYLINE listserv

Labour bibliography for kids

Nathalie Patel, a children's librarian at Vancouver Public Library, has compiled a bibliography of children's and YA books on left and labour themes. The Centre for Labour Studies at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, has put the bibliography on its site.

source: Mark Leier, A-librarians listserv

The benefits of open access to library literature

For a librarian's eye-view of Open Access, have a look at this article by Heather G. Morrison:
Professional Library and Information Associations Should Rise to the Challenge of Promoting Open Access and Lead by Example, Library Hi Tech News Vol. 21 no. 4 2004, p. 8-10. A copy of this article is freely available from the Simon Fraser University Library D-Space.

The following are some examples of Canadian Open Access initiatives:

Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Institutional Repository Project
Simon Fraser University D-Space
Bioline International
The Public Knowledge Project
The National Library of Canada’s Theses Canada Portal

source: BCLA listserv

June 14, 2004

Video activism

The Human Rights Video Project is a national library project created to increase the public's awareness of human rights issues through the medium of documentary films.

"The program also aims to build a broad community of filmmakers, librarians, activists, teachers and other citizens interested in using independent video to effect social change in their communities. We believe in the importance the public library as a place for community discussion and learning, and we hope that this project will create new, powerful alliances between public libraries and local advocacy organizations."

source: PLGNet-L

June 11, 2004

Build The People's School Library

People's School, is a free community-learning project in Providence, Rhode Island. They are holding workshops all summer for ideas on how to build an alternative library: a collection that can include books, magazines, newspapers, and anything else to connect people with information they are seeking (books in Spanish and other languages, information on knowing your rights, guides to community groups, etc)

source: Thanks Chris!

GATS Update

Ellen Gould prepared a wonderful report for the CLA on the state of the WTO/GATS negotiations.

"The failure of the WTO's Cancun ministerial meeting does mean that the January 2005 deadline for conclusion of this round of GATS negotiations is unlikely to be met. (...) Countries are being subjected to very aggressive negotiating demands across the full range of services, including library services specifically and education and cultural services generally."

Anarchist library in London

The Kate Sharpley Library is dedicated to restoring the history of the anarchist movement and regularly publishes lost areas of anarchist history. They also publish a quaterly Bulletin.

source: Thanks Judy!

June 7, 2004

Another dire report on the state of school libraries in Canada

A June 3rd report by an Ontario organization called the People for Education reveals major flaws in Ontario provincial education funding. It also emphasizes the crisis in school libraries. Here are some of the findings:

In 2004, schools have fewer teacher-librarians, fewer of them are working full-time and nearly one-quarter of school libraries are open only part-time.
Full-time teacher librarians are increasingly rare in elementary schools - a decline of 80% in seven years. In fact, 10% of schools reported a full-time teacher-librarian, unchanged from 2002/03, but a significant drop from 51% of schools in 1997/98.
Soon only the very largest of Ontario's elementary schools will have teacher-librarians, guidance teachers or full-time vice-principals. There are also regional differences: In central Ontario, 89% of schools were staffed with a teacher-librarian, compared to 16% in northern Ontario.
Schools are more likely to hire less well paid and part time library technicians rather than full-time teacher librarians.

All of this, even though research shows that well-equipped school libraries staffed by teacher-librarians contribute to the creation of "capable and avid readers, learners who are information literate, teachers who are partnering with the teacher librarians to create high-quality learning experiences."

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