LISNews: Librarian News

Thank you to all the people that donated to the Rose Lin Johnson Chinese Orphanage fund.
My brother in law and some friends have been passing around the link to the donation page so donations have been coming from a few different sources and all of them are appreciated. Donations as of this morning were at $291.94.
Mentioning the adoption on LISNEWS also had the positive effect of providing me a contact with another LISNEWS person that adopted from China this summer. They mentioned that they could provide with with some travel advice. I will be grateful to recieve any background information I can. I hope to call them this week.

Thanks again to all those that supported us so far. If anyone else could support our cause we really could use your help.

My wife and I are adopting a little girl from China. We just received our referral. The referral is the selection of the actual child for the adoptive parents. We were sent pictures and a medical report. After receiving the referral the potential adoptive parents agree to accept the child. With a glad heart we checked off the box that said "we accept this child" and faxed it back to the agency. You can see pictures of our new daughter at http://members.cox.net/bibliofuture/rose

It has been a long process, over two years of paper work with adoption agencies, foreign governments, and the American government. It has also been an expensive process. The cost to date has been over $12,000. To pay the costs to this point I took out a second mortgage on my home. The expenses come from adoption agency fees, home study cost, INS fees, and all your documents have to be certified by the secretary of state at a cost of $10 to $25 for every document certified and there are lots of them. We have two large expenses left. One is travel to China to pick up the child. The other is a $3000 orphanage fee that the Chinese government charges to defray the cost of the orphanages. This money has been seemingly well used by the Chinese government. From the reports that I have read many of the orphanages have been improved and additional medicine, clothes, and food have been made available for the children. An excellent book that discusses this is "Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China" by Kay Ann Johnson

I am working to raise the $3000 so that I can pay this required fee. If I can just find 300 people that would be willing to donate $10 I will be able to raise the money. Donations go directly to improve the conditions and level of supplies and staff that are available in Chinese orphanages. If you would be able to help out please take a look at this page I created for the Rose Lin Johnson Chinese Orphanage fund

I found the following quote and wanted to know what people though of it. Do you think it is true?
"Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation."
-- Sid Taylor
I disagree with the quote. I define wisdom as the proper use of knowledge. I don't see why the proper use of knowledge cannot be written down. Over time what was true at one point may change and no longer be true and the wisdom would disappear but I still think wisdom can be stored. Your thoughts?

I stumbled upon an interesting quote:
The stone age was marked by man's clever use of crude tools; the information age, to date, has been marked by man's crude use of clever tools

Story about Cheney comment on eBay. Compare it with this story in the NYT.
Kerry's running mate John Edwards in the first story makes this comment, "If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking". I think the NYT story shows the weakness in Edwards rebuttal.

Birdie, this one is for you. This is an example of a bow tie wearing idiot conservative getting b**** slapped.

Jon Stewart from the Daily Show was on Crossfire. He criticizes Crossfire for being theater and not a true debate show. The response of the hosts just goes to prove how right he is. You can see the entire clip at http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2652831

There is also a clip of the Daily Show on Monday after the Crossfire incident where Stewart comments on what happened. http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2653047

Is John Kerry C3PO?

Best of the Web at the Wall Street Journal has the discussion.

I found a poster that I think many librarians would find interesting http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=177265&item=387160

I came upon this interesting book, Who Owns Information?" by Anne Wells Branscomb

I came across a book that librarians would enjoy. I have a link to it at www.bibliofuture.org The title of the book is "How I Fell in Love with a Librarian and Lived to Tell about it"

I found an interesting book called Almost History : Close Calls, Plan B's, and Twists of Fate in America's Past Roger Bruns, the author, is the deputy executive director for the National Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives. The book shows actual documents that were being prepared if certain historical events came out a different way. For example, a presidental speech about the death of the Apollo XI astronauts. What if the Eagle had not landed?

Recently while I was in Lenox, Massachusetts I took some pictures of "The Bookstore" that is detailed in the book "Used and Rare". You can see pictures at http://members.cox.net/bibliofuture2/bookstore/bstore.htm

While going to the Target in Ithaca, NY my brother and I had an incident with the parking police. Thanks to digital cameras we documented the incident. My brother put the pictures into a humorous one minute Power Point. http://members.cox.net/bibliofuture2/intent.pps

"The Complete Far Side" is back. This two volume set of every published Far Side cartoon was in high demand last year. The print run ran out early. The set which retails for $135 and was selling on Amazon for $91 had prices jump over $150 for a copy when you could no longer buy from Amazon or Barnes and Nobles because the print run was gone. Another printing is out.

May 4th is the publication date for a new book that may be of interest to librarians. It is The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System by Siva Vaidhyanathan.

I was working at a "Friends of the Library Sale" and I came across a book called Bizarre Books. The book details books about unusual subjects and that have unusual titles. For example it talks about an abestos copy of Farenheit 451.

I bought an old book in a thrift store I wandered into today. The book had this poem in it.

IN THE LIBRARY

The tales of Celtic love and Trojan deed,
On printed page this cloudy noon retold -
How lusterless they are, how dull and old!
Lost dreams the grail, the cup of Ganymede.
In weariness I stir, and cease to read.
The maid before me lifts her hand to hold
A loosened lock : her fingers on its gold
Move like soft doves that brush wings as they feed.

Then cloudy curtains part, the sun breaks clear;
A shaft of fire falls on the gentle maid:
It is a twinkled beam from Hector's spear,
Or yet a glorious spike from Arthur's blade.
Helen, Iseult, and queenly Guinevere!
I see now why the Old tales cannot fade.

-- Francis C. Cook

I need to find the book, Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam in spanish. I went to the spanish section of Amazon and had no luck. They may have the book but I am very poor at navigating webpages in spanish and could have missed the book. If you have experience buying books in spanish could you let me know where I can buy this book in spanish. I went to the author's website and he indicated that the book was in spanish and gave a link to Amazon. If you have any guidance feel free to email me at bibliofuture@yahoo.com

The first three Star Wars movies are being released on DVD. They are going to be released in September of this year. Currently it is the #1 selling DVD at Amazon. The box set list for $60 but Amazon is selling them for $42 (DVD at AMZN)
That is only $14 per movie, not bad!

The Librarian's Book Club (LBC) is now on a two month reading schedule. Previously a new book was selected every month. Now books are selected bi-monthly. This is to give people more time to read and discuss the book. Several people have recommended this change and I have seen the need for it myself as I struggled to keep up with the reading.
If you are not a member of the LBC this month is an excellent time to join because the book we have selected is available on the web for free. A link to the free download is at the LBC website. http://www.librariansbookclub.org