In today's Washington Post, R. Jeffrey Smith has an article discussing the ongoing 'discussions' at the National Archives concerning the handling of the Sandy Berger document thefts.
"A report last month by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said for the first time that Berger's visits were so badly mishandled that Archives officials had acknowledged not knowing if he removed anything else and destroyed it. The committee further argued that the 9/11 Commission should have been told more about Berger and about [NARA Inspector General Paul] Brachfeld's concerns [that Berger may have taken/destroyed more documents than he's admitted]..."
Sounds like there's a little bit of circular firing squad action going on here, both inter- and intra-agency (not that there isn't enough blame to go around). But I can't fault Brachfeld for pursuing these questions. It is, after all, his job to protect the documents in NARA's custody and make sure proper procedures are followed (which, in this case, they clearly were not).
What really roiled me about the article was this comment from Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer: "It never ceases to amaze me how the most trivial things can be politicized. It is the height of unfairness ... for this poor guy, who clearly made a mistake." Unfairness? Mistake? The former national security advisor destroying original, classified documents? Smuggling them out of the Archives in his socks? Mistake, you bet, but far from accidental; he deserved every punishment he got and then some. And I know on my part this has absolute zero to do with politics - I'd feel exactly the same about this crime no matter who committed it.
Showing posts with label Berger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berger. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Links &c.
- One of BibliOdyssey's posts this week was made of up some gorgeous insect illustrations from an album created c. 1660-80 by English artist Alexander Marshal (162?-1682), better known in his own time for his watercolors of flowers and fruits.
- At Upward Departure, Travis has written up a two-part post (one, two) on the thefts made by Sandy Berger from the National Archives. The first discusses the actual thefts, while the second considers the sentences as compared with several others handed down in recent years.
- Ed's got some great new posts over at The Bibliothecary, including a list of some of his upcoming reviews, and some comments on the short film "Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man," about the fellow who now runs Shakespeare & Company in Paris. Looks like quite a character, I'll have to watch the movie.
- AHA Today notes the banning of Wikipedia as a citable source by the Middlebury College history Department. Seems about right to me; I agree with both the department chair ("Even though Wikipedia may have some value, particularly from the value of leading students to citable sources, it is not itself an appropriate source for citation") and a Wikipedia spokesperson ("Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources"). I tend to use Wikipedia extremely sparingly, but on occasion it can be reasonably useful. Smart move by Middlebury, I say (although I do like the commenter who asks why citing Wikipedia was ever okay...).
- At Upward Departure, Travis has written up a two-part post (one, two) on the thefts made by Sandy Berger from the National Archives. The first discusses the actual thefts, while the second considers the sentences as compared with several others handed down in recent years.
- Ed's got some great new posts over at The Bibliothecary, including a list of some of his upcoming reviews, and some comments on the short film "Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man," about the fellow who now runs Shakespeare & Company in Paris. Looks like quite a character, I'll have to watch the movie.
- AHA Today notes the banning of Wikipedia as a citable source by the Middlebury College history Department. Seems about right to me; I agree with both the department chair ("Even though Wikipedia may have some value, particularly from the value of leading students to citable sources, it is not itself an appropriate source for citation") and a Wikipedia spokesperson ("Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources"). I tend to use Wikipedia extremely sparingly, but on occasion it can be reasonably useful. Smart move by Middlebury, I say (although I do like the commenter who asks why citing Wikipedia was ever okay...).
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Links &c.
- Michael Lieberman has a good post at Book Patrol on the "disappearance of the book middle-class" (that is, books priced $25-75 in used bookshops). "Within the last 10 years, the influx of technology, the advent of online bookselling and widespread internet connectivity, has brought into the market millions upon millions of books that were simply unaccounted for. The book resale market has become a petri dish of supply and demand economics. Here the true free market is deciding price points. This flood of available material has taken many of the books in the $25-75 price range and reduced them to $1-$15 books. Is this just a natural evolution of free market capitalism?"
Michael goes on to suggest that there are probably more "non-new books available for sale today that are priced under the cost of shipping the book to the buyer than the total amount of books available to the public 10 years ago." Given the number of people who sell books on Amazon for pennies (a business model which I confess I still cannot wrap my head around), I'd be willing to bet Michael's right.
On the flip side, of course, rarer items only get rarer, and collectors' ability to snap up any Aldine or Elzevier or [insert your niche passion here] is unparalled in today's searchable age. So prices go up up up on the high end, down down down on the low end ... and as Michael notes, "it is our friends in the middle who are being squeezed out." An interesting trend to watch, and one I've noticed very sharply in the last couple of years.
- The good folks at Bytown Bookshop had a "great day for buying" on Sunday; looks like they got some nice goodies! And at Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis, Ian's got some very interesting new Stephen King items and notes some upcoming book fairs he'll be attending.
- Over at Reading Archives, Richard Cox comments on the recent NARA report over the Sandy Berger case.
- I've added a sidebar link to viaLibri, a book search aggregator which looks through many of the online databases. I like that it's got year and price range searchability, those are always useful tools.
- Oh, I almost forgot ... the Brentano's in Copley Place mall (for those of you in/near Boston) is closing (since Borders just opened another store right up the street) and their entire stock is 40% off or more. This coming Friday's their last day, so if you're in the area, there are some bargains to be had.
Michael goes on to suggest that there are probably more "non-new books available for sale today that are priced under the cost of shipping the book to the buyer than the total amount of books available to the public 10 years ago." Given the number of people who sell books on Amazon for pennies (a business model which I confess I still cannot wrap my head around), I'd be willing to bet Michael's right.
On the flip side, of course, rarer items only get rarer, and collectors' ability to snap up any Aldine or Elzevier or [insert your niche passion here] is unparalled in today's searchable age. So prices go up up up on the high end, down down down on the low end ... and as Michael notes, "it is our friends in the middle who are being squeezed out." An interesting trend to watch, and one I've noticed very sharply in the last couple of years.
- The good folks at Bytown Bookshop had a "great day for buying" on Sunday; looks like they got some nice goodies! And at Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis, Ian's got some very interesting new Stephen King items and notes some upcoming book fairs he'll be attending.
- Over at Reading Archives, Richard Cox comments on the recent NARA report over the Sandy Berger case.
- I've added a sidebar link to viaLibri, a book search aggregator which looks through many of the online databases. I like that it's got year and price range searchability, those are always useful tools.
- Oh, I almost forgot ... the Brentano's in Copley Place mall (for those of you in/near Boston) is closing (since Borders just opened another store right up the street) and their entire stock is 40% off or more. This coming Friday's their last day, so if you're in the area, there are some bargains to be had.
Friday, December 29, 2006
On the Trail of Stolen Documents
Time has a 'exclusive' feature this week on Operation Historic Protector, an effort launched by NARA's Inspector General last month "to combat what many fear is a growing threat to the federal government's historical repository, as well as to state archives and university libraries: the pilfering of old letters, documents, maps, photographs, books and other historical artifacts."
Right now the project is pretty low-level, with two staffers from the IG's office assigned to monitor the manuscript trade in search of suspicious items. Paul Brachfeld, the inspector general, told the magazine that OMB has so far refused his request to fund the operation, "but he says he hopes to build up his force along with a network of outside artifacts experts around the country who will tip off his agents 'every time they find something suspicious. And we swoop down.'"
Brachfeld told Time that his office is investigating a "major case" of document theft "in which 'almost a hundred documents' are believed to have been stolen by a National Archives employee. Brachfeld would not discuss details of that case because 'it is awaiting prosecution.'" This one has not hit the news so far as I know.
In the wake of the Smiley/Berger/Harner/&c. cases in recent years, this doesn't seem like a bad idea. When I was at Union we recovered multiple items stolen from the library by monitoring eBay, so it certainly can be done. Clearly we can't just sit back and ignore the problem.
Right now the project is pretty low-level, with two staffers from the IG's office assigned to monitor the manuscript trade in search of suspicious items. Paul Brachfeld, the inspector general, told the magazine that OMB has so far refused his request to fund the operation, "but he says he hopes to build up his force along with a network of outside artifacts experts around the country who will tip off his agents 'every time they find something suspicious. And we swoop down.'"
Brachfeld told Time that his office is investigating a "major case" of document theft "in which 'almost a hundred documents' are believed to have been stolen by a National Archives employee. Brachfeld would not discuss details of that case because 'it is awaiting prosecution.'" This one has not hit the news so far as I know.
In the wake of the Smiley/Berger/Harner/&c. cases in recent years, this doesn't seem like a bad idea. When I was at Union we recovered multiple items stolen from the library by monitoring eBay, so it certainly can be done. Clearly we can't just sit back and ignore the problem.
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