STRIKE: 'Greeenwich Libraries Staff to Strike over GLL Takeover'

"Unite union staff working at Greenwich Council's libraries are to strike for five days in protest at the council's decision to hand over the running of its libraries to GLL (Greenwich Leisure Ltd).

The switch to GLL management is due to take place from Monday 30 April but union representatives fear cuts to workers' pay and conditions, and are also angry about the lack of consultation over the move.

Strikes will take place on Friday 27th April, Saturday 28th April, Mondy 30th April, Tuesday 1st May, and Friday 11th May."

This leads on from my previous blog on this topic - see
http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/diana-edmonds-head-of-libraries.html

The predictions I outlined in my Globalistion book, 'Globalisation, Information and Librares' (Chandos Publishing: Oxford, 2005) are coming to pass - libraries gradually being taken out of state control, firstly being run by trusts, charities and voluntary organisations, which paves the way for eventual and total privatisation.

How long will it take before the 'penny finally drops'? And how much will we have lost in the process and how much poorer will we be, before the 'penny finally drops'?

For more information and comments about it all see -
http://853blog.com/2012/04/25/greenwich-libraries-takeover-gll-boss-speaks-out/#comments

The Creative University and Paulo Freire

THE CREATIVE UNIVERSITY – FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

Faculty of Education, Office of Teaching and Learning, Waikato University

School of Creative Arts, James Cook University

THE CREATIVE UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE

Hosted by

Universityof Waikato, Te Whare Wananga O Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

15-16 August, 2012

First Call for Papers

Deadline for submission:

Abstracts due: May 1st 2012

Full papers due: July 1st 2012


Education and research have been transformed in the development of knowledge economies. The knowledge, learning and creative economies manifest the changing significance of intellectual capital and the thickening connections between on one hand economic growth, on the other hand knowledge, creativity (especially imagined new knowledge, discovery), the communication of knowledge, and the formation and spreading of creative skills in education. Increasingly economic and social activity is comprised by the ‘symbolic’ or ‘weightless’ economy with its iconic, immaterial and digital goods. This immaterial economy includes new international labour markets that demand analytic skills, global competencies and an understanding of markets in tradeable knowledges. Developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) not only define globalisation they are changing the format, density and nature of the exchange and flows of knowledge, research and scholarship. Delivery modes in education are being reshaped. Global cultures are spreading in the form of knowledge and research networks. Openness and networking, cross-border people movement, flows of capital, portal cities and littoral zones, and new and audacious systems with worldwide reach; all are changing the conditions of imagining and producing and the sharing of creative work in different spheres. The economic aspect of creativity refers to the production of new ideas, aesthetic forms, scholarship, original works of art and cultural products, as well as scientific inventions and technological innovations. It embraces open source communication as well as commercial intellectual property.

All of this positions education at the centre of the economy/ creativity nexus. But are education systems, institutions, assumptions and habits positioned and able so as to seize the opportunities and meet the challenges?

This conference investigates all the aspects of education in (and as) the creative economy.The conference objective is to extend the dialogue about the relationship between contemporary higher education and the changing face of contemporary economies. A number of terms describe the nature of the contemporary capitalism of advanced economies: ‘cognitive capitalism’, ‘metaphysical capitalism’, ‘intellectual capitalism’, ‘designer capitalism’. The conference will explore the relationship between the arts and sciences and this new form of capitalism. It will look at the global reach and international imperatives of aesthetic and scientific modes of production, the conditions and character of acts of the imagination in the range of fields of knowledge and arts in this period, and the role of the research university in the formation of the creative knowledge that has a decisive function in contemporary advanced economies.

Please send title and abstract as an expression of interest to Professor Michael A. Peters: mpeters@waikato.ac.nz

Details at: http://tcreativeu.blogspot.co.uk/p/first-call-for-papers.html

The Creative University: http://tcreativeu.blogspot.co.uk


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PAULO FREIRE: THE GLOBAL LEGACY


A Celebration of Freire’s 91st Birthday

A major international conference, Hamilton, New Zealand, November 26-28, 2012

A major international conference hosted by the University of Waikato, Te Whare Wananga o Waikato, New Zealand, November 26-28, 2012, will be held at the Novotel Hamilton Tainui Hotel on the banks of the Waikato River, in central Hamilton.

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The University of Waikato, Te Whare Wananga oWaikatois delighted to be hosting a major international conference, “Paulo Freire: The Global Legacy” as a retrospective celebration of his work and its legacy and influence across the globe.

The University of Waikato, with a student population of about 13,000 and 2000 academic and support staff, is committed to delivering a world-class education and research portfolio, providing a full and dynamic university experience, distinctive in character, and pursuing strong international links to advance knowledge.

The University works closely with Maori tribes (iwi), particularly Tainui, to make the University accessible to Maori students and to foster an environment of success. http://www.waikato.ac.nz/maori/
& http://www.waikato.ac.nz/about/ & http://www.waikato.ac.nz/

Paulo Freire, one of the greatest educators of all time, was born in Recife, Brazil, on September 19, 1921 and died of heart failure in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 2, 1997. Freire taught Portuguese in secondary schools from 1941-1947 before becoming active in adult education and workers’ training. He was the first Director of the Department of Cultural Extension of the University of Recife(1961-1964). Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) is an argument for a system of education that emphasizes learning as an act of culture and freedom. His works became justly famous as he gained an international reputation for his program of literacy education especially for the rural and dispossessed in Northeastern Brazil. He was jailed by the new government after 1964 and was forced into a political exile that lasted fifteen-years, eventually returning to Brazil in 1979. As a living testimony, his many works have been translated into many languages, and have inspired the tradition of critical pedagogy.

The conference is aimed at experienced and new researchers, policy-makers and practitioners from all around the world who engage with Freire’s work in any of the following broad themes that the conference will be organized around:
· Globalization
· De-colonisation
· Indigenous cultures
· Cultural studies
A Stream in Portuguese is planned for Portuguese speaking delegates to present and discuss their research in Portuguese. Abstracts will be available in both English and Portuguese. Dr Ana Ratto, from Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil, who is Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Education at University of Waikato, in 2012 is coordinating this stream which will take place on Tuesday 27 November 2012.

For further information, contact ratto.ana@gmail.com