Reading Spaces

Sex & The Library: Progressive Librarian: London Chapter Event

Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 2:30. Visual Arts Centre 100.

Cdn Assoc for Info Science 2011: CFP

Annual Conference Theme: Information in a Local and Global Context

from the website: The theme of the CAIS/ACSI 2012 conference relates to how information is searched, retrieved, used, made sense of, and understood in a local and global context. The cultural, political, sociological, technological, and historial contexts are central in understanding how people interact with information. The conference will provide information scientists and practitioners with a forum for the presentation and debate of innovative research on all aspects of the evolving field of information science. The conference committee strongly encourages submissions from both practitioners and academics.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Social information diffusion
• The unique needs of local libraries
• Information in a global world
• The Internet as a source of local and global information
• Language as a connecting force in global communication
• Social networking technologies (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter)
• Mapping and visualization of information, social spaces, and networks

Call for proposals. We welcome proposals for CAIS/ACSI 2012. Proposals may be submitted in English or French. Practitioners and doctoral candidates are especially invited to submit proposals for the conference. Guidelines will be posted to www.cais-acsi.ca.

See the call at the CAIS/ACSI website

YALSA's new research agenda

The YALSA Research Committee has put forward 4 priority areas for research:

Priority Area 1: Impact of Libraries on Young Adults

Priority Area 2: Young Adult Reading and Resources

Priority Area 3: Information Seeking Behaviors and Needs of Young Adults

Priority Area 4: Informal and Formal Learning Environments and Young Adults

For full details see: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/research/researchagenda.cfm

CFP: Children in Theory for Postscript: deadline extended

Deadline extended from Nov 1 to Dec 1, 2011.

From the original call: To the degree that it is a social construction, childhood, as an idea, carries with it any number of assumptions and associations. Conversely, as a objective developmental period, childhood is interpreted in wildly different way within different contexts. Postscript: A Journal of Graduate Criticism and Theory invites articles for consideration for our Spring 2012 issue, a special edition on the theme “Children in Theory”. This issue will examine childhood from a multitude of perspectives. We welcome submissions from any humanities discipline on any aspect of children and childhood.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• literature or art for children
• representations of children
• care and discipline of children
• the education or instruction of children
• violence toward children
• the perspectives of children themselves
• the displacement of children
• childhood and class
• childhood and gender
• childhood and race

Postscript: A Journal of Graduate Criticism and Theory is an interdisciplinary journal published biannually through the Department of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland. For more see a copy of the call at the CRYTC site.

 

CFP: OCULA Student Award

The purpose of this award is "To promote OCULA to LIS students and provide an opportunity to participate in the OLA Super Conference." Deadline is November 15 -- see the website for more information on format and evaluation criteria:

http://www.accessola.org/OLA_Prod/OLAWEB/About/Awards/OCULA_Student_Award.aspx

LITA | Writing Award Guidelines

"The Library and Information Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), is pleased to offer an award for the best unpublished manuscript submitted by a student or students enrolled in an ALA-accredited graduate program.  Sponsored by LITA and Ex Libris, the award consists of $1,000, publication in LITA’s refereed journal, Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL), and a certificate.  The deadline for submission of the manuscript is February 28, 2012."

For more information on this prize for student penned manuscripts on any aspect of libraries and information technology, see the guidelines at: http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/involve/committees/exlibris/guidelines.cfm

Progressive Librarian Group: Meeting re: Neutrality

PLG meeting this week in the Grad Club Conference Room, 12pm, Wednesday October 5. Everyone is welcome.

see Cristina Naccarato's poster:

Download BeigeAlert

more reference resource controversies

In another New York Times article the controversies surrounding information in the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. Climate scientists contest claims about the speed at which Greenland's glaciers are melting, including mapping of ice-free parts of the coastline. Underlines the challenge of producing "neutral" information sources. Worth a read.

Felicity Barringer. "Scientists Want Publisher to Refreeze Greenland." NYTimes 24 September 2011, online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/science/earth/25atlas.html

Nunberg on Webster's 3rd New International Dictionary

Geoffrey Nunberg's essay in the NYT Sunday Book Review, "When a Dictionary Could Outrage" published online September 23, features the controversy that followed upon the 1961 publication of Webter's 3rd New International Dictionary. Nunberg tells us that the outrage went beyond the culture pages and was referred to in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories and in a New Yorker cartoon by Alan Dunn:

 

CFP: Journalism and Books

Call for Papers: The Intersection of Journalism and Books May 29, 2012 A Special Joint Session Sponsored by The CHA Media and Communication History Committee, The Bibliographical Society of Canada and The Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture The Media and Communication History Committee of the Canadian Historical Association, the Bibliographical Society of Canada and the Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture seek paper proposals for a special joint session to be held at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in spring 2012. The theme of this special joint session is “The Intersection of Journalism and Books.” Journalism is usually associated with regular, periodical publication or broadcast, while books are typically published individually, the timing of their appearance linked to the broad seasonal schedules of their publishers’ spring and fall lists. Yet there is an ongoing interplay between journalism and book publication that pre-dates the rise of the mass-audience newspaper in the late-nineteenth century and endures to the present day. In this special joint session, we would like to explore from an historical perspective “The Intersection of Journalism and Books.” As a starting point, we pose two basic questions: first, in what ways and for what reasons have journalists turned to book publication as a significant means of journalistic expression?; and, second, how and why have book publishers looked at journalists as valuable authors to place on their lists? Papers for this session might examine particular journalists whose careers encompass book publishing or book publishers whose lists are notable for the number of journalist-authored titles. Are there particular “journalistic genres” of book publication that merit attention, such as collections of previously-published newspaper columns, memoirs, or interviews originally produced for broadcast? Are there specific books that have effectively functioned as works of journalism (either non-fiction, such as Isabel LeBourdais’ work about Steven Truscott, or fiction, such as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle) or more generally had a journalistic impact? Would a closer examination of the history of book publication call into question the definition of what we consider “journalism”? Is a journalist’s movement into book publishing from other forms of journalistic expression (eg. print periodicals, broadcasting, internet) simply a normal trajectory largely driven by an ambition to address a topic at greater length than other media allow, or is there a hierarchy of value among various forms of journalistic expression that attracts journalists to the medium of the book? These are just some of the questions that might be posed in relation to the theme of this special joint session. We invite proposals for papers that reflect on particular occurrences of “The Intersection of Journalism and Books” from any part of the world, and in any period of the past. Please submit a 250-word proposal, a one-page curriculum vitae, your contact information, and a description of AV needs to:  proposals@bsc-sbc.ca (for members of the BSC or CASBC) or vipond@alcor.concordia.ca (for CHA members). Deadline for Proposals:  Sept. 25, 2011

What many of us have been saying at least since the NEA 2004 report: Young People Are Reading More Than You by Hannah Withers and Lauren Ross, in McSweeney's

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/young-people-are-reading-more-than-you

How Young Adult Fiction Came of Age - The Atlantic

How Young Adult Fiction Came of Age - The Atlantic.

Look for the New Adult section in bookstores near you.

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iV.F./i Portrait: Maurice Sendak Culture: vanityfair.com

A new book from the master of children's picturebooks: read Dave Eggers portrait of Maurice Sendak at V.F.:

iV.F./i Portrait: Maurice Sendak Culture: vanityfair.com.

Some good news about libraries

In light of all of the depressing and infuriating news of library closures, cutbacks and other gutting tactics, here is some good news from New York Public Library.

CFP: Multicultural Review: Libraries as a public good

Call for Manuscripts for Special issue of Multicultural Review
Libraries as a public good in 21st century multicultural societies: Policy and the politics of literacy, libraries and librarianship

Guest Editors: Curtis Brewer, Anne McMahan Grant (Clemson University)

When it comes to recent national budget discussions, funding for library services has come up short.  For example, a 9% cut has been proposed for the FY2012 budget to the Institute for Museum and Library Services, an organization that provides assistance to the nations libraries. (President, 2011) And, on a local level, according to a recent Library Journal poll, 72% of responding libraries said that their budgets had been cut during FY2010 with one library staff person making the pointed observation that "Public libraries are not sacred cows any more, and librarians need to accept this and make their libraries viable to protect them against future challenges" (Kelley, 2011 p. 28).   With these newly limited budgets, libraries are moving toward changing their image from the library as  a storehouse for books to the library as a "learning commons" or an "information gateway" designed to help patrons not only find information, but to help them determine good information from bad (Casserly, 2002). A strong argument could be made that the development and support for libraries as a public good are central to an ever-changing multi-cultural information society with the provision of library services playing a central role. The simple fact is that libraries are no longer merely storehouses of information.  Outreach services have expanded as more libraries have internet accessible chat services that provide a personal librarian for anyone who can access a web page.  This is especially true in academic libraries as one study found that 84% of libraries surveyed offered instant messaging services via their web page (Tripathi, 2010).  Hospitals have librarians who assist medical staff in finding crucial research for their patients (Abels, 2002). Schools and universities have librarians to train students to filter the vast amounts of information that they will encounter in their daily lives as well as to provide them access to research materials (The State of America's Libraries, 2011).  And communities have libraries that give them access to the internet, provide safe places for patrons to learn, and gives them free access to materials that could lead to public discussions that may reshape our understanding of ourselves and others (How Libraries Stack Up, 2010). Given the possibly robust dividends a public investment in libraries, librarians and literacy programs could provide, it is important to interrogate how the political and policy context are currently shaping these possibilities.
The study of politics, policy and multiculturalism makes us acutely aware of how the framing of problem definitions, research and policies shapes public understanding of an issue (Fraser 1989; Hajer and Waagner 2003). Therefore, in this special issue we seek to pay close attention to how dominant values, institutionalized power, privilege, and the policy process itself interact to frame and reframe literacy, libraries and librarians as political issues in multicultural societies in the early twenty-first century.  We seek articles that will help make sense of this changing policy environment for all practitioners concerned with libraries or literacy.

In this special issue of the Multicultural Review we ask for manuscripts that might address the following questions:

1.    What is the state of the politics of libraries in these times of retrenchment? What knowledge might help practitioners navigate the changing policy contexts?

2.    How do the dominant values within our society create avenues for change or act as barriers in the development of policies that address libraries, librarians and literacy?

3.    What are the experiences of patrons and those working in libraries across multiple contexts in this time of retrenchment?

4.    How are librarians and supporters of public libraries currently influencing the creation of policy?

5.    How do the dominant political discourses constitute the library as a public institution and how is this related to inequality?

6.    What role do libraries and literacy programs play in the creation of space for a more democratic, deliberative and inclusive forms of political participation?
We assume each manuscript should clearly articulate a conceptual framework grounded in, and informed by theory and relevant research. We want to emphasize the importance of maintaining a focus on the politics of your substantive topic/area in your work, including political theories that interact with multicultural theory when relevant.  We would also like to emphasize the breadth of the readership of MCR and encourage authors explicitly show the relevancy of their argument to the work in the field.
Possible themes may include:

*         The role of interest group development in the change of literacy policy

*         A critical analysis of the racialization of libraries and librarianship advocacy and their relationships to the growing digital divide.

*         The ways in which political theories around social movements and fearless speech can shape the potential for the reframing of political discourses.

*         The use of radical democratic theory to inform the advocacy discussions surrounding literacy and libraries.

*         The use of feminist theory to analyze the development of politics of library and/or literacy policy.

*         An institutional analysis of the interactions between accountability policy, library policy and literacy policy in a multicultural society.

*         An economic/structural analysis of the distribution of funding for libraries and literacy programs

*         An historical account of the development and evolution of the federal involvement in the public library in order to shed light on our current policy debates for all those who are currently working as practitioners.


For this special issue of the Multicultrual Review we invite papers that interrogate and challenge the assumptions within the themes described above. Submissions may be either qualitative, quantitative or interpretive/conceptual manuscripts that address the questions and areas outlined above will be considered. Manuscripts should meet the 6th edition of APA Publication Manual and a maximum of 8000 words in length. The deadline for submission is September 15, 2011. Please direct questions or abstracts to the guest editors Curtis Brewer (brewer4@clemson.edu ) and Anne McMahan Grant (anne1@clemson.edu)

Sources
Abels, Eileen G., Keith W. Cogdill, and Lisl Zach. The contributions of library and information services to hospitals and academic health sciences centers: a preliminary taxonomy, J Med Libr Assoc. 2002 July; 90(3): 276-284.

Casserly, Mary. Developing a Concept of Collection for the Digital Age. portal: Libraries and the Academy, Volume 2, Number 4, October 2002, pp. 577-587.

Fraser, N. (1989). Unruly practices: Power, discourse and gender in contemporary
social theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Hajer, M. A., & Wagenaar, H. (Eds.). (2003). Deliberative policy analysis: Understanding governance in the network society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

How Libraries Stack Up: 2010, OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) Report.

Kelley, M. Bottoming out: Severe cuts today put big question marks on the future. Library Journal (1976) v. 136 no. 1 (January 2011) p. 28-31.

President Obama's Budget Strips FY2012 Funding. American Libraries v. 42 no. 3/4 (March/April 2011) p. 8.

The State of America's Libraries 2011 - A report by the American Library Association, April, 2011.

Tripathi, Manorama and Sunil Kumar. Use of Web 2.0 tools in academic libraries: A reconnaissance of the international landscape. The International Information & Library Review Volume 42, Issue 3, September 2010, p.195-207

Patrick Ness wins Carnegie Medal for Monsters of Men

The Chaos Walking series by expat American YA author, Patrick Ness, is among my favourites. I don't have time right now to give all the reasons why I highly recommend it, and I'm still mulling over the conclusion, but I'm happy to see the books receive this kind of recognition. The writing is at times, truly, breath-taking. He can certainly turn a very nice phrase. The Carnegie medal is awarded by a committee of librarians, and Ness gives a quote-worthy defense of libraries in his acceptance speech. To read more about the Carnegie, library cuts and Patrick Ness see this article in the Bookseller, this BBC article, or this Guardian article.

YAAN: prototypical social media for ya librarians

I just came across this article by Cindy Welch, an LIS prof at the University of Tennessee. Welch illustrates how the Young Adult Alternative Newsletter (YAAN) provided a forum for youth advocates in North America in the 70s to share ideas, but importantly, it also provided a place for support, professional identity and political expression. We hear the voices of early advocates like Mary K. Chelton, Joni Bodart, Larry Amey (editor of a Canadian newsletter, Young Adult Hotline) among others. The histories of young adult library services are few and far between, so it was a pleasure to find this one. The host site for this article, In the Library with the Lead Pipe, is pretty interesting too and worth a closer look.

Tamora Pierce on 'Twilight,' Girl Heroes, and Fantasy Birth Control - The Atlantic

Tamora Pierce on 'Twilight,' Girl Heroes, and Fantasy Birth Control - The Atlantic.

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel wins CLA Children's and YA Book Awards

The author reports on his double award on his blog. Half Brother is an excellent book -- challenging, interesting, timely, beautifully written and suitable for all ages. I loved it. But, I can't decide how I feel about the same title being granted both awards. The cons for me: 1) it makes it seem as though the field of production is so small, that we need to double up awards, 2) it takes away the uniqueness of the young adult field if books that are suitable for all ages can be nominated and win the YA award. For what it's worth, Half Brother for me, is solidly in the YA camp, but that wouldn't stop me from recommending it to strong younger readers. The pros: 1) really good books float to the top, regardless of age category, 2) the resistance of age categories suggests the kind of wiliness that is such a big part of reading -- you just can't pin readers down.