Library Juice 4:41

Library Juice 4:41 - November 16, 2001

A second issue late in the week, something which I'm not planning to do
again anytime soon.
This email has been scanned for anthrax. Ha-CHEW!

Contents:

Google hunts wabbits
"Rory, Finally! A Library That Fits Your Lifestyle"
Free Expression after September 11
Information Lockdown
Bibliotecologia Sociologica
Deadline extended fo the "2nd" Cuba Library Tour
U-C IMC Library
Librarians in the 21st Century
Forum on Freedom and Diversity of Expression and the First Amendment
Papers from the Conference on the Public Domain
Internet Librarian 2001
UCITA opposition turns up heat
Letter from SAA President regarding crappy new Executive Order
WTO gets serious about GATT.ORG; GATT.ORG gets more GATT.ORG-like
New zine review column on NewPages.com by Sean Stewart
FOS Newsletter and Forum
Social inclusion and libraries - a resource guide
Rosenzweig responds to Litwin's response to Berman (of the last issue)
"The Progressive Librarians Council and its Founders"

Second quote for the week:
"Watch out for those librarians - they'll shush you back to the stone age."
-David Grenier, annotating his web log link to "Librarians Against War."

Second homepage of the week: David McCusker
http://www.pitt.edu/~dnm15/
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1. Google hunts wabbits
Google keeps piling on the new features. A fun one can be found at
this link:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=xx-elmer&q=%22I%27m+hunting+wabbits%22
The key part of that URL is "hl=xx-elmer". It can pay to deconstruct the
URLs formed by your web searches. Once you know how they work you can
do your searches just by typing a URL (not that it's easier or anything,
just cool).
Readers who know other Google tricks are encouraged to send them to me.
- Rory (at) libr.org
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2. "Rory, Finally! A Library That Fits Your Lifestyle"
"We Live in a Much Smaller World These Days
The Internet's ability to cross the globe's geographical boundaries has
bridged the thousands of miles that separate countries. Thanks to the speed
of the Web, sharing information is virtually instantaneous. That means
learning about customs and traditions in other lands is just a click away.
Questia gives you a unique source of online information where you can
instantly find information on many traditions and holidays, celebrated just
about anywhere in the world."
...That, friends, was an excerpt from some spam sent to me by Questia.
Puking is just a click away...
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3. Free Expression after September 11
http://www.ncac.org/issues/freeex911.html
This site "catalogs the various incidents of
censorship and suppression of speech that are a
direct result of the events of September 11th." From
the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).
Subjects: Freedom of speech | World Trade
Center-Pentagon Terrorist Attacks, 2001
From Librarians' Index to the Internet - http://lii.org/
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4. Information Lockdown
Bruce Shapiro
November 12, 2001
The Nation
Viewers of the old spy spoof Get Smart will remember the Cone of
Silence--that giant plastic hair-salon dryer that descended over Maxwell
Smart and Control when they held a sensitive conversation. Today, a Cone of
Silence has descended over all of Washington: From four-star generals to
lowly webmasters, the town is in information lockdown. Never in the
nation's history has the flow of information from government to press and
public been shut off so comprehensively and quickly as in the weeks
following September 11. Much of the shutdown seems to have little to do
with preventing future terrorism and everything to do with the
Administration's laying down a new across-the-board standard for
centralized control of the public's right to know....
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011112&s=shapiro
..........
Anthrax information lockdown
From "Anthrax Anxiety," The Nation, November 5, 2001
"The political culture has left public health so far behind that official
Washington seems to have taken little notice of the near-complete absence
of the nation's top medical officials from the media as the anthrax cases
spread. Remember Surgeon General David Satcher? A quick Nexis search
reveals only two mention of Satcher in the scare's first five days.
Remember the Centers for Disease Control? Doctors nationwide are
complaining that CDC and its director, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, are offering
only scant information about the detection and treatment protocols for
anthrax. For days, the public's only information came from Attorney
General John Aschcroft and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson - and
from Thompson it was often misinformation that infuriated medical
professionals. The Bush Administration seems to be applying the same
extreme strictures on medical information that it's enforcing at the
Pentagon. Researchers say off the record that everyone at CDC is terrified
of talking. Johns Hopkins's Tara O'Toole puts it this way: 'It is normal
in a criminal investigation to withhold information. But this is not a
normal situation. The public is panicking. People need information
desperately. If there is anything we have learned from past disasters, it
is that people do better with more information, even if it is disturbing
information.'"
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5. Bibliotecologia Sociologica
Profesor: Hugo Alberto Figueroa Alc?ntara
Profesor de Carrera de Tiempo Completo
http://hfigueroabsociol.tripod.com/programabs.html
This page contains spanish-language versions of some important articles on
libraries and intellectual freedom, freedom of access to information,
social responsibilities, ethics, and the social dimensions of libraries.
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6. Deadline extended fo the "2nd" Cuba Library Tour
The deadline for the 2nd Cuba Library Tour has been extended to Nov. 30th.
It will take place Feb.4-18, 2002. Any one interested should click on:
http://members.home.net/friendship/cuba/library/2nd_library.html
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7. U-C IMC Library
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:27:54 -0600 (CST)
From: james robertson jacobs <jacobs (at) students.uiuc.edu>
To: <rlitwin (at) earthlink.net>
Hi Rory,
Would you add the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center Library to
your list of progressive librarians around the world?
( http://urbana.indymedia.org/library/ ) We are the information arm of the
IMC, with collections of links, virtual collections, e-journals, webzines
etc focusing on alternative, independent, non-corporate electronic
information. Here's our contact info:
218 West Main Street
Urbana, Illinois, 61801
(217) 344-8820
email: imc-librarians (at) urbana.indymedia.org.
I am the webmaster and can be contacted directly at jacobs (at) uiuc.edu
Thanks.
In solidarity,
James Jacobs
Radical Librarian
U-C IMC
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8. Librarians in the 21st Century
http://istweb.syr.edu/21stcenlib/
"Librarians in the 21st Century was created during the Spring 2000
semester by a class of graduate students in the Master of Library Science
program in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University,
Syracuse, New York.
Their assignment was to create an information resource for the World
Wide Web that explored the nature of librarianship at the opening of the
21st Century, looking at the current state of the profession and some
directions in which it is likely to evolve."
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9. Forum on Freedom and Diversity of Expression and the First Amendment
from the Center for Arts and Culture
November 2001
http://www.culturalpolicy.org/pubs/firstamendment.pdf
(This is a pdf)
"In an increasingly connected world in which ideas have become as
economically valuable as goods and as socially porous as the next click of a
mouse or flick of a screen, issues of free and diverse expression will
continue to be vital components of an evolving and vigorous climate
conducive to continued creativity and the public goods that should result
from that creativity. At the same time, these issues are becoming more
layered. In today's world, our attention is increasingly focused on first
amendment issues surrounding the dissemination of words and images.
Panelists:
James Early, Director of Cultural Heritage Policy, Center for Folklife and
Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution
Mark Lloyd, Executive Director of the Civil Rights Forum on Communications
Policy, a project of the Tides Center
John Romano, writer and producer of movies and television
Gigi Sohn, Executive Director, Public Knowledge, a new non-profit
organization on intellectual property issues affecting digital content
Ben Watenberg, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
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10. Papers from the Conference on the Public Domain
which took place November 9-11 at Duke University.
http://www.law.duke.edu/pd/papers.html
Papers here include:
James Boyle,
The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain
Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom
Artifacts, Facilities, and Content: Information as a Common-pool Resource
Pamela Samuelson,
Digital Information, Digital Networks, and the Public Domain
Jerome H. Reichman and Paul F. Uhlir,
Promoting Public Good Uses of Scientific Data: A Contractually
Reconstructed Commons for Science and Innovation
Negativland,
Two relationships to a cultural public domain
David Lange and Jennifer Lange Anderson,
Copyright, Fair use and Transformative Critical Appropriation
Arti K. Rai and Rebecca S. Eisenberg,
The Public and The Private in Biopharmaceutical Research
Lawrence Lessig,
The Architecture of Innovation
Yochai Benkler,
Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm
Yochai Benkler,
Through the Looking Glass: Alice and the Constitutional Foundations of the
Public Domain
Carol M. Rose,
Romans, Roads, And Romantic Creators: Traditions of Public Property in The
Information Age
Thanks to Blake Carver of LISNews.com for this link.
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11. Internet Librarian 2001
Highlights from the conference as reported in Information Today:
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb011112-1.htm
URL's told to us at some of the many presentations:
http://www.infotoday.com/il2001/presentations/
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12. UCITA opposition turns up heat
Proponents of the UCITA software licensing law have indicated a
willingness to bend on a provision that would allow vendors to shut down a
customer's system remotely, but opponents say it's not enough.
http://computerworld.com/nlt/1%2C3590%2CNAV47_STO65590_NLTPM%2C00.html
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13. Letter from SAA President regarding crappy new Executive Order
Representative Stephen Horn
Chairman, Subcommittee on Government Efficiency
2154 Rayburn Office Building
Washington, D.C.
Via facsimile transmission: (202) 225-2373
I write to express the grave concern of the Society of American Archivists
with respect to the President's recent Executive Order 13233 on Presidential
Papers. Founded in 1936, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) is North
America's oldest and largest national archival professional association.
SAA's mission is to serve the educational and informational needs of more
than 3,400 individual and institutional members and to provide leadership to
ensure the identification, preservation, and use of records of historical
value.
Our apprehension over this Executive Order is on several levels. First, it
violates both the spirit and letter of existing U.S. law on access to
presidential papers as clearly laid down in 44 U.S.C. 2201-2207. This law
establishes the principle that presidential records are the property of the
United States government and that the management and custody of, as well as
access to, such records should be governed by the Archivist of the United
States and established archival principles-all within the statutory
framework of the act itself. The Executive Order puts the responsibility for
these decisions with the President, and indeed with any sitting President
into the future. Access to the vital historical records of this nation
should not be governed by executive decree; this is why the existing law was
created.
Second, on a broader level this Executive Order potentially threatens to
undermine one of the very foundations of our nation. Free and open access to
information is the cornerstone to modern democratic societies around the
world. For such access to be curtailed or abrogated by an executive process
not subject to public or legislative review or scrutiny would violate the
principles upon which our nation was founded-all the more troubling at a
time when we should be holding the beacon of freedom higher than ever.
Finally, we would urge Congress to reassert its authority in these matters.
While present law establishes important principles with respect to
presidential papers and their management and care which certainly appear to
need reaffirming, it is entirely possible that the law may need some
fine-tuning, and that minor revisions may satisfy the concerns that
motivated the White House in this Executive Order. For example, it may be
that revising the law to modify the length of time during which Presidential
papers are restricted will serve to protect legitimate national security and
executive privilege concerns while still ensuring that the American people
have certain and timely access to the records of their Chief Executive. This
is only to suggest that some compromises may be possible. We would be happy
to consult with and otherwise assist your subcommittee and other relevant
bodies within Congress in developing new and workable legislation that is
consistent with open access to information.
Once again, let me stress our professional concern over the most recent
Executive Order. Not only does it challenge and abrogate existing statutory
authority, it has the potential to seriously restrict the unfettered flow of
information upon which our nation depends. I would strongly urge Congress to
take immediate action to overturn this action.
Thank you. We look forward to working with you and your colleagues in
resolving this matter.
Steve Hensen
President
Society of American Archivists
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14. WTO gets serious about GATT.ORG; GATT.ORG gets more GATT.ORG-like
November 15, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WTO ATTACKS WEBSITE, REAPS HUNDREDS OF OTHERS
As it meets in Qatar, WTO attempts to shut down critical website;
group counters with site-stealing software
Contacts:  Jonathan Prince (mailto:jonathan (at) killyourtv.com)
           Jean-Guy Carrier (mailto:jean-guy.carrier (at) wto.org)
           Verio (mailto:copyright (at) verio.net)
           The Yes Men (mailto:info (at) theyesmen.org)
Software:  http://www.theyesmen.org/yesiwill/
           http://yesiwill.plagiarist.org/
           http://detritus.net/projects/yesiwill/
Last Friday, Jonathan Prince, who owns the Gatt.org domain, received a
call from Verio, Gatt.org's upstream provider. The World Trade
Organization had just asked Verio to shut down the domain for
copyright violations, and Verio told Prince that it would do just that
if nothing was changed by November 13--the last day of the Doha
Ministerial, as it would happen. An official email followed
( http://rtmark.com/verio.html ).
(Last-minute update: Verio's shutdown is currently expected sometime
after noon EST today--watch software sites above for updates.)
"It's the war," says Prince. "Bush has popularized zero-tolerance, and
it's open season on dissent of any kind. So just when they're meeting
in Doha, the WTO has decided to divert attention from its problems by
attacking a website."
"Or maybe they really do want to make it so that protest has as little
place on the web as it does in Qatar," adds Prince.
Oddly enough, the WTO has been aware of the parody website since
before the 1999 Ministerial in Seattle, when it issued a public
statement claiming the site misled visitors
( http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres99_e/pr151_e.htm ).
Two weeks ago, the WTO issued another release
(http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news01_e/gattdotorg_e.htm), this
one claiming that Gatt.org was harvesting e-mails, an allegation
reprinted as fact in some newspaper articles
( http://rtmark.com/pressgat.html ).
While it may be puzzling why the WTO chose to issue a second press
release about Gatt.org two years later, it is even more surprising
that they are now taking concrete steps to stop the critical site.
In statements made just last week to the French daily newspaper
Liberation and to others, WTO spokesperson Jean-Guy Carrier stated
that "It's not our job to use legal means against people. We
appreciate dissidence and honest criticism."
Why the sudden change of attitude?
"They got nervous, it's only human," said Elaine Peabody, a
spokesperson for The Yes Men ( http://www.theyesmen.org ), the group
that maintains the Gatt.org website. "The WTO remembers what happened
the last time they had one of these meetings [in Seattle]. They felt
like tackling something they knew they could handle--and a satirical
website fit the bill."
BATTLE HEATS UP
But the WTO could well have stepped on a hornets' nest. To counter
the attack, the Yes Men have are releasing today a piece of
open-source "parodyware" ( http://theyesmen.org/yesiwill/ ) that will
"forever make this kind of censorship obsolete," according to Peabody.
"Using this software, it takes five minutes to set up a convincing,
personalized, evolving parody of the WTO.org website, or any other
website of your choice," said Peabody, who helped to develop the
program. "All you need is a place to put it--say, WTOO.org,
WorldTradeOrg.com, whatever."
The software, called "Yes I Will!", automatically duplicates websites
as needed, changing words and images as the user desires--with results
that can be very telling. The WTO site can be made to speak of
"consumers" and "companies" rather than "citizens" and "countries."
Unleashed on the CNN.com website, the software can simplify the
reporting even further by referring to Bush as "Leader," and the war
in Afghanistan as one between "Good" and "Evil"; a Time.com article
linked from the site then discusses "The Poor Way of War". The parody
site updates itself automatically as the target website changes.
"The idea is to insure that even if they shut down our website,
hundreds of others will continue our work of translation," said
Peabody. "The more they try to fight it, the funnier they're going to
look."
"Such heavy-handed tactics work as poorly in cyberspace as they do on
the geopolitical stage," said Cooper Kharms, another Yes Man. "At
least Gatt.org was transparent: you could tell what it was by reading
a line or two. These other sites may not be so obvious."
Prince thinks the software, while interesting, is not a solution.
"With their attack on Gatt.org, an unelected, unaccountable
organization is running roughshod over the USA Bill of Rights," said
Prince. "But every day they violate people's rights in the Third
World, or enable corporations to do so. This time it's just closer to
home."
For more on the legal basis of the WTO's attack, see also
http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=15296&group=webcast
RTMark's primary goal is to publicize corporate subversion of the
democratic process. To this end it acts as a clearinghouse for
anti-corporate projects.
                             # 30 #
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15. New zine review column on NewPages.com by Sean Stewart
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 22:06:50 +0000
From: "Sean Stewart" <seanclis (at) hotmail.com>
To: Rory (at) libr.org
Hi Rory,
I'm writing a new zine review column for
Casey Hill's website. The column is geared
toward librarians who might be interested in
including zines in their collections, and so
I'm trying at first to focus on more established
zines, comix, and collections of zine writing -
the types of publications that hopefully won't
be an immediate acquisitions nightmare.
Here's a link to the first installment:
http://www.newpages.com/magazinestand/zines/
I hope that you are well.
Take care,
Sean
e-mail: sean (at) thoughtworm.com
website: http://www.thoughtworm.com
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16. FOS Newsletter and Forum
By Peter Suber
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/index.htm
From the site:
The Newsletter
The purpose of the newsletter is to share news and discussion on the
migration of print scholarship to the internet and efforts to make it
available to readers free of charge.
The audience I have in mind consists of scholars, researchers, scientists,
teachers, students, librarians, editors, and publishers. I want the
newsletter to cover all academic fields and all FOS initiatives. You may
welcome FOS or dread it. But if you're interested in its fortunes, I hope
to cover news that will interest you.
To read back issues, visit the newsletter archive.
The Discussion Forum
The purpose of the forum is to discuss FOS issues, especially those raised
by the newsletter. In addition to this, I'll post several kinds of message
to the forum. When I receive an item from another mailing list or
newsletter with strong FOS relevance, I'll forward it to the forum. On
occasion I'll send tidbits and announcements to the forum which shouldn't
wait for the next issue of the newsletter. Finally, when I receive
discussable comments on the newsletter at my personal email address (which
includes "replies" to the email version of the newsletter), then I'll
forward them to the forum.
Reader Comments
I just received & read, with great interest and pleasure, the latest
newsletter. Thank you! You are doing us all a great favour! Raising
awareness about free publishing is important, and while very few people are
able to research the field for the best services, etc. on their own,
everyone seems to be interested. This is where the newsletter can be a real
help.
-Johan Wilhelm Kl?wer, Editor, Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic
An excellent way to stay informed about current scholarly electronic
publishing developments. A valuable, if provocative, source of information.
-Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Author, Scholarly Electronic Publishing
Bibliography
Very impressive, managing to combine broad scope with knowledgeable
insight.
-Steve Hitchcock, Editor, Perspectives in Electronic Publishing
Reading your newsletter recently prompted me to devour your entire back
catalog in one sitting -what excitement! FOS provides such a wonderful
wealth of information on current trends in free electronic publishing, that
I will save many hours a month in research time alone. Thank you for
providing such timely information and useful commentary on one of the most
crucial topics in academia today.
-Vance Bell, Editor, Other Voices
This is one of the most varied and richest resources I know not only about
free scholarly publishing but about e-publishing and e-books in general.
The links it provides lead to a wealth of information and useful tools and
the news summaries are concise but complete. This newsletter is both
synoptic and detailed. A treat.
-Sam Vaknin, Author, TrendSiters
Highly intelligent and well-written. Puts [FOS news] in a broad context and
makes interesting and important links that are not seen elsewhere.
Consistently interesting and valuable.
-Ann Okerson and James O'Donnell, Editors of NewJour
As well as articulately and thoughtfully presenting an editorial viewpoint
that you may or may not agree wtih, FOS is a very good, wide-ranging survey
of much that's of interest in the world of networked information, scholarly
publishing and related areas.
-Clifford Lynch, Director, Coalition for Networked Information
This is the best newsletter I've seen.
-Trudy Gardner, Assistant Dean for Educational Resources, Rush
University
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17. Social inclusion and libraries - a resource guide
From the web site:
Introduction
This new resource is intended for all public library professionals,
particularly those whose role is to put policy into practice. It aims
to provide an easy way in to recent publications, research and
networked resources about social inclusion that might be relevant to
public libraries.
A policy dimension
Since the election of the New Labour government in 1997, social
inclusion has been one of the key concepts underpinning many of its
actions. One of the first was the establishment of the Social
Exclusion Unit (SEU) within the Cabinet Office, which has set about a
programme aimed at dealing with the problems of poor and isolated
communities. The SEU website contains up to date information about its
work: there is no mailing list so it may need to be checked regularly.
Social inclusion?
So what is `social inclusion'? The problem of definition was tackled
in the Department for Media Culture and Sport (DCMS) report Libraries
for all : social inclusion in public libraries. The Library and
Information Commission (LIC) published, just before its demise,
Libraries: the essence of inclusion, and gave a definition showing the
variety, complexity and subjectivity of social inclusion.
LIC, under its own research strategy, commissioned a core policy
research project, published as Open for All? The Public Library and
Social Inclusion. This is a start point for any reading on the issues.
The project report deals with the problems of definition (the
differences between social exclusion inclusion and cohesion). Its
reading list appears with additions and amendments here. A summary of
the report appears here.
Other reports talk of the `digital divide' and `digital exclusion' -
that is being unable to take part in the benefits of the `Network
Society'. Another way of looking at exclusion is by its defining
characteristics - the habit of non-participation, the habit of
isolation and a perceived lack of opportunity and choice. In Scotland
the talk is of `social justice'.
Last updated: Friday, 24 August, 2001
       Compiled by Research and Innovation Services on behalf of the
            Community Services Group of The Library Association
          in conjunction with the Community Development Foundation
http://www.inclusionandlibraries.org.uk
http://www.la-hq.org.uk/groups/csg/si/si.html
[Thanks to Don Saklad for this info. Seriously! -Rory]
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18. Rosenzweig responds to Litwin's response to Berman (of the last issue)
The following is Mark Rosenzweig's response to my response to Sandy
Berman on the "Peace Telegram" and its motivations. This is Mark's
edited version of his original response, which contained comments that
weren't intended for the public.
................................
<snip>
There are [...] other [good] reasons than 'pacifism' to oppose a
particular war (even war in general!) and, indeed, reasons to support
particular wars which are entirely consistent with radical politics
(e.g. the defense of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War). The
Keeney's and PLC did not ever pretend to be 'pacifists' and the
Telegram" is not a pacifist document, so [ an] attack on the
hypocrisy of their/your 'pacificism' is entirely misplaced and is a
red-herring.
<snip>
[...] Rosalee McReynolds [is one writer who] has [a] scholarly basis
for an analysis of the PLC's letter and its broader significance and
underlying motivation. She is only briefly quoted by you in your
response, narrowly on the Peace telegram , without any broader
framework, and she was not, to my knowledge, contacted by Berman or
by you (or at least it is not referred to in LJ). She is quoted in
a manner [however] which gives no sense of what the PLC was, how it
operated, what its significance was and how it was received. [That
was unfortunate.]
In any case, [Sanford] Berman's suggestion that :
"The August 1939 Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact [whose signing he
claims as the 'real' reason for the Telegram] in effect declared
that Nazism was no longer the enemy and the already-begun Holocaust
nothing to seriously worry about."
is an irresponsible reduction of a complex historical issue [.]
<snip>
It is not by any means an accepted fact that the pact meant that
according to Communists [...] the Nazis were not "the enemy"or that
the "Holocaust [was] nothing serious to worry about".
There was much that was troubling with the pact: the latter
[implication] was surely not remotely what it was suggesting (the
term 'Holocaust' didn't even exist, of course, and is used only to
inflame the matter) and the former is very partisan and problematic
political characterization [of events] given the present
understanding of the breakdown of considerable and desperate Soviet
efforts at establishing 'collective security' with the Allies,
efforts which were spurned in order to leave the USSR at the mercy of
Hitler.
The question of whether the Keeney's were 'Communists' is raised in
your response, despite McReynolds' treatment of the issue with great
circumspection, and speculated on, bandied about, in a way which --
I'm sorry to say, as I'm sure it was not your intention --
trivializes what it meant to be called a "Communist" and, as such,
the subject of a relentless witch-hunt for those beliefs (never mind
affiliations!) at that time, which the Keeney's were. They were
personally and professionally destroyed for such allegations.
<snip>
The [...] suggestion by Berman that the PLC supporters could have
been, should have been or even were fully aware of the plans for the
Jews in Germany and its significance as a prelude to a genocidal
extermination [is an extreme and untenable hypothesis]. That was
completely irresponsible on his part to suggest as a major factor in
evaluating the Telegram. It is widely recognized that many (most!)
parties and prominent individuals , including most Jewish
organizations and spokespersons, did not accept that a Holocaust was
on the agenda at that time and that included Roosevelt and the Allies
,and most liberal/radical intellectuals and journals.
He is reading back into the circumstances something which was not
accepted as a major and horrible historical development [already] in
the works at that time in order to discredit the PLC, the Keeneys and
the Communists. The Communists here, in the US [however] were [at
that time and subsequently...] recognized leaders of the fight to
expose the crimes of the Nazis, including anti-Semitism of the most
virulent kind, and [many]were extremely uncomfortable with the Pact,
even if they saw --with great reservations -- the necessity of giving
the USSR a 'breathing space' to prevent its being simply overpowered
by Germany while the Allies watched with glee. The Communists here
denounced fascism, racism and anti-Semitism, foreign and domestic,
even while powerful forces --even mainstream forces, business,
political, religious -- in the US actively favored Hitler,
anti-Semitism, fascism and even Nazi racial policy particularly in
relation to the Jews and other 'inferior 'races'. To accuse the PLC
of culpability in this is, indeed a malign and ill-intended piece of
common red-baiting (as Berman anticipated himself it would be seen
as, in order to ward off the criticism it well deserves).
Troubling, too, is Berman's mischaracterizatrion of you and your
motives which apparently made you feel you had to respond. But (a)
you had in fact acknowledged his remarks but were under no
obligation to print or respond publicly to his mere observations and
he is out-of-line to suggest you were and ; (b) you were unfairly
accused [of] 'uncritically hailing the "telegram" as an inspiring
model and precedent for today [which ] seems intellectually dishonest
and likely to undermine the credibility of the antiwar movement among
librarians'. There is no basis for this claim. It is simply not what
you did, nor is what you did likely to undermine any such thing(if
such a thing exists!).
<snip>
In my opinion, the most useful thing to do would be to reprint the
Rosalee McReynolds piece on the PLC on-line as a resource. <snip>
The main point I believe you tried to make by including the PLC
Letter was that there is a history of librarians of the left taking
dissident political stands, as librarians, on questions of
international significance, of war and peace, and this was such a
precedent. It requires very little further explication and if people
want the context they should be referred to McReynolds' work
(available in [the article in Progressive Librarian] on the PLC or in
the archives of the PLC at the Tamiminent Library/NYU/NYC
Mark Rosenzweig
NYC
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19. "The Progressive Librarians Council and its Founders"
by Rosalee McReynolds, Progressive Librarian no. 2.
http://libr.org/PL/2_McReynolds.html
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