LISNews: Librarian News

MSNBC carried this article on coffee and gift shops at the public library.
\"On a recent day, a woman crunched on her Caesar salad and thumbed through the latest John Grisham mystery. Two teens sipped their caramel-flavored java as they perused the periodicals. Down the hall, a man bought a bag of Edgar Allan Poe-pourri at the gift shop. If it sounds more like a Barnes and Noble bookstore than the stuffy library from the days of old, Springfield-Greene County Library director Annie Busch certainly hopes so.
“The library is no longer the dim, dusty place that you only visit if you have to,” Busch said. “It’s suddenly a pretty cool place to hang out.” -- Read More

The Times of India has this neat article regarding the future of the print publishing.
\"The printed word and books would retain their importance in the coming years, despite the advent of digital technology and the electronics revolution, according to James Billington, librarian of the American Library of Congress.

Mr Billington, chief of the world\'s largest library, appeared face to face with librarians and information technology officials of Mumbai, at the first digital video conference held at the American Center on Thursday evening. It was held in celebration of 200 years of the library.\" -- Read More

The Sun Herald has this positive column on reference librarians.
\"When I started my professional career as a librarian, it was as a reference librarian. The motto of a reference librarian is that there is no such thing as a stupid question. If you need to know an answer, reference librarians will move heaven and earth to try and find that information.\" -- Read More

Here is a sad
story from Michigan Live
on the tragic death of a beloved Libary
Cat.

\"Residents of the rural Michigen
community are mourning Deuce\'s loss after the cat
was mauled to death by two dogs Friday while it was
resting on the building\'s steps.\"

Be sure to
check out The
Web Site of the departed cat. -- Read More

From Jessamyn\'s
sometime home Seattle
comes This Heart Warming
Story of Mother-daughter book clubs.

\"In
private homes, libraries and bookstores around greater
Seattle, mother-daughter book clubs like Kingsgate\'s
meet to share a love of literature - and each other.\" -- Read More

JSOnline in Milwaukee, has this Story on local parents who want Whoopi Goldberg\'s biography removed from the shelves.

\"In a complaint filed with the Muskego-Norway School District, the Kanias describe a three-page excerpt from the 1997 book as \"enough to ruin the innocence of any 14-year-old.\"

You\'d think they\'d want to get rid of it because she\'s not funny! -- Read More

Mcall.com,in PA, is running a Story on a local library that has hired an Indiana collection agency (Unique Management Services ) that specializes in library work.

\"\"We\'re hoping to get back more of the money that\'s out there and the material that is owed to us,\'\' library Administrator Mary Kupferschmid said.\"

Are there other library collection agencies? They say this one is run by an ex-librarian! -- Read More

Macontel.com is carrying this Story on a failed attempt to have prisoners working around the library all the time.

\"Commissioner Joe Allen said \"We\'ve got a lot of good people ... ,\" \"In prison?\" asked Charles Schmidt, regional library director.
\"I\'d rather resign\" than have prisoners working in the libraries, said Schmidt -- Read More

A
Story from Zwire on a media
specialist recently received the Intellectual Freedom Award,
given by the Iowa Educational Media Association. She chaired
the Fairfield Community School District\'s Reconsideration
Board during the 1998-99 school year, when parent Nancy
Hesseltine challenged the placement of the book, \"Am I Blue?
Coming Out From the Silence.\" -- Read More

Freedomforum
has a reprint of the speech given by
Paul McMasters at the Maine Librarians
Conference.

\"Just about every type of speech
one can think of is under attack today: sexual speech,
violent speech, hate speech, unpatriotic speech,
\"coarse\" speech, uncivil speech.\" -- Read More

This article
from
Cnet is one of many around reporting the your cookies in IE are open for all to see. Check out peacefire.org for a demonstration.

Even though the majority of the LISNews viewers use Netscape (librarians love Netscape?), this security hole is still good to know. -- Read More

Don Saklad writes \"Massachusetts Public Records Division is about to issue an
order on city of Boston Public Library interlibrary loan
department officer D. Keller and president Bernard Margolis
to comply and disclose legitimately public information.

Details about how you can get your supervisory, managerial
and executive public library officials to comply with state
FOI freedom of information, open government and open public
meeting sunshine intellectual freedom principles
http://www.ma.lwv.org/guideto.htm#Minutes and Other Public Records
\"

someone writes \"Here is an article for you to post... Very interested in your readers thoughts. \"

dbusiness.com has a rather interesting

article that presents OpenMind, a company that is using the open source model originated by software developers to the textbook publishing business.
Paul Elliot, founder of the company, which incorporated in April, told dbusiness.com, \"We\'re proposing to bring textbook content to the academic community in an open-source environment.\" -- Read More

The Akron Beacon Journal has this story about a man who owes over $4,000 in overdue fines.
\"In books, he likes to read about welding and chess. In music, Horace Young leans toward country. And in videos, he enjoys horror and comedy.

There\'s just one problem: Police say Young doesn\'t like to return the books, compact discs and videos that he checks out at the library.\" -- Read More

A story from The Chicago Tribune tells us that a woman wants a book pulled from her sons school. Why?

\"a children\'s book about Marvin Redpost, a grade schooler who kisses his elbow and becomes a girl, is inappropriate for her son and is seeking to have it banned from his school library.

Holy Homophobia! -- Read More

The
Star-Tribune reports that the downtown
Minneapolis Library announced plans Friday to stop the
controversial practice of allowing patrons to use
computers to view obscene material on the Internet.
Read about it Here. -- Read More

The National
Post is running a Story on a woman who, after her
book store
falied, started a
weekend retreat for readers. A canadian Author and a
few lucky people spend
a themed weekend together. -- Read More

Wired
has a Report on a new study under way
on EBooks. The University of Pennsylvania Library will
study Ebooks and how they are used. Check out the Study Website for more info. -- Read More

Mickey mouse and friends have a new publisher. Here is an article to tell you where they are now.

\"New York, May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Bertelsmann AG\'s Random House Inc. said it will publish books based on characters from Walt Disney Co., replacing a licensing agreement that the world\'s No. 2 media company has with Golden Books Family Entertainment Inc.

The agreement, which begins Jan. 1, gives Random House Children\'s Books the right to publish Disney-based books, including coloring and activity books and storybooks, in the U.S. and Canada. Random House is the world\'s largest publisher of general-interest consumer books in the English language.\"  -- Read More

The Washington Times has this story on outdated school libraries.
\"Browse a typical school library and you\'ll learn that humans haven\'t yet set foot on the moon and \"stewardesses\" must quit working when they get married.
Although the latest research indicates that a well-stocked and well-staffed school library actually boosts students\' scores on standardized tests, many school libraries contain books that are outdated by decades and often filled with offensive stereotypes.\" -- Read More