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Librarianship and Human Rights: A Twenty-First Century Guide
Toni Samek
Manufacturer: Chandos Publishing (Oxford) Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Human Rights
| Constitutional Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Human Rights
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Library & Information Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
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All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
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ASIN: 1843341468 |
Book Description
Author Dr. Toni Samek is Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. Toni chairs the Canadian Library Association's Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom. Summary In this book, the reader will encounter a myriad of urgent library and information voices reflecting contemporary local, national, and transnational calls to action on conflicts generated by failures to acknowledge human rights, by struggles for recognition and representation, by social exclusion, and the library institution's role therein. This book's approach to library and information work is grounded in practical, critical, and emancipatory terms; social action is a central pattern. This book is conceived as a direct challenge to the notion of library neutrality, especially in the present context of war, revolution, and social change. This book, for example, locates library and information workers as participants and interventionists in social conflicts. The strategies for social action worldwide documented in this book were selected because of their connection to elements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) that relate particularly to core library values, information ethics, and global information justice. This book also ecourages readers to pay attention to links between library and infromation work and the following solidarity rights not currently incorporated into any legally-binding human rights framework. Readership The book is primarily aimed at librarians, archivists, documentalists, educators and students. Content 1. Essential concepts presented in accessible terms (e.g., critical librarianship, information ethics, global information justice, human rights). 2. Practical orientation to action on contemporary issues (e.g., intellectual freedom, intellectual property, preservation, cultural destruction, censorship, public access to government information, commercialization, academic freedom, workplace speech, international relations, anonymity, privacy, confidentiality, human security, national security policies, transborder data flow, and information poverty). 3. Approximately 100 concrete strategies (e.g. action research, AIDS information and awareness, autonomous space, boycotts, community development, disaster response, eco-friendliness, ethics training, fora, government lobbying, humane security, law reform, manifestos, memory projects, petitions, rallies, and student groups).
Customer Reviews:
Hope for Librarianship.......2007-03-23
This book should be required reading for all librarians. As a teacher of librarians it will be required reading for all my students. With this book Dr. Samek provides hope and passion for library workers too long constrained by the myth of 'neutrality.' Librarianship and Human Rights is a watershed work of scholarship and passion.
Book Description
Over the last few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of papers and journal articles dealing with various ethical issues in librarianship, but only a few books. Information workers find themselves rendering new services and providing new kinds of information without much recourse to universally accepted ethical standards.
This work is an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the subject. It promotes the view that as information managers, librarians must join with other professionals to renew a commitment to and interest in ethics. The book deals with such topics as ethics in general, the control of ideas, building collections, acquisitions and cataloging, access services, the reference function, special libraries, research and publication, and intellectual property and copyright. A chapter discusses why ethics matters.
Customer Reviews:
A Very Insightful Book.......2007-03-30
Hauptman's "Ethics and Librarianship" is a landmark book about the issue of ethics and libraries in our society. It covers every major ethical problem posed to librarians today and offers insightful and good-common-sense approaches to these dilemmas.
I have used this book for a paper on ethics and virtual reference librarianship. It helped me a great deal while I was gathering reference materials and research items for my paper. There were several articles and scholary journals regarding this issue, but only a few books. This book ranks as the number one book for this subject matter.
I am considering libraries and ethics for a possible thesis in the future, a topic that is very important in today's culture.
I recommend this book for any student wishing to address the subject of ethics and librarianship.
Book Description
Reading about ethics is no walk in the park. The issues are thorny, and they can cause discomfort. Some of the topics discussed and the positions taken by the various authors may raise your blood pressure. The issues are, however, essential to the profession and thoughtful reading and discussion are essential to the discipline.
Typical uses for this work will be class discussion among students of school libraries and school administration. The individual chapters can be taken as independent readings, or the discussion questions may form the basis for class discussion or individual research papers. Practicing professionals may want to read the entire book for a book study group, or to simulate policy-making discussions on the ethical practices of the profession.
Customer Reviews:
A Thoughtful, Inspired Set of Library Touchstones -- But Written Somewhat Arrogantly.......2007-01-02
Michael Gorman is a controversial figure in library circles, but he has made significant contributions to the field. Even for those who disagree with some of his views, Our Enduring Values cannot and should not be ignored. This work is a critical look at the professional values that shape the library and information science profession, how those values developed, and where they're headed (i.e. what challenges are we facing?). We're talking about things like intellectual freedom, stewardship, privacy, and literacy/learning -- just to mention a few.
I disagree with anyone who calls this book boring or repetitive. In fact, each chapter is dedicated to a different value and is loaded with examples, rhetorical questions, and passionate insights for critical readers to weigh. One problem with the book is that it's written in something of an elitist tone and might be off-putting if you don't necessarily share Gorman's social/political worldview or get all of his references. I find many of his arguments compelling, spot-on, and convincing. And I find others somewhat alarmist or overstated. What matters most is that the book is a way for people in the library world (or just joining it) to reflect on the profession...to examine what defines and unites us as librarians.
This was required reading for my first semester of library school, and I'd say that it will stick with me as I think about the future. People who hated this book or found it boring are (no offense intended) probably people who don't like thinking critically about the big picture of what they're doing. This isn't a how-to book or a regular textbook, but it's a way to frame discussions, policies, and practices. Whether you like Mr. Gorman or not, it's a must-read.
Boring, boring, boring.......2005-08-07
Let's face it, not all reviews are going to be written by people that know the author, or will give him the benefit of the doubt. We had to read this for a library information science class, and most of my peers hated it. I showed it to my boss at our library and she thought it was ridiculous. The author says the same thing over and over, in what could have been a 20 page essay. I recommend looking elsewhere.
Good eye opener for the mind map.......2004-12-13
Those who are fed up with quantitative benchmarks, can now turn around and see why our quantification and stats dont matter much.
A reviewer of this book has already said what I think on this approach of our profession:
[John Allen Delivuk - In the last century, we have seen a revolution in thinking, the move from virtues to values. The Victorians lived in a world where virtues such as honesty, modesty, faithfulness, kindness, patience, and self-control defined people. In the Victorian world, professions were not defined merely by professional knowledge, but also by common set of absolute virtues.]
See my listmania for more content that adds values / ethics / morality as a component of the LIS education
A good statement on librarianship today.......2001-02-07
In the last century, we have seen a revolution in thinking, the move from virtues to values. The Victorians lived in a world where virtues such as honesty, modesty, faithfulness, kindness, patience, and self-control defined people. In the Victorian world, professions were not defined merely by professional knowledge, but also by common set of absolute virtues. For example bankers and stock brokers were expected to be honest as well as able to add. In our time, the majority of persons have adopted the view that people can have differing sets of relative values instead of a common set of virtues.
The "values revolution" rejected virtues and thus left the professions such as librarianship with the problem of what to substitute for them. The American Library Association is attempting to substitute values for virtues. The questions then comes: what values? How do we define and practice them? How do these values fit into the present context of libraries? Michael Gorman, one of the world's leading library thinkers, has attempted to address these and other important questions in Our Enduring Values.
He begins by defining values as beliefs that are enduring preferences relating to the means and ends of the profession (p.6). When he attempts to give criteria for whether values are good or bad, he fails (p.8). Mr. Gorman's method is to derive the values from writers on the philosophy of librarianship. He than discusses the importance of libraries as institutions and physical locations. The chapter titles list his important values as stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism, literacy and learning, equity of access, privacy and democracy.
How well does he accomplish his goals? The goal of putting values in the present historical and cultural context is masterfully done. Gorman understands libraries and their mission as few others do. He is thus able to fit developments such as the information technology revolution into the context of the library and show correctly (in my opinion) how libraries will deal with them. Mr. Gorman uses his abundant common sense and his sense of humor to develop this topic. His discussion of the trends in modern librarianship is worth the price of the book.
I was less impressed by his discussion of values. To his credit, he has correctly selected the main values of the ALA. His discussions of stewardship and service are excellent and his discussion of literacy is not far behind the other two. His discussion of intellectual freedom omitted a consideration of how easy it is for librarians to become censors by imposing their values on the selection process. (Are differing values the key difference between selection and censorship?) His discussion on privacy defines it as confidentiality concerning what a person reads and looks at in the library. He does not discuss how privacy used in our society to protect criminals. He does not discuss the problem of addictive behavior. People, especially children, can start on the road to addictive behavior in the library. Knowledge of a child's library use can help a parent know when to get help. I was disappointed that he did not have a greater emphasis on need for the impartiality of librarians in helping the public understand controversial issues, like abortion. Finally, I do not see how we can be good stewards and servants without deciding the virtues needed fulfill those roles, and making them part of library education. In conclusion, let me recommend Our Enduring Values too anyone wanting to better understand the current direction and thinking of our profession. It is worth reading twice.
great book for critical thinkers.......2001-01-29
This book is a must read for anyone who loves libraries and is concerned about reading in our digital age.
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Ethical Challenges in Librarianship
Robert Hauptman
Manufacturer: Oryx Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Ethics
| Business Life
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Library Management
| Library & Information Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Library & Information Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
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ASIN: 0897742710 |
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IFLA 101: The Ethics of Librarianship: An International Survey (Ifla Publications, 101)
Manufacturer: K.G. Saur (An Impint of Walter de Gruyter)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Ethics
| Business Life
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Ethics & Morality
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
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| Books
General
| Library & Information Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
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ASIN: 3598218311 |
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Professional Ethics in Librarianship: A Real Life Casebook
Fay Zipkowitz
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Ethics
| Business Life
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Library & Information Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
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ASIN: 0786402237 |
Book Description
Most librarians believe that they are part of a profession that is service oriented, democratic and nonjudgmental. Implicit in these principles is a core of professional ethics, allowing librarians to make effective, informed choices in matters affecting the library, its patrons and staff. Many of the ethical dilemmas facing the profession are covered here through a series of case studies. The focus is on librarians' relationships with patrons, colleagues, organizations, resources and vendors. Such issues as parental consent, patrons' rights to privacy, union activities, library endorsements, censorship, and many others are covered. Each case study is followed by questions that highlight the particular ethical problem.
Book Description
A history of the progress of libraries, and their role in society meeting the demands and needs of all people.
Book Description
A revised and expanded edition of the shocking study that changed the way we think of wealth in America. A work that sparked widespread controversy when it was first published, Top Heavy is acclaimed economist Edward N. Wolff's eloquent presentation of the facts of wealth inequality in the United States. In a completely revised and updated edition of the book the Boston Review hailed as "the leading contemporary study of the distribution of wealth," Wolff reveals the unprecedented rise in recent years of wealth inequality and shows how it is one of the major forces challenging democracy and economic opportunity in America. Wolff vividly illustrates how the gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of wealth is greater now than at any time since 1929, immediately preceding the Great Depression. As the nation considers trillion-dollar tax cuts and the abolishment of the estate tax, Top Heavy takes a sobering look at how the wealth of the top 1% of households continues its heartstopping expansion while the current distribution of wealth in America invites the surprisingly apt comparison with the class-dominated societies of nineteenth-century Europe. Top Heavy will continue to be an essential reference point in any discussion of what an economically healthy America might look like. B/W charts and graphs throughout.
Customer Reviews:
A must.......2007-01-10
This is a must read for anyone interested in economic inequality. Excellent social science and readable.
Timely proposals to ease America's most pressing political and social problem.......2005-12-29
No feature of American political life astonishes me more than the almost complete silence of politicians and journalists and the media concerning the most pressing problem is contemporary American life: the dramatically increasing inequality between the haves and have nots in the United States. According to Federal Reserve figures the share of the national wealth held by the top 1% of the population has risen from 20$ in 1979 to 37% by 1997. I have not seen figures since that date, but after Clinton continued the deregulation started by Reagan and continued by Bush 41 and then Bush 43 engaged on an inconceivably lavish give-back program in the nation's history, it would be impossible to imagine that the figures have improved since then. What is the figure now? 40%? 45%? 48%? Here is what frightens me: Edward Wolff published the revised version of his novel in 2002, submitting the manuscript to the publishers before Bush's incredible largesse to the rich took place in 2002. The problem was, in Wolff's view (and in the view of most responsible economists), pressing and dire in 2001. How much worse has it gotten since a string of tax cuts and policy changes that have unquestionably have made a serious problem vastly worse?
Wolff's concern in this well-documented work are twofold: first, he wants to delineate the nature of the economic inequality that currently pervades the United States to a degree found in no other developed country; second, he wants to suggest one way partially to rectify the problem: for the United States to adopt a wealth tax similar to one that exists in several other nations.
Most people, when they think of economic inequality, think in terms of income inequality. Such inequality does indeed exist, but Wolff shows that the most damaging inequality is wealth inequality. The point, once stated, is obvious. Two families with the same income could nonetheless have very significant differences in economic well-being if one has far more wealth than the other, i.e., property and durable goods and other holdings. The problem in the United States, as demonstrated by the Fed statistics I noted above, is that virtually all the wealth is held by the top 20% of the populace, with the top 1% holding a disproportionate amount of that.
Wolff proposes one way to close the growing and vast gap between the wealthy and the mass of Americans: taxing wealth. Even the most conservative of taxes on aggregate wealth would, based on 1998 figures, generate approximately $52 billion dollars in tax revenue. The goal in Wolff's conception is to shift the tax burden more fairly toward the ones who possess the greatest wealth. He notes that in 2001 the United States had only two forms of wealth tax in place, both of which Bush has assaulted with impassioned intensity: estate taxes and capital gains taxes. Eliminating both of these are regressive taxes in that they ease the tax burden on the wealth while doing nothing to aid the poor or middle class. In other words, instead of the Bush administration doing something about economic inequality, they have intensified it.
I found Wolff's proposals to be highly persuasive. Unfortunately, we are still nationally in the throes of all kinds of mythology about taxes. We imagine that taxes are harmful to the economy, that it is unfair to expect the wealthy to pay a significantly higher tax rate, and that cutting taxes somehow stimulates the economy. In fact, as Wolff points out, a wealth tax would actually be highly stimulative by forcing the very wealthy to shift their wealth into more productive forms of investment.
But quite apart from whatever is economically productive, there are a host of moral and political questions. Is a society that allows wealth to accumulate among those who already have an inordinate amount conducive to the greater good? Is a society that persistently fails to aide those who have the least just? I will confess that my heart never bleeds for the very wealthy when they are asked to pay a bit more. Nor do I buy the rather absurdist arguments that tax cuts for the wealthy promotes economic growth. Historically, shifting wealth to the middle class has always been vastly more stimulative to the economy than shifting it to the rich. And shifting wealth to the rich has never generated any benefits to the middle class or the poor. As Will Rogers pointed out in the 1920s, another era where people thought giving more to the rich would benefit all, some people think that gold is like water: put it at the top and it runs down and nourishes everyone down below. But, Rogers pointed, out, gold isn't like water at all. You put it at the top and it just stays there. Until we as a nation start addressing the problem of our nation's severe economic inequality, the gold is just going to stay there.
the alarm has been sounded.......2004-02-26
This study of the distribution of wealth in America is disheartening indeed. Though it only surveys the economic scene until 1989 (a postscript brings it up to 1992), it is not hard to believe that things haven't changed much since then. Basically, it concludes that the gap between the rich and the poor has increased to a greater extent than at any time since before the Great Depression, and that the gap between the rich and the poor is greater than in most European countries.
Not only does this book outline the problem in detail, but it proposes a restructured tax system similar to that existing in many European countries, a tax system which would ease the burden on the poor, while placing little extra tax burdens on the rich-- and still raise billions more in tax revenue. Though this book is filled with statistical analyses, it is slim (fewer than a hundred pages), and those not mathematically inclined can skip to the conclusions here and there, which are written in clear, understandable prose. Well worth reading, and certain to be a wake-up call to anyone who has suspected that the middle class has been disappearing in this country.
Very Nice Survey of Wealth Inequality.......1999-11-28
Ed Wolff's book--a review of his earlier work on wealth, with some new additional material added--documents that the United States today is a more unequal society than at any time since the Great Depression.
According to his numbers--which are lousy, but are nevertheless the best we have or are likely to acquire-- in 1929 the richest one percent of households had about 41 percent of the economy's total wealth. But the leveling associated with the Depression and World War II had reduced the richest one percent's share to about 22 percent by 1945. Thereafter, the leveling trend continued. By the mid-1970s, the richest one percent's share--including the implicit value of rights and claims on the Social Security system. of total wealth was down to 13-16 percent of the economy's total wealth. But by the late 1980s, the richest one percent's' wealth was back up to 21 percent of the economy's total wealth. And scattered pieces of information suggest that the trend toward increasing inequality has continued into the 1990s.
Increasing inequality is not due to a surge in entrepreneurial activity: economic growth was unusually low in the 1980s (in substantial part because of the drain on investment resulting from the Reagan deficits). The fortunes made were, for the most part, not to any unusual extent the by-product of especially rapid economic growth.
Rising inequality is cause for alarm for two reasons: First, in a time of high inequality politics becomes nasty and democracy becomes less secure and stable. Second, an unequal economy--an economy in which the chances of striking it rich are larger and the chances of failing to maintain middle-class incomes are larger--fails to provide adequate social insurance. Risk-averse people would, if given a choice when young, overwhelmingly prefer to live in an equally rich overall but more equally distributed society.
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Inequality and Tax Policy
Kevin A. Hassett
Manufacturer: AEI Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Taxes
| Accounting
| Industries & Professions
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Theory
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Taxation
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
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ASIN: 0844741442 |
Book Description
Top economists provide much-needed guidance--and some surprising conclusions--in response to rising public concerns about inequality in the U.S. tax system.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from U.S. Catholic, published by Claretian Publications on April 1, 2001. The length of the article is 716 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Taxation without equal education.(propterty tax and inequality in public education)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Author: Kevin Clarke
Publication:
U.S. Catholic (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2001
Publisher: Claretian Publications
Volume: 66
Issue: 4
Page: 43
Article Type: Brief Article, Statistical Data Included
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Increased poverty and growing inequality: What the 101st Congress can do
Robert Greenstein
Manufacturer: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Personal Taxes
| Taxes
| Accounting
| Industries & Professions
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Statistics
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Poverty
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Taxation
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0006R8HS4 |
Books:
- Linking Visions: Feminist Bioethics, Human Rights, and the Developing World (Studies in Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy)
- Maintenance Engineering Handbook
- Making Common Sense Common Practice, Third Edition: Models for Manufacturing Excellence
- Managing Change and Transition
- Managing Today! (2nd Edition)
- Manual De Psicologia Aplicada a LA Empresa
- Media and Ethics: Principles for Moral Decisions (The Wadsworth Communication Ethics Series)
- Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (Works of George Herbert Mead)
- More Heart Than Talent
- Once An Eagle
Books Index
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