Search results

This chapter explores the concept of entitlement among school teachers and university professors in terms of long-standing characteristics of the culture of schooling. Features of the school culture are introduced with a short excerpt from a science lesson that illustrates how the authority of a teacher's position can be substituted for the teacher's authority of knowledge or reason. Introduction of the concept of the authority that arises from experience leads to discussion of entitlement arising from viewing teaching as a gift rather than a service. If teaching is a service, are students not entitled to a voice in their learning? To illustrate, a three-decade project to develop students' voice and responsibility in their learning is discussed. Given the unique characteristics of teaching and teacher education, the chapter closes with the suggestion that the ultimate indication of teacher entitlement may be teachers not realizing the importance of teaching their students how to learn.

This chapter examines the ecotopian activist tradition through an exploration of existing literature, within a context of the processes of activism, identity and place which arise from the communitarian impulse. The initial part of the chapter sets out utopian communitarianism into separate phases. Each phase is examined for the exogenous and internalised motivations that compel people in different eras to participate in intentional living projects be they religious, autonomous, or environmental. The chapter develops these themes further by applying Sargisson's study of intentional communities to the discussion. The chapter attempts to ground this discussion within the context of the wider understandings of green utopian practice, such as Barry's ‘Concrete Utopian’ realism or de Geus's ‘utopia of sufficiency’.

This chapter explores the recent trend in libraries: that of the establishment of spaces specifically set aside for creative work. The rise of these dedicated creative spaces is owed to a confluence of factors that happen to be finding their expression together in recent years. This chapter examines the history of these spaces and explores the factors that gave rise to them and will fuel them moving forward.

A viewpoint piece, this chapter combines historical research and historical/comparative analyses to examine the ways by which libraries have supported creative work in the past and how they may continue to do so into the 21st century.

The key threads brought together include a societal recognition of the value of creativity and related skills and attributes; the philosophies, values, and missions of libraries in both their long-standing forms and in recent evolutions; the rise of participatory culture as a result of inexpensive technologies; improved means to build community and share results of efforts; and library experience and historical practice in matters related to creativity. The chapter concludes with advice for those interested in the establishment of such spaces, grounding those reflections in the author’s experiences in developing a new creative space at Virginia Commonwealth University.

While a number of pieces have been written that discuss the practicalities of developing certain kinds of creative spaces, very little has been written that situates these spaces in larger social and library professional contexts; this chapter begins to fill that gap.

This note presents new archival evidence about John Maynard Keynes’ attitudes toward Jews. The relevant material is composed of two letters sent by Robert G. Wertheimer to Bertrand Russell and Richard F. Kahn along with their replies. Between 1963 and 1964, Wertheimer – an Austrian-born Jewish immigrant then professor of economics at Babson College – wrote to Russell and Kahn asking for their personal reminiscences concerning Keynes’ anti-Semitic utterances. In their brief but still significant responses, both Russell and Kahn firmly denied any hint of anti-Semitism in Keynes, thereby providing significant first-hand testimonies from two of his closest acquaintances.