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How to Survive Police Confrontation and Other Services for Library Patrons

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Police Sniper in Ferguson. Libraries should be developing programs to help people deal with the police. There has been a huge increase in police shooting, beatings and other transgressions against citizens. We, as librarians, should recognize the community's need for information on how to stay safe, avoid police confrontation, and how to act when confronted by police. We can form partnerships with legal organizations to provide patrons with basic survival instructions for the world of today. Lets do this! #LibrariesAgainstPoliceBrutality

Tags, Tagging and Information Diffusion

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I was was gazing at some train tags--some nice bombs in the train yard with my littler brother, who happens to be a graffiti artist.  He interpreted the tags and bombs I could not read.  He and I read me all kinds of information from throughout the country, from LA, to Chicago, to Seattle and other places.  Then a train yard cop came and chased us away. Tags in Denmark My brother Jaimie used to be well known throughout San Jo as Daze2000 back in the 80's, then went on to LOVE and other names throughout the years.  He's retired now. For those unfamiliar with tagging--here is a sufficient definition from Wikipedia: Some of the most common styles of graffiti have their own names. A " tag " is the most basic writing of an artist's name, it is simply a  handstyle . A graffiti writer's tag is his or her personalized signature. Tagging is often the example given when opponents of graffiti refer to any acts of handstyle graffiti writing (it is by far the...

My Experience with Racism in US Libraries

As a library worker who is a person of color, I have experienced discrimination in libraries.  From receiving such edifying duties as "sorting the mail," to being judged harshly in comparison to my colleagues who are not people of color, to being bullied so hard and often that I became shaky about myself and my own skills.  I escaped that situation, and landed a job in IT.  It is illustrative of how much I was being bullied and discriminated against at my library job, by the fact that once I was in the IT department, I was valued, told I was doing a great job, told that the feedback on my work was ALWAYS great and other accolades.  I couldn't believe it at first, because I had been so bullied and told that I " was incompentent," and other such disheartening, and in the end, downright mean, insults and other abuses based on my "weak performance."  I have not had a bad review since leaving the library job I once had.  I have continued to teach for that l...

Information Literacy and Colonialism

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In the US, every piece of information and every bit of knowledge we have has been mediated through a White-Supremacist lens--this is especially the case the more educated an individual is in the US. It usually doesn’t matter what the ethnicity of the creator of this knowledge is, nor what their first language is because they have been educated in a system that is fundamentally White-supremacist. It takes much work and effort to even attempt to break out of this colonial mind set. #InformationLiteracy #education #EthnicStudies #Libraries #Information #knowledge #colonialism #21stCenturyEmpire

#WelfareRancher

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Barbarians Within the Gates

The fact that people are allowed to say this kind of shit is illustrative of the state of Race relations in the US. It isn't politically correct you fucking barbarians--it is called being civilized and not offending, especially knowingly, those whom you live with. If he were educmacated, he would know that being civilized comes from the Latin word Civi, which means, roughly city. Being civilized is possessing the skills necessary to live with others, especially in a city of society. This guy is a barbarian who ONLY understands force and is ignorant of his own culture. I know his culture better than him and it isn't even my culture.   ‪#‎ racist‬   ‪#‎ bigot‬   ‪#‎ Traitor‬ ‪#‎ WelfareRancher‬

Uniform Documentation Policies and Procedures (Part One)

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[This is meant to be a series of posts that will illustrate the importance and the process of creating a set of uniform documentation policies and procedures for a large organization that has many physical locations.] Uniform documentation policies and procedures are vital to any organization. The creation of documentation is often formatted differently, created with different tools, are stored in a variety of locations and use inconsistent terms throughout the organization. One obvious improvement to the creation and utilization of documentation includes creating, modeling and using a style guide throughout the organization.   This style guide should be created by the departments and approved by management.  This will increase transparency and "buy in."  Another, less obvious improvement to create a uniform and efficient documentation system throughout your organization is to have a classification style guide as well as a writing style guide. ...