Diary of a contrarian librarian

May. 17, 2013 at 9:14am View comments

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So does the information society need the information profession? It certainly needs those who constitute it; it needs their insights, knowledge and skills. But we live, as I suggested earlier, in a deprofessionalising world. Indeed this is becoming one of the defining characteristics of the information society itself. We need to focus more on the application of our professed knowledge and rather less on the formal qualification.

— Feather, J. (2009) ‘The information society: does it need the information professions?’, Library and information research, 33(104).

May. 11, 2013 at 6:04pm with 27 notes View comments

labour ed miliband the nation

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Just how much of an alternative is Labour? Its leaders do continue to speak the language of social concern, yet their strategy is marked by extreme caution, an avoidance of any appearance of radicalism and a reluctance to argue for anything that might not command majority opinion-poll support. Of course, because of the government’s combination of dogmatism and ineptitude, this may not matter in opposition. But in power?

— Ed Miliband writing in The Nation, aged 19.

Apr. 14, 2013 at 5:22pm View comments

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We like to think of England as a democratic country but our rule in India, for instance, is just as bad as German Fascism, though outwardly it may be less irritating. I do not see how one can oppose Fascism except by working for the overthrow of capitalism, starting, of course, in one’s own country.

— George Orwell to a friend.
(I Am Spain by David Boyd Haycock, 2012, p.297)

Apr. 5, 2013 at 10:17pm View comments

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Britain is a master case study to understand how ideology and propaganda work in a free market.

— Bruno de Oliviera (Adbusters, March/April, 2013)

Apr. 4, 2013 at 10:45am View comments

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Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.

— Fawzi Ibrahim (Adbusters, March/April, 2013)

Apr. 3, 2013 at 10:37am View comments

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We are breeding a new generation of human being who will learn more from a machine than from their mothers.

— Rose Kohn Goldsen, The Show and Tell Machine (via Adbusters, March/April 2013)

Feb. 10, 2013 at 1:33pm View comments

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My books have all been very deeply felt. You don’t spend eight years of your life working on a trendy knockoff. In that sense I’ve been serious. But I don’t do lots of things that other serious writers do. I don’t write book reviews. I don’t sit on panels about the state of the novel. I don’t go to writer conferences. I don’t teach writing seminars. I don’t hang out at Yaddo or MacDowell. I’m not concerned with my reputation as a writer and where I stand relative to other writers. I’m not competitive or professionally ambitious. I don’t think about my work and my career in an overarching or systematic way. I don’t think about myself, as I think most writers do, as progressing toward some ideal of greatness. There’s no grand plan. All I know is that I write the books I want to write. All that other stuff is meaningless to me.

— Bret Easton Ellis

Jan. 30, 2013 at 11:05am View comments

So, my daughter had a right good sing-song in the car this morning…

Jan. 9, 2013 at 12:51pm View comments

Canterbury photography challenge

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Canterbury - 2012 Picture a Day

Around about Christmas time, I realised that whilst I love the city in which I live, I don’t actually have many photos of it. My goal for 2013 was to take a few more photos and try to rectify this (a fairly low hanging branch, but what the hell). It was after the first couple of photos that I decided to do this as a PAD (Photo A Day) project and, latterly, I decided to join the 2013 Picture A Day group to share my photos of Canterbury.

Now, whilst I am quite into photography, I’ve never really been one for taking part in these sorts of things. Whilst there is no actual compulsion to do so, I struggle with the routine of taking a photo every day (I struggle with routine in general which is one of the reasons why I don’t do things like CPD23 etc but anyway…). But I thought I’d give it a go and see how I get on. If I give up eventually or skip a day, who cares? But I thought it would be interesting to try and bulk up my photos of the city whilst also learning a bit more about it (really, there’s more history in Canterbury than is possible to cram into one person’s head). Oh yeah, I’m also trying to put a bitesize chunk of relevant history with each photo too. And, dependent on the quality of the photos, I might put them together into a little Blurb book to keep!

So, anyway, here are some of the photos I have taken so far and if you want to follow the set as it grows (or if you are really crazy, subscribe to the RSS feed), you can do so here.