Library Juice 1:36 - October 7, 1998
Contents: 1. Job Title Generator for librarians and information science professionals 2. Stop MAI: NATIONAL ALL-CALL DAY OCTOBER 7TH 3. National Medical Librarians Month feature on NLM Web site 4. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Citation Index (CCI) 5. Medical Library Association Scholarship for Minority Students 6. Library of Congress Finding Aids 7. Spanish language interface for OCLC FirstSearch service 8. The McLuhan List and "Project MediaGuru" 9. Is E-trash Necessary for a Good Education? (From NETFUTURE #76) 10. Letter on porn on the internet in the library 11. Letter from councilor Harger to council, on SRRT and the UNESCO discussion 12. Background on the Guinea-Bissau situation and the UNESCO discussion 13. Why librarians need funnier humor Quote for the week: "I congratulate you for having opened the doors of libraries and schools to pornographic literature." -Larry Flynt to Ken Starr, in an invitation to join the staff of Hustler magazine ______________________________________________________________________________ 1. Job Title Generator for librarians and information science professionals http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~mach/jobtitle.htm (Sent by Barbara Perry to SJSU SLIS list for students undergoing the "culminating experience," as a little comic relief.) ______________________________________________________________________________ 2. Stop MAI: NATIONAL ALL-CALL DAY OCTOBER 7TH For information on how MAI might affect libraries, see the MAI Factsheet from the British Columbia Library, at: http://www.jessamyn.com/srrt/docs/MAI_fact_sheet.html For a discussion on an alternative MAI based on citizens' rights by the Polaris Institute, see http://www.canadians.org/citizensmai.html For more information on the following action, see the Global Citizen Tradewatch "STOP MAI" page at http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/MAI/maihome.html It is a good general source of information on MAI from a critical perspective. Incidentally, prospects look good for stopping MAI, due to growing opinion that the current world financial crisis was caused by such trade "liberalization" arrangements. The juggernaut rolls on, however. Here is the message, forwarded to SRRTAC-L by Elaine Harger: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 7TH IS YOUR CHANCE TO EXPRESS YOUR OPPOSITION TO THE MAI! Take some minutes to tell them how the MAI threatens local sovereignty, and undermine our environmental and labor standards. Get all your friends and family to do the same, WE NEED TO FLOOD THEIR SWITCHBOARDS! *********************************** NATIONAL ALL-CALL DAY OCTOBER 7TH: It's time to call the ones responsible for negotiating the MAI. Tell them to withdraw from the negotiations since the MAI grants corporations unprecedented power over nations and citizens.. --> MADELINE ALBRIGHT (State Department): 202-736-4247 --> CHARLENE BARSHEFSKY (United States Trade Representative): 202-395-6890 --> JOHN PODESTA (White House): 202-456-1414 ************************************************* Margrete Strand Rangnes MAI Project Coordinator Public Citizen Global Trade Watch 215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE Washington DC, 20003 mstrand[at]citizen.org 202-546 4996, ext. 306 202-547 7392 (fax) To subscribe to our MAI Listserv send an e-mail to mstrand[at]citizen.org, or subscribe directly by going to our website, www.tradewatch.org ______________________________________________________________________________ 3. National Medical Librarians Month feature on NLM Web site To: MEDLIB-L[at]LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: National Medical Librarians Month feature on NLM Web site The Medical Library Association (MLA) has declared October as National Medical Librarians Month. In addition to the many librarians on the staff of the National Library of Medicine, NLM relies heavily on the work of medical librarians in the more than 4,500 member libraries of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. The accomplishments of nineteen of those librarians are featured in a series of pages on the NLM Web site. The main page for NLM's 1998 observance of National Medical Librarians Month can be found at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/lo/profiles98/ Monica Unger Systems Librarian, Public Services Division U.S. National Library of Medicine ______________________________________________________________________________ 4. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Citation Index (CCI) http://altmed.od.nih.gov/oam/resources/cam-ci/ The National Institutes of Health, Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) has released a prototype version of the CAM Citation Index (CCI), a bibliographic index to the scientific literature on complementary and alternative medicine which has appeared in the National Library of Medicine's Medline database from 1966 to 1997. CCI includes over 90,000 citations in the broad areas of Alternative Systems of Medicine (Traditional as well as Western medicine); Herbal and Manual Healing; Mind/Body Control; Diet, Nutrition, and Lifestyle Changes; Bioelectromagnetic Applications; and Pharmacological and Biological Treatment. Users can search by keyword or browse by Systems, Methods, or Diseases. Retrieved records can be displayed in HTML or bibliographic format. Clicking on the Home button at the bottom of the screen will take users to information about OAM, CAM, grants, research, and funding opportunities. The final version of CCI is scheduled to be released in December, 1998.[GW] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1998. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ______________________________________________________________________________ 5. Medical Library Association Scholarship for Minority Students The purpose of the Medical Library Association Scholarship for Minority Students is to encourage candidates who show excellence in scholarship and potential for accomplishment in health sciences librarianship. The applicant must be entering an ALA-accredited graduate library school or must have completed more than half of his/her graduate program in health sciences librarianship. The recipient receives student membership in MLA, and free, inclusive registration at the annual meeting. Scholarship amount: $2,000 Application deadline: December 1, 1998 For further information contact: Professional Development Department Medical Library Association 65 East Wacker Place Suite 1900 Chicago, IL 60602-4805 (312)419-9094, ext 28 Fax (312) 419-8950 mlapd2[at]mlahq.org ______________________________________________________________________________ 6. Library of Congress Finding Aids http://lcweb2.loc.gov/faid/ The Encoded Archival Description Working Group at the Library of Congress has announced the first release of a search system for archival finding aids at the LOC. These finding aids are extremely useful to researchers because they offer more detailed information on primary source material than standard catalog records, often providing "information about a collection's provenance and the conditions under which it may be accessed or copied; biographical or organizational histories related to the collection; a note describing the scope and content of the collection; and progressively detailed descriptions of the parts or components of the collection together with the corresponding call numbers [or] container numbers." The aids have been encoded in SGML using Encoded Archival Description (EAD), and search returns are available in both HTML and SGML. Users can search by keyword or browse by subject, name, collection title, or collections by date. [MD] >From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1998. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ ______________________________________________________________________________ 7. Spanish language interface for OCLC FirstSearch service To: Multiple recipients of list EQUILIBR <EQUILIBR[at]CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU> OCLC has released a Spanish language interface for the OCLC FirstSearch service. "By providing the interface in additional languages, OCLC hopes to make FirstSearch even easier to use for non-English speakers and those for who English is a second language," said Phyllis B. Spies, Vice Pres. of OCLC Worldwide Sales. All screens, including Help, appear in the language selected (Spanish or English). The content of the Spanish screens is identical to the English version. The databases are not translated, however. The Spanish interface is intended for users in Spain, Spanish-speaking Latin America, and Hispanic communities in the United States. The OCLC FirstSearch service is designed for people who use libraries and requires no training or online search experience. FirstSearch provides access to more than 75 databases, including OCLC FirstSearch Electronic Collections Online and more than a dozen full-text databases. More info. about FirstSearch can be found at http://www.oclc.org/oclc/menu/fs.htm or contact Nita Dean (614) 761-5002 or nita_dean[at]oclc.org ______________________________________________________________________________ 8. The McLuhan List and "Project MediaGuru" ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 20:26:34 -0400 (EDT) -- [Last updated on: Sun Apr 19 13:20:12 1998] "Even mud gives the illusion of depth" -- MARSHALL McLUHAN [Fomerly indexed as "THE MCLUHAN LIST"] http://www.mediaguru.org/Archive.html and you will have full access to all our archives. You can also fetch current issues here as you like! The CMS Elist -- form. ("McLuhan-List") -- was established in Jan 1995 by the Center For Media Sciences, McLuhan Research Division. We are a non-profit foundation with head office in Canada. "Project MediaGuru" is the result of over a decade of work and preparation to update and revitalize the work of the late Dr. Marshall McLuhan; to develop insights and projections involving the interface between culture and technology for the 1990's -- and beyond. Our resources include the top McLuhan scholars on the planet, as well as the original McLuhan Archives. Nelson Thall, former McLuhan archivist for The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, is Director of McLuhan Research For the Center For Media Sciences and former president of the Marshall McLuhan Center For Global Communications. Mr. Thall was a former student intern to Dr. McLuhan. This is a moderated low-traffic list, with (on average) 2.0 postings a month. We will undertake to release new material especially for this list as well as older material provided it was not originally prepared for private patrons. Special emphasis will be paid to marketing, advertising,commun- ication theory, the effects of unbridled technology on culture, alternative media, and the use of humour as a focus for social grievance. "You will not be bored." You can repost any or all of our material as long as credit is given to Project MediaGuru. If you like our work, tell your friends! Problems? Comm Office is mclr[at]total.net ***************** keep this info! ************* To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Elist , send the appropriate message to majordomo[at]astral.magic.ca: SUBSCRIBE mcluhan-list Welcome to reality at the speed of light! ***************************************** As sent to all subscribers 3/3/96: [Not archived] [message starts here] We were sent this review today, and wanted to share it with our readers: "Of several hundred thousand Internet sites, the most eclectic (lit., 'combining from different sources to serve one's purpose') may just be the monthly ezine published over the Net by Project McLuhan, 'www.magic.ca/mcl-prj'. This peculiar yet undeniably endearing publication, the offspring of the Canadian and charitable Center For Media Sciences, 'McLuhan Research Division', starts each issue with 'words of wisdom' from Nelson Thall, arguably one of the most credentialed McLuhan scholars on the planet, a gentleman whose daily agenda routinely includes interviews with the likes of TIME and the WASHINGTON POST. True to his training, Thall offers his verbal gems in a sort of McLuhanesque crytpo-speak that, at the very least, makes the reader work a bit in order to grasp the -- often razor-sharp -- point. (Thall in real life talks just like he writes, by the way -- on that we have the solemn assurance of Canadian broadcast host John Heslink who regularly faces the daunting challenge of presenting the Center, and Thall himself, to insomniac Canadians over open-line radio.) But it quickly becomes obvious that even Thall is little more than "straight man" for what follows within the body of the ezine -- some of the most discordant, jerry-rigged, piecemeal, and yet unwaveringly fascinating tidbits on cultural effects in the 90's ever served up for mass consumption anywhere, whether electronically or otherwise. A typical 'post' offers good-intentioned film reviews, humour from Dennis Miller, medical research from the JAMA, and then slam-dunks with enough conspiracy and New Age hocus-pocus to make even Tim Leary wonder if he's accidentally switched cold medications. Most interesting is that most -- if not all -- of these information 'smart bombs' come from accredited sources, with real reference citations. They have simply been re-combined in such a way as to make the constant reader wonder, to paraphrase Nietze, if he is reading the information, or the information is reading him..." [from Business*Watch, Internet Edition, Richmond Hill, Ontario] endit >>>> >>>> :-) :-) Message Ends; Signature File Begins (-: (-: George Lessard, Media Activist Community Communication Arts, Training, Management & Mentoring ---- Messages for MediaMentor List Owner mediamentor-owner[at]makelist.com ---- Messages for MediaMentor List mediamentor[at]makelist.com ---- List Archive: http://www.FindMail.com/list/mediamentor/ To Subscribe: e-mail to mediamentor-subscribe[at]MakeList.com To Unsubscribe: e-mail to mediamentor-unsubscribe[at]MakeList.com ---- Homepages http://members.tripod.com/~media002 ---- CAUTION: some of the SEMI-RANDOM QUOTES reproduced below may not be suitable for certain insensitive readers: : : : : : : : begin quote : : : : : : : Koichi Tohei [who documented Aikido] was in the Japanese Army in WWII, in China. His Ten Rules Of Daily Life: Universal mind Love all creation Be grateful Do good in secret Have merciful eyes and a gentle body Be forgiving and big hearted Think deep and judge well Be calm and determined Be positive and vigorous Persevere : : : : : : : end of quote : : : : : : : Because of the nature of email please check ALL sources & subjects. Original material (c) copyright 1998 G.A.Lessard & may be quoted, resent, reproduced, stored or forwarded provided the copyright notice is attached. Forwarded or mined material is the property of the original copyright owners. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ______________________________________________________________________________ 9. Is E-trash Necessary for a Good Education? (From NETFUTURE #76) Is E-trash Necessary for a Good Education? ------------------------------------------ Mention the heavy weight of trash on the Net as one of the reasons for not shipping young students off to cyberspace for their education, and you're guaranteed to hear the retort: "How can kids learn to discriminate good things from bad, or sense from nonsense, if we don't expose them to the junk as well as to the high-quality stuff?" Well, to begin with, when you're looking for reasons to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on wiring every classroom to the Net, you'll probably want to put the fact that "it's a great way to expose kids to garbage" somewhere near the bottom of the list. Nor is the textbook committee likely to require a certain minimum percentage of junk in each textbook, so that students can learn to recognize it. Nor will the violin teacher have his student play lousy music for the sake of the exposure. Actually, students have no problem producing lousy music, lousy reasoning, lousy judgment, quite on their own. It doesn't require much instruction. What's needed educationally is an ever more profound grasp of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Given such a grasp, you can recognize junk, but it doesn't work the other way around in quite the same way. America Screws Up ----------------- It seems we have no choice but to endure yet another promotional stunt designed to lure more kids online. This one's called "America Links Up", and since it's all too obvious that the Net isn't an especially healthy place for kids, the new promotion tries to show how the online experience *can* be safe and educational. Sponsors range from Walt Disney and Time Warner to the U.S. Department of Education, from Microsoft to the National PTA, and from the Urban League to America Online. Everything comes to a head with a national townhall meeting on Sep. 15, but meanwhile you can go to the website (www.americalinksup.org) and read the "Tips for Kids", with advice like this: Tip #2: If I see or receive something online that looks weird or bad or that makes me feel uncomfortable, I won't respond, I'll leave that area right away and tell my parents. (Do the "America Links Up" sponsors live on Mars, or what?) Actually, it's worth citing the other four tips here, since they suggest a single, overriding truth. Tip #1: I won't give out my name, age, school, address, phone number, picture or any other information about myself or my family without getting permission. Tip #3: I won't get together with anyone I meet online without getting my parents' permission first. I know people sometimes aren't who they say they are online. Tip #4: I won't open or accept e-mails, files, links, URLs or other things online from people I don't really know or trust. Tip #5: I won't give out my password to anyone but my parents or guardian, not even to my best friend. In other words: the world we're inviting these kids into is by nature a strongly anonymous and depersonalized place. "America Links Up" offers a closely related set of tips for parents. But the most striking thing about the site is all the common sense advice it does *not* give. Therefore I offer these TIPS FOR "AMERICA LINKS UP" SPONSORS: Tip #1: We won't encourage children to spend time online at the expense of their immersion in the world around them, their time spent playing with other children, or their formative experiences with caring adults and mentors. Tip #2: We won't ask children to become adults before their time -- adults who can detach themselves from their own feelings of discomfort and react "objectively and reasonably" to those feelings. Tip #3: We will steer children away from the onslaught of ads on the Net, since our aim is to see children educated rather than conditioned. Tip #4: Given the unhealthily sedentary existence from which many children already suffer in the era of television, we will try to reduce the overall time they sit in front of screens. Tip #5: We won't push children unnecessarily or prematurely into environments where we must ask them to be wary of shadowy, unseen human beings who are vaguely suggested to be capable of dark and unmentionable crimes. Tip #6: Come to think of it, maybe we'll just urge kids to stay offline until they're at least into junior high school. SLT ========================================================================== NETFUTURE is a newsletter and forwarding service dealing with technology and human responsibility. It is hosted by the UDT Core Programme of the International Federation of Library Associations. Postings occur roughly every couple of weeks. The editor is Steve Talbott, author of "The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst". Current and past issues of NETFUTURE are available on the Web: http://www.oreilly.com/~stevet/netfuture/ http://www.ifla.org/udt/netfuture/ (mirror site) http://ifla.inist.fr/VI/5/nf/ (mirror site) ______________________________________________________________________________ 10. Letter on porn on the internet in the library From: LAvocado[at]aol.com Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 15:05:38 EDT To: librarians[at]tao.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: porn on the internet in the library Sender: owner-librarians[at]tao.ca Precedence: bulk Me: The desire to access porn on the internet is inversely proportional to the ability to find an actual sex partner. co-worker: No, the desire to access porn on the internet is inversely proportional to the ability to access real porn. Where I work, patrons do come to the library specifically to access porn on the net. Are they too poor or too young to go to the newstand half a block away? Are they lured by the thrill of the forbidden, getting a "dirty" sexual thrill in a place that is sacred, or at least highly dignified? Or do they enjoy the disapproval of the librarians, who don't all agree with the non-filtering policy? How harmful can information be? Does coming across porn on the internet, whether accidentally or on purpose, really hurt children? Or does the harm come from being exposed to porn by some leering adult who is getting an abusive thrill from watching the child's reaction? Don't children who are too young for porn just say "Eeuuww" and move on? Most children first see porn when they come across their father's or older brother's collection, don't they? Paul and Carol and I found a magazine that belonged to Carol's uncle and we thought it was almost as funny as as daring each other to drink pickle juice and milk, laughing so hard with mouths full that the milk started flowing through our nostrils, and then of course, laughing even more. The real tragedy of porn on the internet is that so many parents are so afraid of it. Laurie ______________________________________________________________________________ 11. Letter from councilor Harger to council, on SRRT and the UNESCO resolution (Editor's note: Councilor Blanche Woolls, Director of SJSU SLIS, originally suggested taking action in relation to UNESCO) Sender: owner-alacoun[at]ala1.ala.org Dear Councilors, This is wonderful news that Council will be considering a proposal for ALA to become a partner of UNESCO. That the proposal will be coming apparently with a supportive recommendation from the ALA Exec. Bd. is even better. I'm afraid, however, that (in light of the recent attacks on SRRT) I simply can't resist pointing out that this development originated from a SRRT-affiliated Councilor, namely Mark Rosenzweig, who launched the discussion among Councilors when he posted information about the plight of the research center in Guinea Bissau, and expressed his hope for "a very active and well-publicized liaison between ALA and Unesco and other national library associations specifically for reacting to these kinds of cultural disasters." So, here we have an _excellent_ example of just how SRRT and its members "stimulate" the association. I look forward very much to the vote on the UNESCO resolution, when I'm sure I'll be standing up to cast my vote with a _majority_!!! Elaine Harger Councilor ---------- > From: Ann K. Symons <symons[at]alaska.net> > To: ALA Council List <alacoun[at]ala1.ala.org> > Subject: UNESCO > Date: Wednesday, September 30, 1998 3:40 PM > > Dear Councilors - > > The Executive Board has been following the UNESCO messages on the Council > listserv. The officers, including the Executive Director, had a regularly > scheduled conference call yesterday. > > Here are the answers to some of your questions: > > ALA has passed numerous resolutions regarding UNESCO going back to the > 70's. These include resolutions on UNESCO Funding (1/77), A U.S. Permanent > Representative to UNESCO (7/81), Continued United States Membership in > UNESCO (1/84), United States Membership in UNESCO (6/84) and the 7/91 > resolution urging the United States to return to UNESCO. > > These resolutions were brought to Council by the International Relations > Committee with the concurrence of the ALA Legislation Committee. > > On UNESCO's website there is reference to a UNESCO partners program. ALA > is currently not a UNESCO partner and Bill Gordon is looking into what it > would take to be a UNESCO partner. > > I have talked with Councilor Andrea Gruhl and asked her to talk with Pat > Schuman, Chair of ALA's International Relations Committee, about how to > bring this forward at Midwinter. > ______________________________________________________________________________ 12. Background on the Guinea-Bissau situation and the UNESCO discussion Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 10:20:22 -0400 From: Mark Rosenzweig <LIBRFMCR[at]OFFICE.HOFSTRA.EDU> To: alacoun[at]ala.org Cc: iskra[at]earthlink.net Subject: SOS:National Institute for Studies and Research/ Guinea-Bisseau Mime-Version: 1.0 A major research institution in Guinea-Bisseau is being destroyed in a civil war. It is the core of what would be Guuinea-Bisseau's National Library. (see attached). Are there Councilor's who would be interested in investigating this further and formulating a resolution of protest at this wanton destruction? Please advise. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ S. O. S THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STUDIES AND RESEARCH OF GUINEA-BISSAU ENDANGERED BY WAR ENTIRE PAGES OF THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY RISK BEING BLANK The war which flared up in Guinea-Bissau on 7 June 1998, between the Military Junta representing 90 per cent of the armed forces reinforced by veterans of the armed struggle for national liberation, and the remaining 10 per cent supported by troops from Senegal and Guinea-Conakry solicited by the Head of State, has already exacted a heavy toll, even if the precise details still remain unclear. To the unknown number of deaths, can be added some 250,000 displaced persons and refugees, and the enormous material destruction caused by intense bombardment with heavy artillery during 50 days of confrontation. Among the infrastructures most affected by the destruction is the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisa (INEP), which is the largest and most active research institution in the country. The complex housing INEP is located less than a kilometre from the initial front-line of the hostilities. It has been transformed into an advanced post of the Senegalese troops. The transformation of the complex into an army barrack and the adverse bombardments it consequently attracted have caused immense damages. Thanks to the cease fire signed on 25 August 1998, a few staff members of INEP were authorized, after enormous difficulties, to visit their place of work. The preliminary balance-sheet can be summarized in one word: DISASTER. All the workrooms were forcibly opened, emptied of their contents and transformed into dormitories for soldiers. All work documents were thrown outside and left exposed to the elements. The stock of dozens of computers containing data bases on all aspect of Guinea-Bissau, compiled carefully and painstakingly during the past fifteen years, has disappeared. The computers left behind have been disemboweled. Sensitive and very rare equipment, such as the only digital cartography table in the country, is thrown outside and left exposed to dust and rain. The INEP Library, embryo of the National Library and reference centre of all publications in the country as well as for certain United Nations agencies like FAO and UNESCO, is roofless and damaged on the sides. The torrential rains which have fallen on Bissau since the end of June have constantly entered the building. Its three floors - first, ground and basement - have been transformed into pools where thousands of soaked and irrecoverable books and journals float. The National Archives at INEP are scattered, shredded and exposed to rain and dirt. Hundreds of audio cassettes which record the history of the national liberation struggle, as told by its actors and witnesses, cannot be found. Hundreds of audio cassettes which record the oral history of the different regions of the country have disappeared. Photographs and films from the Audiovisual Archives are found dispersed and lying in the mud outside. In other words, entire pages of the history of Guinea-Bissau risk being irredeemably blank or illegible. This is particularly serious in view of the fact that no general history of Guinea-Bissau has yet been written, and that all recent efforts of the Institute have been geared towards this objective. To summarize, the damages suffered by INEP have reduced to zero the enormous efforts made since Independence to provide the country with a centre of documentation and research useful to all those interested in Guinea-Bissau. At the time of writing, INEP continues to be a military camp, in spite of the cease fire. The staff of the Institute is forbidden to engage in work to rehabilitate or save it from further destruction. Relentlessly, the disaster continues. This letter to inform is also an SOS for the largest research institution of Guinea-Bissau which is threatened by extinction. As soon as INEP ceases to be a military barrack, a more detailed balance-sheet will be made available. It will be followed by our project for reconstruction. We urge you to forward this SOS message to all friends of INEP that you know, as well as to all institutions and individuals who attach value to intellectual production. The Management Council of INEP ------------------------------------------------------------------ -More on Guinea-Bissau situation and needed response. Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 15:02:55 -0400 From: Ismail Abdullahi <abdull[at]cau.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 To: AL Kagan <akagan[at]uiuc.edu> Subject: [Fwd: FYI: National Institute of Studies and Research of Guinea-Bissau] Status: ----------- Begin Forwarded Message ------------ Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 From: Mustafah Dhada, SIAD Clark Atlanta University <dhada[at]mindspring.com> The status of INEP I am afraid is very discouraging. The destruction of the archival materials is near total. It would appear that the offenders according to Peter, _ are determined to wipe out the collective memory of the people. The actors of an important episode of the history of the country, they are themselves bent on erasing all traces of that past by the ongoing wanton destruction of the country. It is like allowing the bombardment and destruction of the Public Records Office at Kew Gardens or the Archives Nationales here in Dakar!_ It is early days yet to contemplate a strategy of INEP reconstruction as fighting continues by all accounts and the situation remains unstable in Bissau. In the meantime, moves are afoot here in the United States to form a committee to help INEP and Peter in devising a strategy of reconstructive partnership. To this end several of us Guinea Bissau scholars are beginning to duplicate materials in our possession respectively. If you have materials on the subject, and are willing to give copies thereof to INEP then let me know. I will put you on my briefing list and coordinate the effort with Peter and the others in Dakar. It is unlikely that moves to send materials will happen overnight - given the lack of political stability in Bissau. Needless to add, we look forward to hearing constructive suggestions from the scholarly community in ways to help with the future of INEP. Please use dhada[at]mindspring.com as the address to which you should send your communication. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ] From: "Elaine Harger" <eharger[at]tao.agoron.com> To: ALA Council List <alacoun[at]ala1.ala.org> Subject: Re: UN/UNESCO and Libraries Position Paper & Resolution Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 17:51:20 -0400 X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: eharger[at]tao.agoron.com Sender: owner-alacoun[at]ala1.ala.org Colleagues, I'd like to voice my support for any efforts ALA Council can make to support and cooperate with UN and UNESCO projects relating to libraries _and_ to the peaceful resolution of political conflicts. The situation of the National Institute of Study and Reasearch of Guinea-Bissau is tragic. Archives, photographs, audio cassettes, books, computer databases thrown into the streets, exposed to rain and mud, confiscated by armed forces engaged in another senseless civil war. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. The current issue of the magazine "Lingua Franca" has an article about a law recently passed in Serbia that places draconian restrictions on universities described in LF as "more repressive...than any Europe has seen since Nazi Germany." The article does not mention the resulting impact on libraries, but clearly there will be closings, firings, selective "weeding" and outright destruction of library materials. Military conflicts are a serious threat in many parts of the world to libraries. ALA must to everything it can to urge the US government to support UN peace-making activities and to _pay its dues_. And, ALA should also keep in mind that these military conflicts that destroy libraries and intellectual freedom are often rooted in economic inequities and tensions that are supported by US foreign and economic policies. Elaine Harger Councilor-at-Large Newark, NJ ______________________________________________________________________________ 13. Why librarians need funnier humor This was originally forwarded to srrtac-l by Fred Stoss, who noted that the jokes are supposed to be funny: ^^^^^^^^ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 20:31:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Elizabeth Lorbeer <lorbeer[at]bu.edu> [Ye, Liz is a librarian in the Boston-area) Top ten slogans for buttons to be worn by librarians: 10. Is that a barcode reader in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? 9. I'm a cataloger. Please speak clearly and spell proper nouns. 8. Where's your title page, godammit? 7. I read AACR2 in bed...what do you do in bed? 6. "Cybrarian" doesn't quite cover it...I'm a WEB GODDESS. 5. Yes, I'm a librarian. No, I can't clear your overdue fines for you. 4. Stranger on plane: "You're a librarian? Oh--I have some overdue books." Librarian: "Yes...I know." 3. Please, please, don't ask me for any more books about dinosaurs. 2. Everything you've heard about librarians is true, except the part about wearing glasses and buns and being boring. 1. The American Library Association conference: 14,000 librarians in search of alcohol, sex, and cheap reference materials. ______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ | | | # # ##### ##### ## ##### # # | | # # # # # # # # # # # # | | # # ##### # # # # # # # | | # # # # ##### ###### ##### # | | # # # # # # # # # # # | | ###### # ##### # # # # # # # | | | | | | # # # # #### ###### | | # # # # # # # | | # # # # # ##### | | # # # # # # | | # # # # # # # # | | #### #### # #### ###### | | | | | | http://www.libr.org/Juice/ | | | | Except where noted, items appearing in Library Juice | | are copyright-free, so feel free to share them with | | colleagues and friends. Library Juice is a free weekly | | publication edited by Rory Litwin. Original senders | | are credited wherever possible; opinions are theirs. | | Your comments and suggestions are welcome. | | mailto:Juice[at]libr.org | |__________________________________________________________|
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Date: Thursday, October 29, 1998 12:00 PM