Library Juice 4:40 - November 14, 2001

Contents:

  1. Information for Social Change No. 13, Summer 2001
  2. Against the Grain
  3. A Guide to What One Person Can Do About Pornography
  4. Survey: Women in the Archival Profession
  5. Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report
  6. Sites Blocked by Internet Filtering Programs (CIPA challenge testimony)
  7. Intellectual Freedom Manual 2001 Sixth Edition Published
  8. ALA Policy on Governmental Intimidation
  9. FBI reportedly wants to concentrate traffic, tap entire Internet
  10. Bowdlerized by Microsoft (or, politically correct software)
  11. GATT.ORG spoof site
  12. Media workers against War
  13. About.com Librarians site is dead
  14. Surge of patriotism in schools leads to questions about right to dissent
  15. What Do the Faculty Think?
  16. Constricting critical inquiry in universities October 21, 2001
  17. Sandy Berman's criticism of "Librarians Against War," response
  18. Different numbers
  19. The Grand Complication
  20. 8notes.com

Quote for the week:

"Librarians must be like Krishna! And descend into the world to combat
ignorance!" - S.R. Ranganathan

Homepage of the week: George Lessard
http://members.tripod.com/~media002/galsitelnk.html

________________________________________________________________________top


1.Information for Social Change No. 13, Summer 2001

is now on the web, at:

http://libr.org/ISC/TOC.html

Contents include:

________________________________________________________________________top


2. Against the Grain

"Linking Publishers, Vendors and Librarians"

http://www.against-the-grain.com/

This publication is from Katina Stauch, one of this year's candidates for
ALA President. (I haven't made up my mind whom to endorse yet.)

________________________________________________________________________top


3. A Guide to What One Person Can Do About Pornography

http://www.afa.net/pornography/PornGuide.pdf

This new 48-page work by the American Family Association includes many
references to the American Library Association.
______
Don Wood
Program Officer/Communications
American Library Association
Office for Intellectual Freedom
________________________________________________________________________top


4. Survey: Women in the Archival Profession

Hello everyone -- I'd like to make a reminder that the Women Archivists
Roundtable is conducting a survey on "Women in the Archival
Profession." This survey is available at
http://www.geocities.com/saawar/survey.html . Women archivists, please be
sure to fill out the survey, to mention it at regional meetings, and to
talk it up to colleagues!

This survey was designed with the help of the WAR Steering Committee and
membership and is a means by which WAR can interpret the perceptions of its
membership as well as those of other women in the profession. The Women
Archivists Roundtable believes the compiled results of this survey will
enable them to bring those issues important to women in the profession to
the archival public.

Please take a moment and print out the pages from the website, and send
your completed survey to Amy Cooper (address is on the survey itself, and
below) by November 15. If you have questions or concerns about the
survey, please don't hesitate to contact either myself or Co-Chair Lee
Eltzroth (libwom(at)langate.gsu.edu).

Thank you for your help in making this survey a success.

Best Regards,
Amy Cooper
Co-Chair, Women Archivists Roundtable

Amy Cooper
Special Collections Librarian
Special Collections Department
University of Iowa Libraries
Iowa City, IA 52242-1420
Phone: 319-335-6433
e-mail: amy-l-cooper(at)uiowa.edu
________________________________________________________________________top


5. Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report

NCAC'S FREE EXPRESSION POLICY PROJECT RELEASES
SURVEY SHOWING INTERNET FILTERS ARE HOPELESSLY FLAWED

NEW YORK, NY -- Internet filters are hopelessly flawed, according to a
comprehensive survey released today by the National Coalition Against
Censorship's Free Expression Policy Project. Internet Filters: A Public
Policy Report offers a complete, easy-to-use summary of existing tests,
studies, and reports on the over - and under - blocking propensities of the
major programs and products designed to filter out Internet sites that are
deemed controversial, offensive, or inappropriate for adolescents or
children.

Multiple programs, the Report reveals, including Net Nanny, SurfWatch,
CYBERsitter, and BESS, blocked House Majority Leader Richard "Dick" Armey's
official Web site upon detecting the word "dick." SurfWatch blocked the
home page of the Archie R. Dykes Medical Library at the University of Kansas
on account of the word "dykes." I-Gear blocked a United Nations report on
"HIV/AIDS: The Global Epidemic," while Smartfilter blocked Marijuana: Facts
for Teens, a brochure published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In hundreds of cases, filters blocked artistic and literary sites,
human-rights and public health information, and communications dealing with
sexuality education and politics. One primary reason is that the technology
inevitably must rely largely on key words or phrases such as "over 18,"
"breast," "sex," or "pussy" (hence, the blocking by X-Stop of searches for
"pussy willows"). Even where company employees do review sites, there are
massive problems of subjectivity, with the political attitudes of different
manufacturers reflected in decisions to block such topics as homosexuality,
human rights, and criticism of filtering software. The Report, after
summarizing the available studies of 19 filtering technologies, contains an
extensive appendix listing blocked Web sites by category: literature and
the arts; sexuality education; gay and lesbian information; politics and
human rights; and censorship.

"Internet filtering has become a major public policy issue in recent years,
and is likely to remain so," writes Project director Marjorie Heins in the
Report's introduction. "We hope that Internet Filters: A Public Policy
Report will prove a useful resource for policymakers, parents, teachers,
librarians, and all others concerned with the Internet, intellectual
freedom, or the education of youth. ... Ultimately, less censorial
approaches such as media literacy, sexuality education, and Internet
acceptable-use training may be better policy choices than Internet filters
in addressing concerns about young people's access to 'inappropriate'
content or disturbing ideas."
________________

NCAC's Free Expression Policy Project (www.ncac.org/projects/fepp.html) was
initiated in 2000 in response to the need for research and policy
development addressing contemporary censorship problems. Project director
Marjorie Heins is the author, most recently, of Not in Front of the
Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth (Hill and
Wang, 2001), an investigation of the history and politics of censorship
measures whose claimed justification was the protection of youth.

The Report, written by Christina Cho, is available without cost from the
NCAC, and will soon be available online at www.ncac.org/.

For More Information contact:
Gary Daniels, Media Affairs Coordinator, NCAC - 212/807-6222 x 22
(gdaniels(at)ncac.org)
Marjorie Heins, Director, Free Expression Policy Project 212/807-6222 x 12
(heins(at)ncac.org)
________________________________________________________________________top


6. Sites Blocked by Internet Filtering Programs (CIPA challenge testimony)

Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 10:04:31 -0600
From: "Don Wood" <dwood(at)ala.org>
To: Intellectual Freedom Action News <ifaction(at)ala1.ala.org>
Reply to: dwood(at)ala.org

Sites Blocked by Internet Filtering Programs
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/mul-v-us/

Edelman Expert Report for Multnomah County Public Library et al., vs.
United States of America, et al.

Overview

"In the course of a pending ACLU challenge to the Children's Internet
Protection Act (PDF), I was asked to design and implement systems to
identify particular web sites that are blocked by four specific Internet
filtering programs but which do not fit within the programs' self-defined
categories for blocking. I was also asked to identify and describe the
capabilities and flaws of widely-used Internet blocking systems. This web
site reports a portion of this work and a portion of my written report.

My testing focused on Surfcontrol Cyber Patrol 6, N2H2 Internet Filtering
2.0, Secure Computing SmartFilter 3.0, and Websense Enterprise 4.3. My
expert report includes specific programs and sites tested, specific testing
methodology, and results."
________________________________________________________________________top


7. Intellectual Freedom Manual 2001 Sixth Edition Published

Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 11:44:33 -0500
From: "Don Wood" <dwood(at)ala.org>
To: Intellectual Freedom Action News <ifaction(at)ala1.ala.org>
Reply to: dwood(at)ala.org

Intellectual Freedom Manual 2001 Sixth Edition Published

http://alastore.ala.org/SiteSolution.taf?_sn=catalog2&_pn=product_detail&_op=1032

for the latest information on this new edition and other intellectual
freedom-related books.

See also

PDF Version of Office of Intellectual Freedom, Intellectual Freedom Manual,
6th edition, Part 1, Ch. 2, "Challenges and Issues Today," by Evelyn Shaevel
and Beverley Becker
http://www.ala.org/editions/samplers/sampler_pdfs/OIF_IFM6_Ch2.pdf

and also

Intellectual Freedom Manual page
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/intellectualfreedommanual.html

________________________________________________________________________top


8. ALA Policy on Governmental Intimidation

http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/pol_gov.html

The American Library Association opposes any use of governmental
prerogatives which leads to the intimidation of the individual or the
citizenry from the exercise of free expression. ALA encourages resistance to
such abuse of governmental power and supports those against whom such
governmental power has been employed.

Adopted February 2, 1973; amended July 1, 1981, by the ALA Council.

See also

Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights
http://www.ala.org/work/freedom/interprt.html

See also

Alert: USA PATRIOT Act
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/alertusapatriotact.html
________________________________________________________________________top


9. FBI reportedly wants to concentrate traffic, tap entire Internet

Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 22:19:36 -0700
From: Declan McCullagh <declan(at)well.com>
To: politech(at)politechbot.com
Reply to: declan(at)well.com

http://www.interactiveweek.com/article/0,3658,s%3D605%26a%253D16678,00.asp

October 18, 2001
Beyond Carnivore: FBI Eyes Packet Taps
By Max Smetannikov

Expect the FBI to expand its Internet wiretapping program, says a source
familiar with the plan.

Stewart Baker, a partner with law firm Steptoe & Johnson, is a former
general counsel to the National Security Agency. He says the FBI has spent
the last two years developing a new surveillance architecture that would
concentrate Internet traffic in several key locations where all packets,
not just e-mail, could be wiretapped. It is now planning to begin
implementing this architecture using the powers it has under existing
wiretapping laws.

[...]

-------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
________________________________________________________________________top


10. Bowdlerized by Microsoft (or, politically correct software)

Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 01:58:47 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh <declan(at)well.com>
To: politech(at)politechbot.com
Reply to: declan(at)well.com

********

From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei(at)rsasecurity.com>
To: "'declan(at)well.com'" <declan(at)well.com>
Subject: Bowdlerized by Microsoft
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 16:47:47 -0400

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/opinion/23GOLD.html
(requires free registration, blah blah blah...)

October 23, 2001

Bowdlerized by Microsoft

By MARK GOLDBLATT

I was hard at the grindstone, crusading against hypocrisy and chaos, armed
with my laptop and Microsoft Word 2000. I'd just typed: "Only a fool would
believe." But "fool" did not seem right. So I hit Shift-F7 to call up the
thesaurus. The lone synonym that Word provided was a verb: trick.

[...]

Tim transferred me to Kate, also cheerful, who promised to look into the
matter. Several days later, Kate sent me an e-mail message with an
explanation: "Microsoft's approach regarding the spell checker dictionary
and
thesaurus is to not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide
offensive definitions for any words. The dictionary and spell checker is
updated with each release of Office to ensure that the tools reflect current
social and cultural environments."

[...]

But maybe this isn't oversensitivity. Maybe it is what postmodernists call
erasure: since language creates reality, if we erase every noun connoting
below-average intelligence, the world instantly becomes a smarter place.

Now, if only Microsoft would erase "hypocrisy" and "chaos" . . . .

------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
________________________________________________________________________top


11. GATT.ORG spoof site

WTO warns Net-surfers of fake gatt.org spoof site
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 12:20:34 -0800 (PST)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan(at)well.com>
To: politech(at)politechbot.com
Cc: enquiries(at)gatt.org, sitka(at)home.com
Reply to: declan(at)well.com

If I recall properly, the gatt.org spoof site has been around for years.

But after the WTO's announcement this week, it's in the news:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011031/wr/trade_wto_internet_dc_1.html

What the WTO should do is rely more on its difficult-to-forge .int domain
(like NATO does with nato.int):
http://www.wto.int/english/news_e/news01_e/gattdotorg_e.htm

-Declan

Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 11:58:43 -0800
From: Jeffrey St. Clair <sitka(at)home.com>
To: cp <counterpunch-list(at)counterpunch.org>,
Declan McCullagh <declan(at)well.com>
Subject: WTO Freaks At Halloween WebMask

Hi there! We run <http://www.gatt.org/>. Here's what the
WTO--that's the World Trade Organization, of course--has
been saying about us on their front page at
<http://www.wto.org/:>

"Warning: Fake WTO website - <http://www.gatt.org> -
deceitful and a nuisance to serious users"

They go on to describe how <gatt.org> interferes with
"serious users" looking for "genuine information"
(<http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news01_e/gattdotorg_e.htm>):

We think the WTO is acting just a little bit paranoid, don't
you? After all, this is less than TEN DAYS before the start
of the WTO's big hooplah in Doha, Qatar.

Maybe they're nervous--in Qatar, any form of protest is
strictly illegal, and VERY heavily punishable (depending on
the King's mood). How will people react when the first
hundred protesters get their heads chopped clean off?
Morocco doesn't like that sort of extremism, and neither do
France or Nepal. Lots of beheaded peaceniks is likely to
annoy almost everyone!

Funny thing, the WTO acted this way just before Seattle as
well:
<http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres99_e/pr151_e.htm> .
It probably is just a bad case of nerves.

See you on the chopping block!

Your friends at <http://theyesmen.org/>

p.s. Here is the text of the WTO's Halloween news item:

WTO NEWS: 2001 NEWS ITEMS 30 October 2001 Warning: fake WTO
website

A fake WTO website - <http://www.gatt.org> - has been
created to deceive Internet users by copying the entire
official WTO website. While the design is identical, the
texts have been distorted. The fake site also uses the email
address <enquiries(at)gatt.org>

The use of WTO designs, logos and materials is strictly
unauthorized. Worse, some pages on the fake website could
cause unsuspecting visitors to reveal their email addresses
and other information to the site's operators. The fake site
could also be picked up by search engines, a nuisance for
serious users looking for genuine information.

The only official WTO site is <www.wto.org>.

(In an e-mail sent today to subscribers, they went even
further, claiming "it uses a form which will reveal your
e-mail address to the fake site's operators, who may then
make use of it to send you misinformation in the name of the
WTO.")
..........................................................................

The Long and Winding Cyberhoax: Political Theater on the Web

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://rtmark.com/more/articles/yesmennytimes20010107.html

It's well known that some regions of cyberspace - Internet chat rooms, for
instance - are rife with poseurs and imaginary characters. But the World
Wide Web is also a breeding ground for more elaborate deceptions, as
demonstrated by the following cautionary tale about gall and gullibility in
the information age.

The story begins with www.gatt.org, which looks at first glance like an
official Web site of the World Trade Organization, the five-year-old
Switzerland-based successor to the organization that oversaw the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Unfortunately for the organizers of an
October legal seminar on international trade in Salzburg, Austria, a glance
was all they gave it before clicking on the "contact" link and sending a
speaking invitation to Mike Moore, the W.T.O.'s director-general.

Big mistake: it turns out the site is run by the Yes Men, a loose-knit
group of anti-free-trade activists that views hoaxes as a legitimate weapon
of protest.
..........................................................................

Editor's note:

Very briefly, the GATT.ORG site is not a hoax, nor is it spreading
misinformation. It is a very good satirical site with links to some pretty
intelligent, if blunt, criticism of the WTO. The "yesmen" (of yesmen.com)
who created it are connected with, or perhaps identical to, rtmark
(pronounced ArtMark and written with the registered trademark and trademark
symbols, the R in a circle and the TM). Rtmark is responsible for
networking and funding (via "investors" who play at mimicking stock market
investors) a wide variety of very clever and inspiring culture-jamming
projects that bring a certain joy to protest movements that I think promises
to rescue us from looking like dour puritans next to those sexy capitalists,
with their sexy advertisements. I recommend checking them out at
http://rtmark.com. The Libr.org site "Frankentoons," run by Joel Cohen, is
included in their list of projects that you can invest in (no investments
have come Joel's way through Rtmark as yet, so far as I'm aware).

Another project by people in this network that was intended as a satire
but was taken seriously by the press (and the California Secretary of State)
was the website that claimed to be an auction house for votes. They used to
be voteauction.com, but had their domain name revoked under questionable
circumstances. They can now be found at http://62.116.31.68/ , with more
information at http://rtmark.com/voteauction.html
________________________________________________________________________top


12. Media workers against War

Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 22:02:24 +0000
From: "Martyn Everett" <martyn_everett(at)hotmail.com>
To: librarians(at)lists.tao.ca

Media workers Against the War is a new British-based website, which is
updated several times a day. It includes original research as well as
summaries of news from other sources, and a directory of links.

http://www.mwaw.org

Martyn
________________________________________________________________________top


13. About.com Librarians site is dead

Special Message Regarding This Librarians and Library Science Newsletter
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:39:28 -0500
From: About Taxonomy Team <community(at)ABOUT-INC.COM>
To: LIBRARIANS(at)MCLIST.ABOUT.COM

Dear User,

We've reorganized our taxonomy of sites here at About and made the difficult
choice to remove the Librarians and Library Science GuideSite and this Librarians
and Library Science newsletter.

We thank Tim Wojcik for all his hard work in building our Librarians and Library
Science GuideSite. If you have any questions or comments about this change, feel
free to write to gethelp(at)about.com. Please do not reply to the return address
on this message.

Sincerely,

About Taxonomy Team

P.S. -- For a list of our hundreds of remaining GuideSites, please visit our
home page at http://about.com .
________________________________________________________________________top


14. Surge of patriotism in schools leads to questions about right to dissent

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=15184

"Right now, it's a lot of rote memorization," says Cecilia O'Leary, an
associate professor of history at California State University, Monterey Bay,
and author of To Die For: The Paradox of American Patriotism."
________________________________________________________________________top


15. What Do the Faculty Think?

The nation was shocked into silence by the unimaginable images of
deliberate carnage that we witnessed on the morning of September 11, and for
a time we wanted no opinions--only the details of what had happened. And
then we wanted the stories of heroism and self-sacrifice. And we also wanted
a time of silence to mourn. I stood outside a packed church in downtown
Washington at noon on September 14 when the whole city was solemnly
silent--except for the drone of a passing helicopter from time to time. New
words failing us, we turned to old ones in hymns and prayers and patriotic
songs. That time has passed, and now we are back to our usual habits of
analysis, criticism, and scorn. The pile-up of details is not enough; as a
rational species, we must push beyond them to imagine causes, motives,
remedies. And that is good. That is what we do as citizens in America. That
is what faculty do as professionals.

The faculty do not, however, have a single brain that renders a unified
opinion on matters of public policy. We have, in our Congress, a Republican
conservative former professor of economics who wants to drill for oil in the
Arctic, and we have a liberal professor of physics who doesn't. Professors
crowd our video screens with opposing opinions about the budget, the genetic
engineering, and cultures of the Middle East, and we seem to accept their
diversity in times of peace. But in times of crisis, our tolerance of such
diversity fades, and the words of any one faculty member may be taken to be
the words of all. It is predictable that after we had passed through the
initial phases of reaction to September 11, we should want more subtle
analyses. And so the discourses of academics--passionate as well as
cool--have commenced. And so have the voluble reactions of those who believe
that thinking out loud in our colleges and universities is so subversive
that it ought to be stopped, somehow.

A distrust of intellectuals has always lurked beneath the surface of
American popular opinion. Now it has begun to leak out again--either through
the frontal assault in the partial reporting by the New York Post of a forum
at the City University of New York, or the sideswipes at "campus teach-ins"
by a respected columnist like Tom Friedman or others such as John Leo. Such
editorializing may be legitimate, but to demonize "the faculty" is harmful.
Further, there's a difference when the responses to faculty opinions come
from those who have the power to retaliate. White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer withdrew his ominous warning that public people should "watch what
they say," because the government has the power to censor. Just so, the
comments of some members of the board of CUNY, and of its chancellor, should
also be rethought. These warnings have been accompanied by nods to academic
freedom, but they still open the possibility of retaliation.

So, what do the faculty think? They think many things about September 11.
Some of them died in the bombings; some lost loved ones. They disagree
vociferously on ethics, strategy, causes, and effects. From my own informal
survey, faculty opinion ranges from vengeful to conciliatory. That's why we
cannot speak on the course of war or peace for "the faculty" that we
represent within the American Association of University Professors. But we
can speak for faculty on one big thing--the necessity, as patriots and
professors, to think and express their views in freedom.

Mary Burgan, General Secretary
American Association of University Professors
October 5, 2001
________________________________________________________________________top


16. Constricting critical inquiry in universities October 21, 2001

By Robert Jensen
ZNet Commentary

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-10/21jensen.cfm

"In my field the most fruitful targets for begging money are media
corporations and the foundations they endow. This means the seemingly
neutral directive to make fundraising a larger part of faculty
members' job description will, in practice, further discourage
critical and radical scholarship, which is already marginalized...

For example, my work has led me to the conclusion that corporate
journalism tends to produce news that supports the corporate system
(how's that for a brilliant insight). I also believe the evidence
demonstrates that the contemporary corporation is a fundamentally
illegitimate means to concentrate power and resources. Therefore, as
someone who believes that the central role for journalists in a free
society is to challenge illegitimate authority, it's not surprising
that I think one of the key research questions for scholars concerned
with journalism and democracy should be how to wrestle control of
mass media away from the corporations and into the hands of working
journalists and citizens.

In other words, my research and analysis leads me to want to pursue
work aimed at ending the system of corporate capitalist ownership of
mass media and radically remaking journalistic institutions.

It should come as no surprise that the media corporations and their
foundations are not terribly interested in funding work that aims to
derail their gravy train..."

________________________________________________________________________top


17. Sandy Berman's criticism of "Librarians Against War," response

"Give Peace A Chance" (When It's Convenient)
by Sandy Berman

On September 23rd, having just read "Some Interesting History" in the
9-19-01 Library Juice, I wrote editor Rory Litwin:

Dear Rory,

No quarrel with your 4:33 Juice recap on how badly ALA reacted to the 1940
Progressive Librarians Council "peace telegram" and the need to remain
vigilant concerning free speech and other basic liberties during times of
national stress and hyper-patriotism. However, at the risk of being trashed
or dismissed as a "red-baiter," I think it is possibly too coy, na?ve, and
innocent to treat the PLC anti-war position in 1940 as if it were a genuine
expression of essentially pacifist principles. My guess is that what it
really represented was a dedication to defending and protecting The
Revolution in its very crucible, Mother Russia. The August 1939 Nazi-Soviet
nonaggression pact in effect declared that Nazism was no longer the enemy
and the already-begun Holocaust nothing to seriously worry about. Perhaps
someone can report on whether the PLC maintained its pro-peace,
anti-rearmament stance after June 1941, when three million Axis troops
invaded the Soviet Union. I suspect they sent to further "peace telegrams."

If I'm wrong in this supposition, I welcome correction.

In struggle and hope,
(signed) Sanford Berman

To date, those remarks have not been acknowledged or published, although
the questionable "peace telegram" now appears prominently on Litwin's
"Librarians Against War" web site (http://libr.org.peace). Failing to
address the possibly not-so-noble and perhaps crassly partisan motives
behind that 1940 PLC declaration, and instead uncritically hailing the
"telegram" as an inspiring model and precedent for today opposing the cruel
and unjust assault on Afghanistan, seems intellectually dishonest and
likely to undermine the credibility of the antiwar movement among
librarians.

..........................................................................

While I do not feel an obligation to publish or publicly acknowledge
everything that Sandy sends me (and he sends me a lot), this was one thing
that I was definitely thinking about. Sandy wasn't the first person to
bring this issue up. Stephen Denney, who works at UC Berkeley, raised the
same question about the Peace Telegram when I sent the excerpt from an ALA
history to the SRRT list. (That excerpt is now on the site.) The Library
Juice inbox has been extremely busy since Sept. 11th, and I haven't been
able to give every issue the attention that it deserves.

So what about the Peace Telegram? What about the PLC? Was the PLC in the
1940 dominated by communist party members? An article in issue no. 2 of
Progressive Librarian, "The Progressive Librarians Council and its
Founders," by Rosalee McReynolds, doesn't address this directly, but has
sections that seems to indicate that the Keeneys, who led the PLC, were
probably communists. In 1940, people on the left were still in thrall
to the Russians and full of hope for their revolution, full of hope that it
would spread the world and eventually mean the liberation of humankind. I
think hopes like that die hard, especially for skeptics who are used to
recognizing propaganda in official reports. If I imagine myself in 1940,
even as a Jew, I am not sure that I would not want to protect Russia, and I
don't know what I would have thought of the reports about Germany that were
coming out; I might have doubted them. I might have seen something very
noble in my desire to protect Russia. I'm not saying that I would have been
right to try to protect Russia, only that to do so at the time, from my
vantage point, is very understandable, especially if you acknowledge that
motives are often mixed within individuals; actions can be based on mixtures
of noble and not-so-noble motives. So I think that while some members of
the PLC (and probably not all) were interested in protecting Russia with the
Peace Telegram, genuine pacifism, or at least a genuine desire to avoid war,
probably entered into it as well.

Now, do I owe it to readers of the site to publish a warning about the Peace
Telegram? I think the vast majority of readers wouldn't think of this
problem on their own (I know I wouldn't have), so some comments might be in
order. However, the way the site is designed only leaves room for a short
sentence near the link, or alternatively an entire page on this problem,
which I think would detract from the focus of the site. Because of those
design considerations, and because I think it is somewhat tangential,
I will probably do nothing; however, I am very open to suggestions and
opinions. I am definitely going to leave the Peace Telegram and the article
about it on the site, because they are significant and interesting as
examples of a progressive library organization's response to war in 1940.
The simple fact that World War II is almost universally thought of as a
"good war" (from the perspective of our involvement) I think should negate
any perception that I am "uncritically hailing the Peace Telegram as an
inspiring model and precendent." It is a historical precedent; if not a
perfect or pure or exemplary one then still a significant one. And to the
extent that it is a historical precendent I think it is inspiring despite
the not-so-noble motives, if we want to call them that in hindsight, that
partially motivated it.

Perhaps I should just add Sandy's comments and my response together on a a
page on the site. I welcome readers' opinions on this question.

For the record, here are a couple of relevent sentences from McReynolds'
article:

"As international conflict loomed on the horizon, it also was inevitable
that the Council would have to consider world issues. In May 1940, the PLC
took such action by sending a letter to President Roosevelt in which he was
urged to avoid bringing the United States into war. After Germany
invaded the Soviet Union, the group modified this position, but lent only
guarded support to America's participation in the war."

This excerpt confirms that PLC withdrew their opposition to the war after
Germany invaded Russia; however, I can imagine this to be as much a result
of the event waking people up to the reality of Germany as a it was a
the result of a continued desire to protect Russia. It is hard to know the
PLC's intentions, and it is difficult, for me at least, to judge them from
such a historical distance with such limited knowledge of their own thoughts
and feelings with respect to what was happening.

Rory L.
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18. Different numbers

An international gallup poll
(http://www.gallup-international.com/terrorismpoll_figures.htm)
showed :

A full 32 out of 35 countries (the US, Israel and India in opposition)
favored a criminal justice response, rather than military action, in
response to the terrorist attack on America.

The numbers were clear: 67%-88% in NATO/Western countries and 83%-94% in
Latin America favoring a non-military approach.

Surprisingly, 30% of US respondents also supported this option even though
US corporate media consistently ignores it.

France had the highest support for military action of the European countries
with 30%. Britain 18. Greece with 8%.

All of the European countries were well above 60% in support of extradition
to stand trial.

It would be surprising and welcome if any of the corporate media in the US
reported this.

From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB(at)CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
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19. The Grand Complication

Entry in Rebecca's weblog - http://sueproblema.pitas.com - about
this Fresh Air interview with Allen Kurzweil about his new book:

10/30/01...there's been a lot of talk lately about how many librarians and
MLIS candidates are subscibed to the typical girls list. the question is
why and it reminded me of this message i found on the newslib listserv:

"It was a treat to hear Neal Conan interview Allen Kurzweil on Fresh Air
yesterday about his new book "The Grand Complication." Kurzweil has spent a
lot of time in the NYPL and has great things to say about reference
librarians. This is an excerpt of the interview. You can hear the entire
interview at Listen to Author Allen Kurzweil :
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010814.fa.03.ram

CONAN: A lot of people have said that it is a little peculiar to set,
essentially, an action novel, a thriller, with a librarian as the
protagonist.

Mr. KURZWEIL: Oh, yeah. But I would disagree with them. I think that
librarians get a bum rap. They're constantly represented as these staid
do-gooders, hair in a bun, glasses on the nose. In fact, librarians have
better eyesight than most professionals. And on political lines, they tend
to be activists and renegades. They're nonconformist by nature. I mean,
think about what they have to do all day. They're pulling up incredible
works of fiction. They're handing Dostoyevsky to high school students, if
they're lucky. They're giving Merck Manuals to people with serious
illnesses. They're trying to help people crushed by taxes. They are on the
front lines of people and extremists. And I think that reference librarians
need a better representation than the ones you find in "The Music Man."

CONAN: As we were talking about earlier, though, one of the things they do
is try to bring order out of chaos. That's the nature of their job.

Mr. KURZWEIL: That's one kind of librarian. But there's another kind of a
librarian who sees his calling, or her calling, as a middle man of
knowledge. And it's those librarians that I'm particularly interested.
They're the ones who break the rules. They're the ones who sneak into the
conservation lab and take a book that requires rebinding and places it in
the hands of an eager researcher because that book needs to be read."

RIGHT ON!
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20. 8notes.com - http://www.8notes.com/

This site offers over 1500 free sheet music pieces and
riffs. The music is browsable by category (classical,
popular, film & television, traditional, etc.) and by
instrument, and is searchable by composer, title
words, and instrument. Online lessons for several
instruments and a directory of over 1000
music-related sites are also included. 8notes.com
owns the copyright to most of the sheet music
provided (in-house editions of out-of-copyright
music) and has permissions for the rest.

From Librarians' Index to the Internet - http://lii.org/
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