Public libraries and the unemployed in Sheffield, United Kingdom: Comparison between Internet search engines and gateways

This paper, "Public libraries and the unemployed in Sheffield, United Kingdom: Comparison between Internet search engines and gateways" is part of a bigger research paper for the doctoral module of Research Training Program, RTP: GSC6100: Library and Info Skills for Successful Research The Assessment Portfolio, at my PhD Program in Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. The module coordinator was Mr. Alastair Allan and Ms. V.A. Harding, both librarians at the University of Sheffield Library

Liberación de la información como condición de la liberación del acceso a la información

Liberation of information as a condition to the liberation of the access to information. This paper analyses the liberation of information in general and some of its relationships with information access. Emphasizes as outstanding the roles that the worldwide library community has to play as the vanguard towards the liberation of information. It holds a position in favor of the of the worldwide community of the commons --and the cognitariat-- against the forces of private apropriation of information and knowledge commons and the movement of commons enclosures of the cognitive capitalism. It analyses the main mechanisms of how until nowadays information has been an object of opression against society, depriving it precisely of its access. Among these mechanisisms it can be found mainly the private intelectual apropriation and control of information and knowledge (the so called fallacious "intellectual property") and its diverse laws such as copyright and patents. It proposes alternative strategies and policies that seek to guarantee people --including the working class people-- freedom and rights so they can achieve a free, free of charge, unhampered, democratic and socially egalitarian access to the information and knowledge that has been generated as a communal good towards the social and public welfare

Bosquejo del plan de trabajo para la Coordinacion de la Red Estatal de Bibliotecas Publicas del Estado de Nuevo Leon, abril 2002 a abril 2003, Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo Leon, Mexico

Outline of work plan for the Coordination of the Nuevo Leon State Public Libraries Network, from April 2002 to April 2003, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexic

An anti-capitalist critique to the commodification and privatization of information in libraries funded by the public sector

This paper (An anti-capitalist critique to the commodification and privatization of information in libraries funded by the public sector) criticises some of the adverse effects of the governments when they privatise and commodify the information financed by the public purse, such as the double increasing of that information that has already been funded by public funds when the researchers have already been paid, and then their publications are being sold by commercial enterprises whose results had already been generated and financed by government public funds

Por una crítica al sistema del copyright y al rol de policías del copyright de los bibliotecarios

This paper, entitled: “For a critique of the copyright system and of the role of copyright police as it affects librarians,” tracks the origins of the copyright system from the England of the 16th century as a monarchical instrument for the commercial monopoly of the nascent publishing industry, and above all as an organism of the government for the systematic censorship and control of printing and publishing against citizens. It clarifies the difference between copyright and the moral rights of authors, where the latter are hampered from usufructing their own right. The idea that librarians adopt a role of police of copyright in benefit of company owners of copyright versus the role of a librarian affirming the adoption of a policy in benefit of offering free, and unhampered access to information recorded in documents in all the institutions of documental information, is taken from the debates of the Copy/South Research Group from its first workshop held in Canterbury, Kent, England in 2005, cf. THE COPY/SOUTH DOSSIER: Issues in the Economics, Politics, and Ideology of Copyright in the Global South (May 2006), attended by the author and 22 other critical academics from various disciplines, among them 6 more librarians. It gives examples of how various librarians adopt a role of police of copyright contrasted with the librarian role of giving free access to information recorded in documents. It takes a position in favour of the role of a librarian to offer free and unhampered access to information and against the role of police, and it invites the worldwide librarianship community to declare itself as opposed to such a police role

Introducción al pensamiento crítico y escéptico en las ciencias de la información documental.

En este trabajo se realiza un análisis y crítica de una muestra cualitativamente reducida de engaños ideológicos o ideologías engañosas contemporáneas en la investigación bibliotecológica (la ciencia de la información documental, las Instituciones de Información Documental, IIDs, los Profesionales de la Información Documental, PIDs, que sirven teórica o prácticamente a los usuarios de información documental como la ha conceptualizado Rendón Rojas, 2005) a través del pensamiento crítico y escéptico (Sagan, 1997). Mas no de todo tipo de engaños, sino específicamente aquellos de tipo ideológico que realizan las clases dominantes (Alfas) contra las dominadas (desde las Betas hasta las Omegas con toda su correspondiente hegemonía de dominación descendente) en general (Sagan y Druyan, 1992) y que tienen repercusiones en la sociedad en general, y en la bibliotecología y otras ciencias de la información documental, en particular. Siendo dichos engaños comunicados a través de argumentos en forma de falacias y estratagemas retóricas (Bowell y Kemp, 2005), a su vez, lo que aquí se presenta como posibles elementos válidos para ser investigados en las ciencias de la información documental. Se encontraron las siguientes falacias: a) del llamado a la autoridad, b) de la práctica común, c) de la selección de la observación, y d) epistémica. De acuerdo a los datos obtenidos de la literatura aquí revisada éstas se pudieron observar en torno a los siguientes ejemplos de engaños ideológicos pseudos-científicos más representativos: 1) sobre “la preeminencia del practicismo y el pragmatismo contra lo teórico” en la investigación bibliotecológica, 2) sobre la impregnación de la pseudo-ciencia en la investigación bibliotecológica, 3) sobre las ideologías de la Sociedad de la Información y/o Sociedad del Conocimiento (SISC), 4) sobre “el capital social” y el “capital humano,” 5) sobre el mercantilismo de la información documental en la SISC, 6) sobre “el conocimiento o información como generador de toda la riqueza material” en las SISC, 7) sobre “la competencia de encontrar el origen más primigenio de las ideologías de las SISC.” Todo ello imbricado a manera de ejemplo a lo largo del trabajo en su misma argumentación, se propone la adopción de una formación epistemológica integral que abarque tanto lo científico como lo humanístico y con pensamiento crítico y escéptico complementariamente en el núcleo duro de la investigación, educación y práctica bibliotecológica

Un análisis de algunas barreras que obstaculizan el acceso libre, democrático e igualitario de los recursos informativos a través de las bibliotecas públicas, con un estudio de caso comparando bibliotecas mexicanas y británicas

PhD research project by Zapopan Martín Muela-Meza to obtain a PhD scholarship at the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield through CONACYT (Mexican National Council of Science and Technology). Title: An Analysis of some Barriers that Hamper a Free, Democratic, and Igualitarian Access to Information Resources through Public Libraries. A Case Study Comparing Mexican and British Libraries

Public libraries and the unemployed in Sheffield, United Kingdom: Comparison between Internet search engines and gateways

This paper, "Public libraries and the unemployed in Sheffield, United Kingdom: Comparison between Internet search engines and gateways" is part of a bigger research paper for the doctoral module of Research Training Program, RTP: GSC6100: Library and Info Skills for Successful Research The Assessment Portfolio, at my PhD Program in Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. The module coordinator was Mr. Alastair Allan and Ms. V.A. Harding, both librarians at the University of Sheffield Library

An anti-capitalist critique to the commodification and privatization of information in libraries funded by the public sector

This paper (An anti-capitalist critique to the commodification and privatization of information in libraries funded by the public sector) criticises some of the adverse effects of the governments when they privatise and commodify the information financed by the public purse, such as the double increasing of that information that has already been funded by public funds when the researchers have already been paid, and then their publications are being sold by commercial enterprises whose results had already been generated and financed by government public funds