- Author David Halberstam Killed in Car Wreck
Posted April 25, 2007
The human species lost Molly Ivins in February, Arthur Schlesinger in March,
and, earlier in April, Kurt Vonnegut.
Now this..
Found via LISNews.
- Gwinnett County Public Library Given "Award"
From Georgia-Based "Family Friendly Libraries"
Posted April 25, 2007
Gwinnett got one of only two such library "awards" so far announced; the
other "winner" is located in Kansas. They got the "award" by adhering to
criteria that FFL would like all public libraries on the planet (or,
perhaps merely throughout Christendom?) to adopt.
Details.
Found via
LISNews.
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution to Eliminate Book Editor's Job
Posted April 25, 2007
If you want to read and sign a petition begging the AJC to reverse its
decision to cut costs by getting rid of its book review editor,
click here.
- Bookstores Taking On Role Formerly Performed by Libraries?
Posted April 25, 2007
Librarian Will Manley, from his column in the April 1st issue of Booklist:
“…When I go to Barnes and Noble or to Borders, I routinely see dozens
of people reading and browsing books, and when I go to my friendly
neighborhood branch library, I see dozens of people scanning and surfing
computers. The book lovers and serious readers are in the bookstores. The
computer lovers are in the library.”
How did this happen? Because, Manley theorizes, “the people who had always
looked to libraries for quality and quietude became alienated [by the
recent resource-investment decisions made by most public library administrators].”
The bookstores simply continued serving the core constituency most public
libraries - including AFPL - deliberately abandoned (for a variety of
reasons of high-sounding reasons).
Read Manley’s
entire column.
Seems to us that the question before us now is: Are any public libraries -
including AFPL - willing to invest any substantial resources or effort in
getting this core constituency back into its libraries?
- Dept. of Criminals with Library Degrees: New York Division
Posted April 25, 2007
The dreary, becoming-all-too-familiar
details.
Found via
LISNews.
- Latest News from the Culture Wars
Posted April 25, 2007
An Arkansas parent wants the local city government to pay him $20,000
and fire the city's library director because his teenaged sons found
a sex education book for lesbians in the local public library.
Details.
The lawsuit comes after the library director who the parent wants fired
agreed to move the book from its original shelf location, and after the
library’s advisory board voted to remove the book from the library’s
collection altogether.
The lawsuit-filing patron told a local newspaper reporter that "Any effort to
reinstate the book will be met with legal action and protests from the Christian community."
Found via LISNews;
Library Journal provided the link to the
source that included the patron's warning.
- Evergreen Circulation Software: Bring It On!
Posted April 25, 2007
The "Librarian in Black"
reports that a recent informal survey among librarians about their
OPACS that Dave Pattern has been conducting reveals what we already knew:
there’s a general, universal suckiness among all the commercial products
on the market.
Are the survey results yet another reason for AFPL to abandon SIRSI and
hop on the home-grown Evergreen system bandwagon ASAP? Evergreen is
unlikely to be perfect, but, whatever its flaws, they sure would be
cheaper ones than the dozens of unaddressed shortcomings AFPL staff and
patrons are currently contending with! The mind reels when it contemplates
what Other Things AFPL could spend the hefty amount of moolah on each year
currently streaming into the pockets of SIRSI/Dynex’s owners.
- AFPL Trustees Vote Themselves a "Pay Raise"
Posted April 25, 2007
From the Dept. of Things That Happened a While Back that We Forgot to Post, but That are Interesting
Nonetheless: AFPL's trustees voted last July to ask the County Commissioners to pay each trustee $100
per monthly board meeting to defray the expenses of attending said meetings. For the past 12 years,
the trustees had been reimbursed $50 a pop.
The trustees' vote is recorded on page 31-34 of the transcript of the July 26, 2006 meeting. We understand
the Commissioners subsequently approved the request. Your tax dollars at work, we suppose. Wouldn't
it be interesting to see the total amount of money Fulton County reimburses the hundreds of people on
its dozens of advisory boards? So far, we've been unable to locate that item in the county's budget....
May 2nd Update: We were wrong about the Commissioners approving the
library board's requested per diem increase. At their April 2007 meeting,
they voted to deny the request.
- Four LibraryLand “Movers and Shakers” Work in Metro-Atlanta
Posted April 23, 2007
Four up-and-comers in the library world named by Library Journal among
its most-recently-annointed "Movers and Shakers" work in the metro area:
- Brian Matthews, at Georgia Tech’s library (his blog:
The Ubiquitous Librarian)
- Dustin Holland, whose Alpharetta-based company Better World Books
“at no charge, sell[s] [a] library’s unwanted books, return[s] [the] proceeds to
[the] library and a nonprofit partner of [the library’s] choice, and…share[s]
the company’s profits with literacy partners in the United States and beyond”
- Michael Casey, at Gwinnett County Public Library (his blog:
Library Crunch); inventor
of the term “Library 2.0”
- Ross Singer, also at Georgia Tech's library (his blog:
http://dilettantes.code4lib.org)
Another Georgia-based Mover/Shaker is Catherine Vanstone, who works
in Bainbridge's Southwest Georgia Regional Library.
- Library Innovation vs. Administrative Resistance/Indifference
Posted April 23, 2007
Excerpt from the frustation
vented recently by Charlotte & Mecklenburg County librarian (and
current “LJ Mover/Shaker”) Helene Blowers after attending this year’s
annual Computers in Libraries conference:
“I’m beginning to wonder if what the profession really needs is just to
give some administrators a good swift kick in the head. Those that I spent
my time talking with clearly got all the 2.0 concepts, in fact they were
apostles. But after trying to move their libraries forward for the past
year or so, they felt stippled and oppressed by stale management and old
world politics.
My heart melted a bit every time I heard a story [at the conference] from
a passionate librarian whose gallant efforts to provide new and fresh
services were crushed by the old guard. Clearly things need to change…but
I’m struggling even myself with exactly just how?
The answers I know aren’t simple, but my sense is that these woes can be
summed up in one question: Is your library, your management, your
leadership culture built around policies and practices that 'control' or
are they open and flexible to 'empower' both employees and your customers?”
- Friends of African Village Libraries
Posted April 18, 2007
This new-to-us organization has its own website.
Found via Rachel J.K. Grace's
Fade Theory.
- Dept. of Library Nostalgia
Posted April 18, 2007
Yet another diatribe against the relentlessly-rising level of noise
permitted in public libraries, Bookninja's rant is funnier
than many - and his anecdote from the days of library-quiet-enforcement-past
certainly takes the proverbial cake.
- Dept. of Nifty Library Furniture
Posted April 18, 2007
Details about a nook-containing bookcase now on the market,
presumably designed for Young (or at least Smaller) Readers.
Found via LISNews, via
fusenumber8, via Bookninja,
via Boing-Boing.
And while we're on the subject of Boing-Boing alerts about nifty
library furniture, we found these
Obelisk Chairs semi-appealing - despite the absurd $9,000 pricetag .
- Forum on Unrestricted vs. Filtered Internet Access
in Rochester's Public Libraries Draws Crowd of Over 100
Posted April 15, 2007
Details from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
Found via
LISNews.
- Library Display Creators' Alert: Book Display Photos on Flickr
Posted April 15, 2007
More than once we've mentioned the hope that The AFPL Powers That Be would set
up a way for library staff to conveniently share photos of their library
exhibits. Such a mechanism could showcase the creativity of library staff
and spark ideas for replicating and/or adapting better exhibit ideas among
AFPL's far-flung (and therefore somewhat isolated) branches.
The WATCH's repeated suggestions for creating such a photo-sharing mechanism
have gone unheeded, but frustrated library exhibit creators might find a
few inspirations from the
book display photo-pool posted at Flickr.
- Author Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84
Posted April 12, 2007
A beloved and gifted writer and speaker,
Vonnegut was also an outspoken champion of libraries and librarians.
- Patron Fires Gun Inside Public Library in Utah
Posted April 11, 2007
Happened yesterday; nobody was hurt. Details
Found via LISNews.
- Judge to Review Decisions in Gwinnett County Parent's Harry Potter Complaint
Posted April 11, 2007
The Superior Court hearing is scheduled for May 29th.
Details from yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
April 15th Update: The Washington Post
recently blogged
an opinion piece about the Potter protest, followed by numerous
(and somewhat redundant) readers' comments.
- Quickie Explanation of Major Interent-Based Social Networking Devices
Posted April 11, 2007
Don't know the difference between a blog and a wiki? Between Twitter and
Flikr? Between podcasting and videoblogging? Never learned how RSS can
save your Internet-invested time?
Read these short explanations at
Lifehack.
Found via LISNews.
- Recommended Library-Related Internet Resources Website Launched
Posted April 11, 2007
Those of us trying to keep up with what's going on in LibraryLand may need
to bookmark LibSite, a new website created
yesterday by Chicago Librarian Leo Klein.
Found via a website that you should have long ago bookmarked on your
computer if you work in any kind of library, the venerable and dependable
LISNews.
- Michigan Supreme Court to Decide Whether State’s Residents
Have a Constitutional Right to Borrow Local Public Library Materials
Posted April 11, 2007
Details from the Battle Creek Enquirer.
Found via Library Link of the Day.
- Google Making Book Plagiarism Much Easier to Detect
Posted April 11, 2007
Here's one from the Dept. of Unintended Consequences: the much-heralded (and/or
much-worried-about) Google Book Search, a search engine based on the millions
of books from university libraries whose text Google's been scanning, exposes
what Slate has dubbed the
"Dead Plagiarists Society".
Found via LISNews.
- Oregon's Jackson County Public Library System Shuts Down
Posted April 9, 2007
What happens local politicians depend way too much on federal funding
for local services is vividly depicted in this
story from a local newspaper in southern Oregon, published the day
the libraries in one county there shut down indefinitely.
As we mentioned recently,
the voters in Jackson County, Oregon will be voting next month on whether to levy a
local tax on themselves that would fund their their libraries.
- Meetings in Colorado Library's Meeting Rooms
May No Longer Be Required to Be Open to the Public
Posted April 9, 2007
Last February, an immigrant-rights group refused to allow members of the
public to join a meeting it had booked at a public library in
Longman, Colorado. Read
Library Journal's coverage of this controversy and its upshot.
- Dept. of Criminals with Library Degrees: Pennsylvania Division
Posted April 6, 2007
A 40-year-old librarian interning at the National Archives has been convicted of stealing
more than $30,000 worth of Civil War documents. All but three of the 150
stolen items have been recovered. Details.
Found via
LISNews.
- Virginia Passes Law Tying State Library Funds to Library Internet Filters
Posted April 6, 2007
Read
the dreary details.
Found via LISNews.
- Different Age Groups Use Internet Technologies...Differently
Posted April 6, 2007
Using the "life stages" paradigm to explain why groups of different-aged
Americans tend to use certain Internet technologies and ignore other ones
is only one of the many topics covered by Danah Boyd in a speech at a
recent technology conference in San Diego. Sample soundbites from Boyd's
talk:
"Technologies succeed when they support what people already do, what they want to do, and what
they're required to do."
"What matters to people changes over their lifetime. A lot of this has to do with what roles they play,
what responsibilities they have, and what culture tells them is important."
Fortunately, a summary of Boyd's speech has been posted to the Internet, and
although lenghtier and more challenging reading than, say, your typical
blogpost, Boyd's remarks are chock-full of exceptionally compelling ideas.
Every techno-enthusiastic Library Person should
Read. This. Now.
Found via the April 6th installment of Marylaine Block's
Neat New Stuff I Found This Week. As Marylaine helpfully notes, more of
Boyd's acute observations - and her amazingly thoughtful readers - are
available at Boyd's blog.
- Adding a WorldCat Search Box to the Library's Web Page
Posted April 5, 2007
Most serious library-using bibliophiles probably realize they can access
WorldCat directly (for free) on the Internet, and have long since added it
to their lists of "Internet Favorites" (aka bookmarked it).
Libraries with websites (and is there any library without one these days?)
can now add a WorldCat search box to their main page. Doing that would save
library users from having to hunt for the damn thing - in AFPL's case, it's
buried somewhere deep inside its GALILEO pages.
Instructions for installing the WorldCat search box on any website or
blog have been posted to OCLC's "It's All Good" blog.
Although - alas! alack! - AFPL has no blog to install the search box on,
could the Mystery Person who tends to AFPL's website please consider reading
these
instructions, and niftily adding the search box somewhere on AFPL's
main page?
- Library Signage Alert
Posted April 5, 2007
Librarian Rochelle Hartman has created the following sign that asks her library's
users to be mindful of how much noise they're making (or not making) while
they're in the library. Rochelle posted the sign to her
blog, and writes that it's fine with her if others adapt her idea for
their own posters.
Found via the
Librarian in Black
- Philip Roth Wins First “Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction”
Posted April 4, 2007
The $40,000 prize will be given every two years. Roth has already won the
Pulitzer, national Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle prize, and
(three times) the PEN/Faulker Prize.
Reported in the April 2, 2007 edition of the New York Times .
- Funds Cut for City-Funded Bookmobile in Sandy Springs
Posted April 2, 2007
Details from yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- U.S. Senate Passes Legislation That Would Save Oregon Library
Posted April 2, 2007
An
update on the scheduled shut-down of a library system in Jackson
County, Oregon, where the feds own half the land and pay no local taxes.
President Bush has said he will veto the bill.
Found via
LISNews.
- Police Interrupt Man Surreptitiously Videotaping
Women's Feet in California University Library
Posted April 2, 2007
Not everything some female library users have to contend with from some male
library users is technically illegal, although maybe
this particular behavior should be outlawed.
With so many cell phones now containing cameras, we expect this sort of
nuisance will only get worse as more and more these guys begin routinely
trawl the nearest library for more material.
Found via LISNews.
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