LISNews: Librarian News

Radio Free Europe has this sad article about the fate of Albanian language books in Kosovo\'s libraries.
\"Kosovo\'s libraries lost almost half their books over the last decade to ethnic cleansing. RFE/RL correspondent Jolyon Naegele reports that a new study says many of the libraries were purged of Albanian-language books even before hostilities erupted in 1998.\" -- Read More

ABCnews.com has this neat article on a possible new type of search engine based on file swapping software.
\" The loose group of open-source programmers responsible for the controversial Gnutella file-swapping software have turned their technology into what they say is a powerful new Web search tool.\" -- Read More

This is an interesting concept. A library in Texas has started its own online book club. Access Waco has the article.
\"The service provides readers with about five minutes worth of reading per day through a free e-mail account. All readings in a week are from a single book, for a total of about two or three chapters posted online by week\'s end.\" -- Read More

This Story from Reuters will
give you a good idea of how the book publishing world
is acting and reacting to the E-Book market. Big
changes are coming in publishing, and books.

\"``We are experiencing a revolution in publishing
and bookselling and we still don\'t know how the dust
will settle, who will be the winners, or who will be the
losers,\'\' said Mark Dressler, president of the Crystal
River Publishing Group.\" -- Read More

Jon Katz worte a great Story at Freedom
Forum.org on how people can over react when
faced with a new technology. He does a great job
explaining how the web has made free speach
possible for so many people.

\"The architecture of
the Internet, as it is right now,\" writes Lawrence Lessig,
a constitutional scholar at Harvard University, \"is
perhaps the most important model of free speech
since the founding [of the American republic]. -- Read More

Phil sent in this story from The faculty and staff newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh has a rather interesting story on the pay difference between librarians at Pitt and Penn State main campuses. It seems average pay at PSU is about $5,300 higher than that paid to Pitt Librarians. -- Read More

The Chicago Tribune has another Story on the increaing popularity of Audio Books. Audio Books have become the fastest-growing segment of the book industry.Are they being offered in your library?
Are they being Used? -- Read More

The NY Times has a neat little Story on web based bibliographies.Publishing companines and authors are finding the web a nice place for bibliographies to live, leaving them out of books all together. The advantage, the publishers say, is a smaller, cheaper, more accessible book. -- Read More

Slashdot.org had this on Saturday May 27, but today CNET picked up on it as well.Seagram Chairman Edward Bronfman made a silly little Speech at The Real Conference San Jose, California on May 26, 2000, in which he said that you should not be allowed to have online anonymity.\"As citizens, we have a right to privacy. We have no such right to anonymity.\" Is there a difference online? If this line of thinking catches on, we could be in trouble. -- Read More

You never know where you\'ll find a good story.
Steven Bell found one on Portablelife.com.
This story isn\'t exactly about libraries, but it does give a nice vote of confidence to libraries, and librarians. The author seems almost suprised that a library would have something so useful!

\"I\'ve saved the best for last: The public libraries in virtually every city and in many towns now offer internet access via desktop systems available to the public for free. Usually, you don\'t even need a library card, although the librarian may hold your driver\'s license hostage while you use the system for the allotted time.\" -- Read More

Omaha.com has an interesting Series of articles from a columnist on the battle between the small book stores and Barnes & Noble and Borders. She took some heat for her columns, they are a good read.

\"\"\"You are the killer of businesses,\" one man wrote. People like me are on the increase, he said. \"They are the people who take advantage of the hospitality the businesses offer, complain when they can\'t get more, read and wear out a book, then walk out without purchasing anything.\" -- Read More

A story from Michigan on the Ann Arbor District Library. They had stopped mailing overdue book notices in favor of e-mail, but received too many complaints.On April 3, the library stopped mailing overdue notices in an attempt to save $20,000 a year, mostly in postage. -- Read More

The Chicago Tribune has this article on the flourishing of audio books.
\"...audio books, like electronic books, are redefining cultural attitudes toward reading. They are even becoming the first medium for some titles, whether because they\'re controversial or aimed at a special audience more likely to \"read\" a book in that form than curled up in an armchair with a bound title.\" -- Read More

The Associated Press released this article about what modern witches have to say about Harry Potter.
\"For once, the witches aren\'t ugly old hags,\" said Michael Darnell, a 39-year-old computer programmer from Winnipeg, Canada, who has been a practicing witch for 25 years. \"For once they\'re the protagonists rather than the villains.\"
Another article, with an interview with J.K. Rowlings as well as Harry\'s future, appeared in Book Magazine -- Read More

The Standard has a scary Story on yet another plan to cram more ads into your life.

\"\"We don\'t think it\'s the Holy Grail,\" says Wired publisher Drew Shutte . \"But we think it\'s the precursor to something larger.\"Watermarks, bar codes and other hieroglyphics that essentially link printed pages to Web pages will start appearing in dozens of magazines within the next few months. \" -- Read More

Rob Brian wrote in from OZ:

Members of our
Parliament and those of us who may need to access
the Internet in order to provide them with relevant
information now once more have full access to the
Internet.You can read The Story from the The Sydney Morning
Herald

\"

An extraordinary exchange of e-mail communications
was provoked when MPs and parliamentary sections
were notified a week ago the Premier\'s Department
had ordered \"filtering\" (read censoring or shutting
down) of Web sites dealing with criminal skills, dating,
extreme or obscene sites, gambling, games, hate
speech and sex.\" -- Read More

Deborah Wiesehan writes:

Microsoft recently released their new Pocket PC, a handheld device
which combines the functions of a PC in a handheld device with handheld
reader functions. Their journey into the digital book world signifies
something important for the digital book industry. I think all would
agree that Microsoft doesn\'t venture into anything that they don\'t think
will be profitable.
Earlier this year, the Patchogue-Medford Library in Patchogue New
York started circulating Nuvomedia Rocket eBook readers. Although we do
not believe that our venture into the electronic book world holds the
same significance, generally, as Microsoft\'s does, we still learned some
interesting things on the journey. -- Read More

Memorial Day is considered the official start of the summer season. Here are two articles on summer reading for kids;
One from the Post Gazette and another from the Oklahoman. -- Read More

The Internet Scout Project sent over this great site on its mailing list that reworks the data from the Open Directory Project.

In a strange blending of art and promotion, a special
edition of a forthcoming book by a controversial
Newfoundland author will contain pieces of his own
skin. The
National Post up in Canada, has The Story. -- Read More