IFRT accepting nominations for 2014 Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award

The American Library Association (ALA) Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) is seeking nominations for its 2014 Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award. The biennial award is presented for the best published work in the area of intellectual freedom and consists of $500 and a citation. Nominations will be accepted through Dec. 1, 2013.

The award was named for Eli M. Oboler, the extensively published Idaho State University librarian known as a “champion of intellectual freedom who demanded the dismantling of all barriers to freedom of expression.”  Works to be considered for the award may be single articles (including review pieces), a series of thematically connected articles, books or manuals published on the local, state or national level in English or English translation. The work must have been published within the two-year period ending the December prior to the ALA Annual Conference at which it is granted. The 2014 award is for work published between 2012 and 2013.

The Oboler nomination form is available on the ALA website. Nominations and supporting evidence should be sent to:  Shumeca Pickett, ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Telephone: 312-280-4220 or 800-545-2433, ext. 4220. Fax: 312-280-4227. Email: spickett@ala.org.

The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) provides a forum for the discussion of activities, programs and problems in intellectual freedom of libraries and librarians; serves as a channel of communications on intellectual freedom matters; promotes a greater opportunity for involvement among the members of the ALA in defense of intellectual freedom; promotes a greater feeling of responsibility in the implementation of ALA policies on intellectual freedom. 

Who are the pirates?

Cory Doctorow takes a different look at who the pirates are in today's publishing environment in his talk How to Destroy the Book, transcribed for the Varsity by Jade Colbert.

There is also a nice insight into the symbolic value of books in our culture:
"If you’re making a short film, and you want to illustrate a society that’s falling into tyranny, you can just cut away to a scene of a pile of books burning, and everyone will know exactly what you meant."

Google Book Settlement

Google Book settlement “may compromise fundamental library values, such as privacy and intellectual freedom,” according to Dr. Alan Inouye of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Technology Policy.

Read the American Libraries Article about some of the objections.

There is also an overview of the settlement from ALA and ARL: A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement, by Jonathan Band, JD.


The text of the proposed settlement is available here.