A Library Romantic's Reply to Richard Danner

ABSTRACT

In this brief response to Richard A. Danner's “Skating with Donovan: Thoughts on Librarianship as a Profession,” the author finds new reasons to doubt the merits of a “weak” model of librarianship that overemphasizes user demands at the expense of professional ethical commitments to collect, organize, and preserve.     

Getting It Right-The Evolution of Reference Collections

Summary

Reference works were present in the earliest libraries; and their numbers have grown inexorably ever since. They consume an increasing share of library acquisitions budgets. This article traces the evolution of reference collections, drawing on experiences at the author's library. The author concludes that while reference questions will always be with us; it is perhaps less certain that they will always be answered from “reference works” in collections labeled “reference.”     

LCSH in the Southern Levant*

Abstract

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) geographic headings for the Southern Levant mirror the political investment of Congress and the American public in Middle East politics over the last thirty years. These LCSH headings contrast markedly with those established in other national libraries and independent value vocabularies, and global opinion regarding the legal status of the occupied territories. The author offers ways that libraries can “decolonize” their metadata in service of Sanford Berman's “access and equity.”     

Librarians in the Classroom

SUMMARY

This article reports on a survey conducted by the author to determine how librarians and library directors feel about librarians teaching outside the library, i.e., in academic disciplines. The author discusses her own experience in the classroom and examines the benefits and detriments of the “professor librarian” model. She includes comments from those surveyed, and offers suggestions for further study.     

The forced choice as a measure of television station image

That intangible attribute of a broadcast station commonly called its “image” isn't quite as hard to measure as that other intangible asset, “good will.” Nevertheless, measurement isn't simple, and the standards for measurement are not yet agreed upon. In the following article, a new technique of indexing a station's image without special training and supervision of the respondents is illustrated. Malachi C. Topping, author of “The Cultural Orientation of Certain ‘Western’ Characters on Television” in the Fall, 1965 issue of the Journal, earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State University and is Assistant Professor of Radio and Television at Oklahoma State University.     

Bookstores - Los Angeles

“Larry Edmunds Cinema and Theater Bookshop”, Inc. 6658 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Calif. 90028: This bookstore was mentioned earlier in BBB under cinema [I:6:5 and II:4:6]

“Acres of Books”, 240 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach, Calif. 90802: Dr. Kittross described this bookstore in an early issue of BBB [I:4:3]

“The Book Shelf”, 1217 South Hawthorne Blvd., Hawthorne, Calif. 90250.

“Gene de Chene Bookseller”, 11552 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90025.

“Dawson's Book Shop”: 533 North Larchmont, Los Angeles, Calif. 90004.

“Cosmopolitan Book Shop”: 7007 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90038.

“West Los Angeles Bookstore”, 1670 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90025.

“Wilshire Books”, 3018 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, Calif. 90406.     

Resources on Animals and the Law

SUMMARY

Animals have been viewed, by the laws of societies, simply as “things” throughout recorded history. Only recently have books been written promoting or simply discussing the possible granting of legal status to animals. The author presents a thorough list of these materials, with brief reviews.     

Collecting the Revolution: The New York Public Library

ABSTRACT

The author examines some of the unique features of the New York Public Library’s Slavonic Division, including an “ecumenical” collecting ethos, urban location, émigré staff, and large, politically diverse clientele, which help explain the richness of its Russian revolutionary era holdings.     

Underground comix as television criticism

Underground “comix” use a comic book format to comment, often with blatant sexual scenes and profanity, on American society. The author traces the history of comix, exemplifies their criticism of television, and compares comix' methods and influence to more usual critical outlets and to television itself.     

Towards an Integrative Literature Search: Reflections of a ‘Wild’ Adult Learner

Summary

An integral learning approach involves principles beyond andragogy, a “new pedagogy,” transformative learning, feminist, or postmodernist perspectives and the “integrative knowing” in adult education theory. Drawing on a radical conflict transformation model of eldership, the author presents personal reflections on his own evolution as a library researcher and adult learner for the past 25 years. Skills and metaskills for the reference librarian are included. The traditional helping role and identity of librarians is challenged to become a ‘guide’ for the hunt, whereby the process of the search is valued as much as the end result.     

The electronic age and libraries: Present problems and future prospects

Abstract

Reading in Czechoslovakia under Communism did not conform to the official line maintaining that citizens were primarily interested in serious political works. On the contrary, surveys revealed that light fiction and works from the West were the books with the highest public library circulation. The long period of spiritual stagnation led to the degradation of critical ability, one result of which was that some sophisticated and controversial Western works such as John Irving’s The World According to Garp were acceptable to Communist authorities because they were mistakenly deemed “light literature”. In the years immediately following the demise of Communism, Czech public library users did not show a radical change in their choice of titles, but the author points out that the recently improved distribution and availability of both “high” and “low” literature may have altered habits considerably in the period since the survey was done.     

A lesson from the New York Times: Timing and the management of cultural change

Abstract

The author places newspaper decision‐making models within a timing framework, using the infamous New York Times‐Jayson Blair‐plagiarism case to illustrate how the U.S. newspaper industry can feasibly and sincerely engineer the change in newspaper culture suggested by an earlier industry‐commissioned study. Using arguments from timing theory, the author illustrates how the framework generates timing‐related questions about management style that would not normally get asked. Ultimately, the argument challenges newspaper managers to re‐consider the essence of the managerial concept of control and, eventually, their own managerial style and culture. Cultural transformation, the author argues, does, indeed, start at the top but with management acknowledging that it has much to learn and that popular culture‐enhancing management tools must be used only when managers consider the timing‐induced paradoxes inherent in decision‐making, where the “when”; becomes just as important as the “what.”;     

Media ethics

ETHICS IN INTERCULTURAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION edited by Fred L. Casmir (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates “LEA's Communication Series,”; 1997—prices not available, ISBN 0–8058–2352–2 hard, 0–8058–2353–0 paper, 307 pp., chapter references, author biographies, author and subject indices)

SCREENING THE LOS ANGELES “RIOTS”;: RACE, SEEING AND RESISTANCE by Darnell M. Hunt (New York: Cambridge University Press “Cambridge Cultural Social Studies,”; 1997—$59.95/19.95, ISBN 0–521–57087–5 hard, 0–521–57814–0 paper, 328 pp., figures, tables, appendices, notes, references, index)

MEDIA ETHICS: A PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH by Matthew Kieran (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997—$55.00, ISBN 0–275–95634–2, 178 pp., chapter notes, bibliography, index)

IMAGES THAT INJURE: PICTORIAL STEREOTYPES IN THE MEDIA edited by Paul Martin Lester (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996—$59.95/19.95, ISBN 0–275–94928–1 hard, 0–275–95357–2 paper, 294 pp., notes, bibliography, index)

COMMUNITY OVER CHAOS: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON COMMUNICATION ETHICS by James A. Mackin, Jr. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press “Studies in Rhetoric and Communication,”; 1997—$34.95, ISBN 0–8173–0860–1, 282 pp., notes, bibliography, index)

JOURNALISM ETHICS: PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR NEWS MEDIA by John C. Merrill (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997—$16.00 paper, ISBN 0–312–13899–7, 263 pp., chapter references, figures, glossary, appendix, brief issues/cases, index)

REPORTING ON RISKS: THE PRACTICE AND ETHICS OF HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMUNICATION by Jim Willis with Albert Adelowo Okunade (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997—$65.00/24.95, ISBN 0–275–95296–7 hard, 0–275–95298–3 paper, 240 pp., appendix, in‐depth reporting examples, bibliography, index)     

6. FOREIGN/INTERNATIONAL

The following essay updates my TABLOID JOURNALISM: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ENGLISH‐LANGUAGE SOURCES (Westport, CT: Greenwood “Bibliographies and Indexes in Mass Media and Communications, Number 10,”; 1996—$65.00, ISBN 0–313–29544–1, 187 pp.)

A. U.S. print journalism

IT'S ALIVE! HOW AMERICA'S OLDEST PAPER CHEATED DEATH AND WHY IT MATTERS by Steven Cuozzo (New York: Times Books, 1996—$25.00, ISBN 0–8129–2286–7, 342 pp.)

“Reversing the Romance: Class and Gender in the Supermarket Tabloids,” by Theron Britt (Prospect, 21: 435–451 [1996])

“Virgins, Vamps and the Tabloid Mentality,” by Linda Fairstein (Media Studies Journal, 12: 92–99 [Winter 1998])

SCOOPED! MEDIA MISS REAL STORY ON CRIME WHILE CHASING SEX, SLEAZE, AND CELEBRITIES by David J. Krajicek (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998—$24.95, ISBN 0–2311–0292–5, 230 pp., bibliographical references)

B. U.S. television

“The World Outside: Local TV News Treatment of Imported News,” by Raymond L. Carroll and C. A. Tuggle (Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 74: 123–133 [1997])

“Tabloid TV, Courtesy of the Education Department,” by Steven Drummond (Teacher Magazine 9: 14–15 [April 1998])

THE JOURNALISM OF OUTRAGEOUSNESS: TABLOID TELEVISION NEWS VS. INVESTIGATIVE NEWS by Matthew C. Ehrlich (Journalism and Mass Communication Monographs, No.155 [1996])

“Presumed Innocent? A Comparative Analysis of Network News, ‘Newsmagazines’ and Tabloid TV's Pretrial Coverage of the O. J. Simpson Criminal Case,” by Steven A. Esposito (Communications and the Law, 18: 49–72 [December 1996])

“Tabloid and Traditional Television News Magazine Crime Stories: Crime Lessons and Reaffirmation of Social Class Distinctions,” by Maria Elizabeth Grabe (Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 73: 926–946 [1996])

TABLOID TELEVISION: POPULAR JOURNALISM AND THE “OTHER NEWS” by John Langer (London: Routledge “Communication and Society,”; 1998—$24.99, ISBN 0–4150–6636–0, 192 pp., appendix, bibliographical references)

“Human Nature and Crime Control: Improving the Feasibility of Nurturant Strategies,”; by Bryan Vila (Politics and the Life Sciences, 16: 3–21 [1997])

C. Legal implications

‘Get That Camera Out of My Face!”: An Examination of the Viability of Suing ‘Tabloid Television’ for Invasion of Privacy,” by Eduardo W. Gonzalez (University of Miami Law Review 51: 935–953 [1997])

“Punishing the Press: Using Contempt of Court to Secure the Right to a Fair Trial,” by Stephen J. Krause (Boston University Law Review 76: 537–574 [1996])

“The Confluence of Sensationalism and News: Media Access to Criminal Investigations and the Public's Right to Know,” by Jimmy R. Moye (CommLaw Conspectus, 6: 89–99 [1998])

D. International perspectives

“Public Discourse/Private Fascination: Hybridization in ‘True‐Life‐Story’ Genres,” by Ib Bondebjerg (Media Culture &; Society 18: 27–45 [1996])

“Anthropology in the Body Shop: Lords of the Garden, Cannibalism, and the Consuming Desires of Televisual Anthropology,” by Rosalind C. Morris (American Anthropologist, 98: 137–146 [1996])

“The Media's Impact on International Affairs, Then and Now,” by Johanna Neuman (SAIS Review, 16: 109–123 [Winter/Spring 1996])

“Core of the Problem: Newspaper's Fate Will Gauge More Than Press Freedom,”; by Andrew Sherry (Far Eastern Economic Review, 160: 61–63 [3 July 1997])     

Metadata Dreaming

ABSTRACT

The author presents the state of metadata schemes today and discusses the idea of a “third way” between free-text searching and full cataloguing. He concludes that there is no such compromise and suggests that metadata schemes will have to incorporate controlled vocabularies and detailed designators if they are to progress, thus leading to a confluence that will be, in essence, a new form of traditional cataloguing.     

The Future of Web Citation Practices

ABSTRACT

Citing webpages has been a common practice in scholarly publications for nearly two decades as the Web evolved into a major information source. But over the years, more and more bibliographies have suffered from “reference rot”: Cited URLs are broken links or point to a page that no longer contains the content the author originally cited. In this column, I look at several studies showing how reference rot has affected different academic disciplines. I also examine citation styles’ approach to citing Web sources. I then turn to emerging Web citation practices: Perma, a “freemium” Web archiving service specifically for citation; and the Internet Archive, the largest Web archive.     

Animals in Religion: Resources for Libraries

SUMMARY

This article introduces the subject of animals as viewed by the world's religions. It disputes the common perception that Eastern religions are entirely “animal friendly” while Western religions are wholly uncaring toward animals. The author reviews print-resources on the status of animals in world religions to assist librarians in collection development. The reviews are categorized to suggest which resources would be most appropriate for: all libraries; public libraries; and academic libraries.