Feedback

I strongly agreed with Francine Fialkoff's “Grad School Confidential” (Editorial, LJ 10/15/07, p. 8). I graduated from San José State University (SJSU) with my MLIS in spring 2005. New to the profession, I assumed that having the degree—plus extensive experience working in bookstores, an MA in history, and a good knowledge of the publishing industry—would get me a decent job in a reasonable amount of time.

I had wonderful professors at SJSU, but no one ever said, “You must have practical experience or you will face tremendous difficulty in getting a job.” There was little information available on internships, and many of the ones that were available involved huge commutes or were unpaid volunteer work, so I preferred to focus on my studies and my bookstore job (that at least involved a paycheck). When I interviewed, I found that even obvious entry-level positions (part-time, low pay, no security) were denied to me because I hadn't worked in a library before. I don't understand why this barrier should exist—surely entry-level positions aren't so incredibly difficult that new graduates can't be trained on the job—but I have definitely found it to be the reality. To be fair, SJSU has improved its internship program significantly since I attended.

I was lucky enough to get a wonderful job, because I was willing to relocate to a remote area, but I'm sure a lot of new graduates are having trouble. Library science programs need to require that 100 percent of their students get meaningful professional experience and need to put the infrastructure in place to ensure that they can do so.

—Kyri Freeman, Libn., Barstow Coll., CA

Elizabeth Hayford's “Israel-Palestine” book roundup (LJ 10/15/07, p. 78ff.) includes her evaluations of [about] a half-dozen largely tendentious books that she considers “solid works.” Who selected these books—Hayford or LJ? The reviews stress what she calls the “Israeli determination for military action,” “Israel's destructive and shortsighted politics,” “the brutal human rights abuse carried out by the Israeli army and occupation,” and “the constant and inhumane quality of the Israeli occupation”.... Hayford asserts that Hamas is merely “called a terrorist group by the United States and other powers,” evading the fact that these “other powers” are largely the member states of the European Union, which can hardly be considered supporters of Israel.

Hayford's review essay is a capstone to the 80 or so book reviews by her of a similar nature that LJ has published over the past three decades. These books have included works by mainstream publishers, as well as more questionable ones. In 1988 she praised Col. Muammar Qaddafi and an American reprint-cum-analysis of this terrorist's Little Green Book. She asserted that it revealed the Libyan dictator's genuine “concern for a decent society” (LJ 9/11/88, p. 172ff.). (Remember Lockerbie?) Not surprisingly, she considered Paul Findley's They Dare To Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby (LJ 8/85, p. 101) as a responsible effort to protect American democracy from Jewish influence....

Some public librarians have traditionally relied on LJ reviews when selecting books for purchase, particularly in areas with which they are not well acquainted. Moreover, blurbs from LJ in ads and on book covers are used to promote book sales. Neither librarians nor the American public has been well served by LJ in this important subject field.

—Stephen Karetzky, Lib. Dir., Felician Coll. Lib., Lodi, NJ

I am surprised that LJ would choose to highlight Elizabeth Hayford's “Israel-Palestine” roundup (LJ 10/15/07, p. 78ff.) by including only books by authors with a decidedly anti-Israel slant. Did Hayford find no 2007 titles to be “solid works” and “valuable additions to many libraries” that are written from an Israeli perspective? I became suspicious of the reviewer's bias when I saw she chose not to qualify her description of the period of the second Intifada as a time “when the Palestinian people began to fight for their rights.” This connotes an image of Martin Luther King or Gandhi rather than the violent grass-roots movement made notable by frequent suicide attacks with the intent of maximizing Israeli civilian casualties....

Hayford also chose not to include relevant facts about authors in her reviews. For example, author Azzam Tamimi (Hamas: A History from Within) has publicly called suicide terrorism the “greatest act of martyrdom.” Google his name, and you can watch a YouTube video of him screeching that Israel is a “black chapter in the history of humanity” and calling for its destruction. Most serious review journals would not call the work of a genocidal fanatic one of seven books on the topic “that libraries need to have,” but these were the words Hayford used about Tamimi's book.

In a list of seven books on the conflict, it's a shame that LJ chose not to highlight any recent books sympathetic toward the Israeli government, like those by Michael Oren, Dore Gold, Leonard Cole, Mitchell Bard, Benjamin Orbach, or Amos Oz....

—Lisa Silverman, Lib. Dir., Sinai Temple Blumenthal Lib., Los Angeles