Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest
311 Responses
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Kate Hannah, in reply to
Oh and Ben, next time you want a book from the UoA library, just holler. I recall only too well when I first moved here and was no longer a University employee or student (which I had been all my life - first through parents and then on own) and had no access to academic library. I paid the access fees when I was a consultant, and now, having returned to fold, so to speak, have access once more - happy to get the odd book out for you.
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BenWilson, in reply to
That's generous of you, thank you. How does one holler at you? Couldn't find your email on your blog.
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BenWilson, in reply to
and Chomsky - "it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies."
He does say that, but I've read and listened to a lot of Chomsky, and a constant theme of his is that American academics fails of this responsibility quite badly, as a class (although there are many, many exceptions). Note he used the word "intellectuals" rather than "academics". I don't think that's an accident. He claims one of his greatest influences was his uncle, who owned a newsstand and had no schooling beyond 4th grade. His mother was the activist, despite his father being a professor.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
I paid the access fees when I was a consultant, and now, having returned to fold, so to speak, have access once more – happy to get the odd book out for you.
Nice. And that is exactly what I meant by ‘ways and means’. I get books out for my friends, and vice versa.
I’ve had proper official access to a university library for the first time in a long time for a couple of years. The main benefit is being able to search journal databases for articles and then download the pdf.
Google books etc is ok, but it’s annoying. This is great. All those footnote refs you wished to consult? Well, now you can.
I thought society as a whole was paying for university research. I don’t understand why these articles aren’t freely available to everyone.
And re: council-funded libraries. I reckon the danger there is not so much limit on public access, but what they’re doing to the concept of ‘library’ and ‘collection’. I’m not sure, but they seem to rate books that have been on the shelf for a long time without being taken out (completely regardless of what the book is, or how many copies of it are anywhere) as ‘low value’ and things like internet hubs next to cafes selling coffee etc as ‘high value’.
Now, if all the libraries in the country manage their collections according to those kind of values for any amount of time at all, we’re fucked. Completely fucked. Imagine it.
Anyone remember when accountants took over the board of the National Library, and started eyeing up Turnbull's Miltons?
Bibliolatry (ha ha). Both my parents were librarians at one time. (My partner Rose Miller is still completely shocked at how I treat books.)
I spent a lot of time in the old Wellington Library as a kid, and more in the new as an adult. They have an awesome collection, built up over time by people with a real passion for it, on any subject you care to name. Well, had, anyway.
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Kate Hannah, in reply to
initial.lastname@auckland.ac.nz
I (romantically again) like to think that NZ academics have failed in this respect less spectacularly than US ones - and given we have so few public intellectuals here, in a way they have even more responsibility to do this ....
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Islander, in reply to
I’m not sure, but they seem to rate books that have been on the shelf for a long time without being taken out (completely regardless of what the book is, or how many copies of it are anywhere) as ‘low value’ and things like internet hubs next to cafes
I enjoy buying secondhand books, whether from libraries or via bookaramas BUT
, at the same time, am slightly saddened & sickened by the amount of library stock being alienated. I can enjoy the titles (& all my whanau) but they are lost as far as other library users are concerned. -
Kate Hannah, in reply to
re the access to databases - absolutely! It's one of the major benefits - and one I have frequently shared - a great way to make new friends is to find them stuff they need on databases .....
Re libraries - we have a long family history of librarianism - and I am a passionate relocator of books back to their correct shelf, (I obviously have too much time on my hands.) One of my major peeves, as you id DB, is the value system for books - older books are housed in the basement or got rid of - even if they are classics and amazing etc. All of Chaim Potok's oeuvre, for example, is in the basement at Auckland City Library, where noone can serendipitously stumble upon them; only those that seek can find. That's the joy of a library - in Robert Sullivan's words that adorn that exact library "....people who saved the words of our ancestors for one and all..."
Not much use if a book-mad kid can't stumble upon something that speaks to them across time.
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BenWilson, in reply to
thx 4 that, I might ping you in the next few days if I'm feeling muscular enough for a bike ride into the library.
and given we have so few public intellectuals here, in a way they have even more responsibility to do this ....
I think that intellectualism and academics are certainly highly correlated. There's a much higher chance of someone being an intellectual who took on higher learning. Not sure which causes which, but it doesn't really matter.
But there's still a lot of people who are intellectual who just couldn't afford the time or money involved in higher learning. And these people are in many ways far more influential because they are infiltrated everywhere in society.
And the point that academics are under institutional pressure is important. Respect to those who aren't scared to speak out.
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I'll say one thing for the super city. It's made the library system in Auckland WAY better. Not only can I freely browse and order books from ALL of the libraries in Auckland, but they are transferred for free to my local library. I was actually flabbergasted.
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Kate Hannah, in reply to
my office is just across the road, so if you do come in and find a gem, just email....
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Kate Hannah, in reply to
yes - over the holidays we made much use of this as the kids tracked down (online) and requested books and xbox games from all over the super city - $5 to borrow an xbox game for 2 weeks - pretty good in that first rainy week of the school hols .....
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Matthew Reid, in reply to
I’ve had proper official access to a university library for the first time in a long time for a couple of years. The main benefit is being able to search journal databases for articles and then download the pdf.
Google books etc is ok, but it’s annoying. This is great. All those footnote refs you wished to consult? Well, now you can.
I thought society as a whole was paying for university research. I don’t understand why these articles aren’t freely available to everyone.George Monbiot has the answer for you: economic parasitism by academic publishers who have prfoit margins approaching 40%.
The returns are astronomical: in the past financial year, for example, Elsevier's operating profit margin was 36% (£724m on revenues of £2bn). They result from a stranglehold on the market. Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, who have bought up many of their competitors, now publish 42% of journal articles.
More importantly, universities are locked into buying their products. Academic papers are published in only one place, and they have to be read by researchers trying to keep up with their subject. Demand is inelastic and competition non-existent, because different journals can't publish the same material. In many cases the publishers oblige the libraries to buy a large package of journals, whether or not they want them all. Perhaps it's not surprising that one of the biggest crooks ever to have preyed upon the people of this country – Robert Maxwell – made much of his money through academic publishing.
The publishers claim that they have to charge these fees as a result of the costs of production and distribution, and that they add value (in Springer's words) because they "develop journal brands and maintain and improve the digital infrastructure which has revolutionised scientific communication in the past 15 years". But an analysis by Deutsche Bank reaches different conclusions. "We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process … if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn't be available." Far from assisting the dissemination of research, the big publishers impede it, as their long turnaround times can delay the release of findings by a year or more.
What we see here is pure rentier capitalism: monopolising a public resource then charging exorbitant fees to use it. Another term for it is economic parasitism. To obtain the knowledge for which we have already paid, we must surrender our feu to the lairds of learning.
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Tom Semmens, in reply to
The Bastion point protest today would be suppressed here with batons, pepper spray, riot shields and all the other paraphernalia of the scientific police state.
I see that the first police riot in connection to suppressing the "Occupy" movement in the United States has occurred in Oakland. Watching video of it has put me in mind of Plato - "Every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow too much for them and become savage beasts."
One of the reasons the Occupy movement has put so much emphasis on peaceful resistance and replacing clear leadership structures with cell-like devolved decision making is, I think, the recognition at at least a subconscious level of the need to develop new responses to the routine use of illegal spying by the police on protest organizations and the militarization of policing tactics brought on by the new authoritarianism of the surveillance state. Police in the English speaking democracies, shielded by politicians like Judith Collins, now seem to want to react with a hair trigger to the slightest hint of provocation or challenge from citizens. And what is worse, they seem to have adopted as their best practice model the unrestrained violence of the US military for policing their own civilian populations.
To me the peacefulness of the occupy movement is deceptive. It represents a considerable investment in courage - everyone involved knows they may be victims of a police riot at any moment - and the last hope that change can be achieved through protest. Suppress the Occupy movement and make no meaningful reform and the next response will be a pendulum swing to the Red Army Faction, mark my words.
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BenWilson, in reply to
George Monbiot has the answer for you: economic parasitism by academic publishers who have prfoit margins approaching 40%.
Yes, I forgot all about the profit motive on intellectualism. Probably because it just seems so pissly compared to the kind of profits such clever people could make if they really went for broke.
ETA: What I mean is, they would probably only have to write ONE popular book to pay for all of their more serious works.
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Sigh that's sad - Oakland (my home for 15 years) is arguably one of the most lefty cities in the US (Ron Dellums was mayor for heavens sake) - sadly relations between the local (and BART) police and anyone not wearing a suit have soured since the BART killing a few years ago
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Publishing’s a bit like dairy farming. Nowhere really any more are there small family-owned farms where cows wander round in open fields crapping all over the place. Instead, there are massive factory farms.
New Zealand has a long and vibrant history of small press publishing, in both literature and visual art. One that continues to this day (artists’ books, plug plug). Include an essay, slap an ISBN on it, and bob’s your uncle. It goes on to some database or other thing that goes around all the libraries and (I think) bookshops.
Bloody great mate. People get hold of you and want to buy the things. And they’re really easy to do. Zinefest (plug plug).
People go on about the internet, but one of the real wonders of our age is the revolution in cheap high quality colour printing. It enables things you simply couldn’t do before without huge amounts of dosh.
I plan to make heaps more books.
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merc,
The police have way more legal right to enter your home or harm than the military does.
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DCBCauchi, in reply to
The police have way more legal right to enter your home or harm than the military does.
Haven't they just been given a whole lot of sneaky surveillance powers? Unwarranted powers snuck in without debate? Didn't I read something about that recently?
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merc,
The list is long and marvelous with guns for all next and compensation not required, thanks Simon! http://pundit.co.nz/content/the-injustice-in-simon-powers-last-stand
It's the signal that disturbs,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10760347
and,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10760082
6 million dollars,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10758687 -
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Nowhere really any more are there small family-owned farms where cows wander round in open fields crapping all over the place. Instead, there are massive factory farms.
Many in the Far North. 3 in the street we are in with 3 behind the back of us. One admittedly being grazing for 'off to market, one last graze annat' but the rest are fairly small family owned farms. I know cos they have even wandered through my patch crapping all over the place. Way to meet the neighbours but.
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Hilary Stace, in reply to
One of the delights of working at the (then) General Assembly Library many years ago, was discovering the NZ fiction collection in a cupboard under the stairs. That's where I first came across Jean Devanny and her many leftwing stories of the 1920s and 30s. I find it sad that public libraries, and increasingly university ones, and not so long ago the National Library, are so ready to discard books unborrowed for only a short time. What is wrong with 50 years between readings?
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Islander, in reply to
What is wrong with 50 years between readings?
Absolutely nothing...often a book & reader/s dont connect for decades. They sure as shit wont connect if the book has been sold or 'otherwise disposed of..'
Small admission: quite a few books from the GAL wound up on my shelves.
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Carol Stewart, in reply to
I so agree. It would be nice to think that libraries could take the long view. I was sad to hear from a friend who is a librarian in Western Australia that libraries over there no longer hold children's books by Joan Aiken - one of my favourite authors (still) and one whom I think has enduring value regardless of current fads.
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Islander, in reply to
Another Joan Aiken fan here.
Alternative history, pink whales, a tough and genuinely empathetic heroine -and there is a series!
Which I have, and have inveigled family youngsters to read over the years (they dont need inveigling after the first book…)Librarians are not generally behind those kind of decisions at all: they generally come from council bean-counters-
ETA - I majorly refer to "The Wolves of Willowby Place" series with Dido Twite, but I also have some of the Mortimer & ? Arabel books-
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Regarding academic publishers: http://royalsociety.org/news/Royal-Society-journal-archive-made-permanently-free-to-access/
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