Free Range Librarian

Late this afternoon, after hanging up my coveralls and clocking out of MPOW, I turned in a pile of essays to my major project advisor for my MFA. On the way home I had visions of preparing an elaborate meal and watching a movie, giving myself one night off from the grind. But Sandy has [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

This is hardly news at this point, but it seems unseemly not to note the silence broken by the four librarians from Library Connection, a consortium in Connecticut, who had been choked by Patriot Act gag orders. More at the ACLU’s website, where you can download this poster as well. (Thanks, Jessamyn!)
Bookmark to:

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

When I was in the Air Force, a popular tee-shirt read, “If you love something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.”
The O’Reilly conglomerate–oh they of the nerdily useful tomes–donned that tee-shirt a couple of weeks ago when they went after a nonprofit for using “Web [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

Educator/writer McKenzie Wark is writing a book online, with the support of the ever-imaginative Institute for the Future of the Book. It’s a fascinating effort, though after ten pages, or sections, or whatever they are, I became a little weary of the copyediting errors (”past time,” “battle field”), missing commas (”Well don’t kid yourself”), and [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

Here’s a question that came up on LITA-L I don’t have a real answer to, with its own solution:
Will there be enough cabs in New Orleans to get thousands of librarians to their hotels without making them wait hours in the sticky heat?
If the answer is “no”–and one report said the city cab fleet [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

Ok, so I’m on this other blog… for the ALA Committee on Organization Subcommittee on E-Participation, and no I didn’t make that up. (That’s not even the committee that wanted the draconian copyright agreement–or if they did, I pencil-whipped it and oh no, they now own my every WORD!)
The title of the blog is [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

I’m at ALA Annual 2006 from early Saturday evening through Tuesday afternoon, staying at the Renaissance Arts. It’s a whirlwind tour; I’m helping to put on a program about blogging, starring in a program about MPOW, and otherwise zipping here or there.
Saturday
6:30 estimated hotel-room arrival
5:30–7:30 p.m. LITA Happy Hour, The Wolfe Restaurant, located [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

Mary Jane Anderson died today, after a battle with cancer. She was a public librarian and an ALA Councilor and an active Episcopalian, and many other things as well. I once shared a room with her at ALA, and it was one of the few times that I enjoyed having a roomy–in part because Mary [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

ALA Committee Form

Originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian.

So I just remembered someone had recommended me for an ALA committee… dug around for the email… filled out the form, and got to the bottom, which states:
“PLEASE NOTE: ALA will be the copyright owner of any work created [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]

Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times
by Basic Books

I thought my first book after I finished my last class would be Mystic River, but halfway through it I got impatient and skipped to the end. Then I went to a library with a list of books I was just dying to read, but none of them [...]

Bookmark to:

[Read more →]