AP Reading Poll
What do people who don't read books do when they travel or can't sleep? An AP poll of U.S. reading habits found that 1 in 4 people did not read a single book last year.
Leaflet with the Wobblies
A friend asked me if I could help out with an IWW leafleting campaign. Since I'm too damned busy with other projects I declined but offered instead to help publicize the effort.
Putting in just one night a month can be a great act of solidarity with working people here in New York. The NYC Industrial Workers of the World is asking all members and supporters to put in 2 hours a month to help support the 460 warehouse workers campaign.
Union Librarian -- Vancouver Library Workers Strike
A great big (and long overdue) shout out of support to the striking library workers in Vancouver and to Kathleen de la Peña McCook over at the Union Librarian blog for documenting their struggle. Shinjoung Yeo also contributed an excellent post on the Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship blog that illuminates the connection between female professions and shitty pay.
Progressive Library Skillshare Pittsburgh
Progressive Library Skillshare
September 7 & 8, 2007 - Pittsburgh, PA
completely FREE and open to everyone
Library Camp NYC 2007 report back
Yesterday I went to Library Camp, an unconference held at Baruch College, and it was good. Perhaps the best library conference I've ever attended, in fact.
This is a way long post, so I'm going to split it up into three additional sections: blogging and microblogging, effect change, and green librarianship. This is the overview.
Library Camp NYC 2007: Green Librarianship
The last session I attended at Library Camp was "Green librarianship: recycle, reuse, both print and e-tools, paper alternatives, green leadership in our inst., collaborate with publishers, hardware vendors." It was conceived and facilitated by Brita Servaes. I was thrilled that the topic was even proposed, and that the discussion was attended by at least 20 people (which is about the same as the other sessions I went to--20 out of 150 people when there were 8 sessions to choose from).
Read more, or you might want to read my overview of the whole day first.
Library Camp NYC 2007: Effect Change
I led this session, so I don't have particularly good notes from it. Andrea's notes should be up on the Library Camp page soon, though.
I came up with the idea for this session that morning, having originally planned on pitching my standard zine librarianship and/or Radical Reference talks. Somehow I figured out in time that Library Camp sessions should be broader than that--and more conducive to an equal discussion, and I hit on "Effecting change at your library: develop a collection (e.g., zines) a program, whatever."
Read more. You might want to read my overview of the whole day first.
Library Camp NYC 2007: Blogging & Microblogging
I went to Blogging and Microblogging since I'm a bit curious about Twitter. It turns out there's another microblogging tool called Pownce that was also discussed. After the session, I remain curious but unconvinced. One attendee said that Twitter, rather than sucking up more time, as I fear it would, helps you do things faster (e.g. takes away the pressure to write loooong blog posts like this one).
Read more. You might want to read my overview of the whole day first, though.
ABC No Rio Building Fund Appeal
ABC No Rio -- Trying to raise a million bucks.
When the typical users of your space are young activists, punks, anarchists, freegans, "early career" artists, and the like, raising the dough to save that space is double plus not easy.