Books published by Litwin Books

Since 1994, Tim Deppe has been working through his small 501(c)(3) non-profit, Bookseed, to bring children's books and seeds to hundreds of marginalized communities in Latin America and around the world. Bookseed helps establish children's libraries in neglected primary schools and supplies organic seeds to subsistence farmers, co-ops, and school gardens. The stories in Little Gardens of Words reflect Deppe's experiences living and working in some of these remote and forgotten communities, among dozens of different indigenous tribes. Part travelogue and part social commentary, these stories provide insight into the historical and cultural roots of these communities, as well as their current struggles. These inspiring tales show children's eagerness to read and learn despite poorly equipped schools with few resources, and adults' perseverance in face of hardships and oppression. These stories also show the damaging effects of militarism, racism, and poverty that threaten these communities' survival, and readers will be challenged by seeing our own complicity in the international political and economic policies that help create these situations.The more than twenty stories in this volume recount one man's efforts to plant "little gardens," promoting literacy and self-sufficiency, where they are needed most.

Love Activism presents a daily, radical activism of kindness and a positive way to live against cruelty, violence, and injustice. This is realized through how we perform our work, what we do in our communities, and decisions we make each day. This form of activism is a holistic practice with eight beautiful elements: service, empathy, non-violence, self-care, hope, creativity, feminism, and mindfulness. Even when the dismantling of large and unjust structures, corporations, and institutions can seem daunting and disheartening, we can all make real impact in our daily lives. We can choose to live our lives as political statements. This is a profound and inspiring form of activism for ourselves, our communities, all living beings, and the earth.Love Activism is a book for those who seek a more kind and peaceful world. It provides inspiration and support for activists. Through stories, examples, and lists of practices, readers discover the different elements of Love Activism and how they can bring these practices into their lives. The book also includes interviews with ten activists throughout the United States who are involved in various types of activism in their communities. These individuals include the founder of a community garden organization; an art therapist; the founder of a food justice organization; and an individual involved with educating his community on printmaking as a form of activism. Because this book is meant to build community and foster discussion, it concludes with questions for self-reflection and reading groups. Now is the time to be brave and love powerfully.Stacy Russo, a librarian and professor at Santa Ana College in Santa Ana, California, is a poet, writer, and artist. She believes in libraries as community spaces; lifelong learning; public education; peaceful living; feminism; and the power of personal story. Stacy is the editor of Life as Activism: June Jordan's Writings from The Progressive (Litwin Books, 2014) and the author of We Were Going to Change the World: Interviews with Women from the 1970s and 1980s Southern California Punk Rock Scene (Santa Monica Press, 2017) and The Library as Place in California (McFarland, 2007). Her articles, poetry, and reviews have appeared in Feminist Teacher, Feminist Collections, American Libraries, Library Journal, Counterpoise, Chaffey Review, and Serials Review. She holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley; Chapman University; and San Jose State University. Stacy always takes her coffee black; eats chocolate every day; and loves to nap at the ocean.

Open access has transformed the traditional way of scientific communication. Open repositories and open access journals provide large and free access to articles, theses and dissertations, reports, working papers, proceedings and books but also to other unpublished items, multimedia files and raw data. Fifteen years after the landmark Budapest Declaration, this book invites the reader to a critical assessment of the concept and the reality of open access, with a special attention to its impact in the countries of the Global South.The success of open access for the dissemination of scientific information cannot be denied. Yet, the growing numbers of OA journals, articles and books should not keep the scientists and librarians from a critical posture towards the reality beyond figures and statistics. Most publications on open access give the impression that there are only benefits and no alternatives to open access. It is time to abandon this blend of marketing, politics and technology-driven ideology and to return to a more scientific and critical stance.This book brings together seventeen short critical studies by scientists and librarians from different continents, all interested in open access, most of them supporting and accompanying the open access projects and initiatives since many years, each one with the motivation to better understand (and make understood) the ongoing transformation of scientific communication. Some topics: the discursive staging of open access, mis/trusting open access, the promise of reducing digital divide, open access and the Global South, business models of open access, predatory publishing, open access as a symbolic gift.ULRICH HERB is project manager and scientific publishing expert at Saarland University and State Library (Germany). His focus areas are electronic publishing, science communication & infrastructure, scientific publishing, scientometrics and science research. He is publishing regularly in a variety of professional bodies in the fields of Information Science and Science Research.JOACHIM SCHÖPFEL is lecture of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Lille 3 (France), director of the French Digitization Centre for PhD theses (ANRT) and member of the GERiiCO research laboratory. He was manager of the INIST (CNRS) scientific library from 1999 to 2008. He teaches library marketing, auditing, intellectual property and information science. His research interests are scientific information and communication, especially open access, grey literature and research data.