LISNews: Librarian News

With just one book, Stephen King may have changed how books are treated forever. His 66-page e-book racked up 400,000 orders during its first 24 hours for sale.For awhile now we\'ve been reporting how the E-Book will come around sooner or later, well, Sooner may be here now. Story after story, people are now writing about how the Ebook has already come of age.
I recently saw that at least one library is circulating an E-Book Reader beacause of the King book. The latest word is he will do it again, and certainly other big authors can\'t be far behind.

Check out these stories for more:

Business Week
Ecommerce Times
Direct Marketing News
SiliconValley.com
CNET.com

Everyone will finally know the real Silvia Plath.

The diaries, which are being serialized in London\'s The Guardian newspaper this week, provide new details about Plath and her turbulent marriage to British poet Ted Hughes. Plath gassed herself in her kitchen at the age of 30 a few months after Hughes left her for another woman.
After Plath\'s death,Ted Hughes maintained control over her journals and permitted only a much-edited version to be published in 1982. The couple\'s children are now permitting publication of the complete diaries.

\'\'The Journals of Sylvia Plath,\'\' will be published on April 3. You can read about the at booksunlimited.co.uk

The Detroit Free Press has an interesting story on the crushing burden that tax time puts on some librarians.

\"Sally Arrivee, head reference librarian, calls it her \"hundred days of hell.\" And she\'s sick of it.\" -- Read More

Philip Keane writes \"Dear colleagues

I\'m preparing a paper on getting your library users to move to using your intranet pages.

We\'re a Medical Library serving both clinicians and research staff, and have many links to electronic journals, OVID Medline, specialised lists of websites relevant to areas served by the institution.

I\'d be interested to hear from other librarians on lisnews on their experiences and their approaches to stimulating use of intranet-delivered information services.

My contact details are as follows:

Philip J Keane,
Head, Library & Educational Information Services,
Royal Adelaide Hospital-IMVS Library,
Institute of Medical & Veterinary Science,
PO Box 14, Rundle Mall SA 5000
Phone 08 8222 3224
Fax 08 8222 3152
Mobile 0418 301 529

Email:
Philip.Keane@imvs.sa.gov.au
\"

Bob Cox sent in a A Story on partnerships from the Detroit News.

Project PULSE -- Partnerships Uniting Libraries and Schools Electronically -- is a federal education project that provides money to participating libraries. Teachers start off by designing a personalized Web site. The second phase of the program will allow youngsters to talk to each other with their computers about assignments.
Canton library Director Jean Tabor said Project PULSE \"raises the awareness of our library system.
\"We think this is the next phase of technology,\" she said. -- Read More

Read this story from the BBC News.

Scotland will be home to Britain\'s first \"cyber school\" which is to be in operation by August.

Up to 60 pupils at a time will get connected at the wired academy when it opens its doors for the first time in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, as children go back to school. -- Read More

All hopes for endless supplies of Guinness in public libraries are dashed. Read this story from Yahoo UK.

Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols pop guru who was campaigning to become mayor of London, is to pull out of the race and back another candidate, the Independent newspaper has reported.

McLaren, whose best-publicised policies were to legalise brothels and cannabis and install bars to serve alcohol in libraries, will announce next week that he is standing aside to support independent candidate Ken Livingstone, the paper said.

The Omaha World-Herald has this interesting story about a couple who have decided to live in an old library. Of course many of us already feel like we live in an old library.

If atmosphere has anything to do with it, Orhan and Robin Seran\'s firstborn sure will like to read.

The child is due in September, and on Sunday Orhan Seran bought the former Ralston library at an auction for $125,000. The couple will convert the airy, two-story building into a residence.

A Ralston native who now lives with his wife outside Council Bluffs, Seran, 35, was a frequent visitor to the old building at 7900 Park Lane as a youngster.

Thomas J. Hennen Jr. writes \"The second edition of the HAPLR Index was featured in the September 1999 issue of American Libraries magazine. The author, Thomas J. Hennen Jr. of Wisconsin, uses data provided by nearly 9,000 public libraries in the United States to create comparative rankings. The comparisons are in broad population categories. It provides a comparative rating system that librarians, trustees and the public can use to improve and extend library services in the third millennium.

Also available on the site is information expanding the Thomas J. Hennen Jr.\'s call for national library standards in the March 2000 issue of American Libraries.
The site is available at:
haplr-index.com\"

Did your library make The Top 100?

Kathleen de la
Pena McCook writes \"I am seeking information and
hoping this may be a way to expand my search. I would like
to hear from librarians anywhere in the U.S. who have
participated in the Dialogue 2000 town meetings taking place
across the U.S. between January-May. These are sponsored
by the national network of Community Action Agencies. They
are intended to raise the awareness of the American people
about issues of poverty and the need to address them
effectively to give a voice to low-income people in the
policy making proess and to identify and mobilize the state,
local, and national resources that low-income individuals,
families and communities need to be more self-sufficient.
National website is http://www.nacaa.org/d2.h
tm
Local initiatives are community-based. Please respond to
me.

The deadline for filing reply comments in this rulemaking
has been extended to Friday, March 31. Reply comments must
be received in the Office of the General Counsel of the
Copyright Office no later than 5:00 p.m. on March 31,
2000.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Public Law
105-304 (1998), added a new Chapter 12 to title 17 United
States Code, which among other things prohibits
circumvention of access control technologies employed by
copyright owners to protect their works.

1. If by
electronic mail: Send to 1201@loc.gov a message
containing the name of the person making the submission, his
or her title and organization (if the submission is on
behalf of an organization), mailing address, telephone
number, telefax number (if any) and e-mail address. The
message should also identify the document clearly as either
a comment or reply comment. The document itself must be sent
as a MIME attachment, and must be in a single file in
either: (1) Adobe Portable Document File (PDF) format
(preferred); (2) Microsoft Word Version 7.0 or earlier; (3)
WordPerfect 7 or earlier; (4) ASCII text file format; or (5)
Rich Text Format. -- Read More

This
Story out of NJ shows that fundraising opportunites
present themselves at any time. A teacher came up with an
idea for a new tea, and has since been selling the tea, and
making money for the library.

\"Since launching the Teaneck Tea Collection in 1993
with the help of Harney & Sons Ltd., a New England tea
company, Ponchick has raised $2,970.24 in profits from sales
of Teaneck Tea and poured that cash right back into
Whittier\'s library. The tea is on sale at Whittier School
and at Victoria\'s Cafe on Queen Anne Road ($5 for 24
bags) -- Read More

WASHINGTON, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- \"There\'s a sea of
evidence that Internet pornography and related sex crimes
are a serious problem in America\'s libraries -- and we\'ve
only uncovered the tip of the iceberg, due to efforts by the
American Library Association to chill the facts,\" said
Family Research Council\'s Chief Spokesperson Janet Parshall
at a news conference Wednesday as FRC released a new
investigative report, \"Dangerous Access, 2000 Edition:
Uncovering Internet Pornography in America\'s Libraries.\"
Written by librarian David Burt after a six-month nationwide
investigation of library documents and computer logs,
\"Dangerous Access, 2000 Edition\" reports over 2,000
incidents of library patrons using online services to access
pornography. It is believed that thousands of more incidents
would have been reported had not the ALA intervened.

-- Read More

If you have $800us (US$550 at home) to burn you can now subscribe to the Oxford English Dictionary Online.

They do have The Word of the Day for free. Today is RELIC. They promise to add an incredible number of new words to the online version.

Rebecca Hunt sent in this link to a Story from sunspot.net MD is the latest state to make a move on filtering.

Maryland State Senate Sen. Christopher Van Hollen Jr.\'s bill to require local library systems to develop policies to prevent children from being exposed to Internet pornography.
\"I hope his bill gives the librarian the power to go over and pull the plug or say, `You cannot view that material here,\' \" Ivins said. -- Read More

Be sure to read this editorial on collection development and selction practices from Steve Decker. Libraries need to address every patron\'s needs, whether they shop at WalMart or Lord and Taylor

Public Libraries: Where Designer Store meets Department Store

When we decide the library has the resources and space to develop a collection of music there will be those that will tell us that we need the classics–we need to honor and expand the minds of the public by presenting to them \"good\" music.
The Library\'s job is to \"offer.\" We have Shakespeare and Steinbeck but we also have Steel and Sheldon.
Oh, there are always matters of selection to be addressed. Let us address them together for the betterment of our public libraries.

Be sure to read on....

-- Read More

Businessweek.com has a suprising story on the growth of magazine readers thanks to the web. It seems the web is helping the magazine business, not hurting it.

\"The Internet, rather than stealing readers from the printed page, may turn out to be the best thing to happen to magazines since the printing press\" -- Read More

Read this story Here. From the South Bend Tribune.

Want the \"Mona Lisa\" in your kitchen or an Ansel Adams
photo in your den? Framed art is again available for
borrowing at the St. Joseph County Public Library in
downtown South Bend. -- Read More

Long live the bookmobile! Read this story Here. From the Kalamazoo Gazette.

The Kalamazoo Public Library bookmobile may be back on the road as early as next week.

\"We are loading up the new bookmobile right now,\" said
Terry Lason, head of loan-and-outreach services at the
Kalamazoo Public Library. -- Read More

Read this story Here. From the Register-Guard.

In a crowd of public officials and business leaders, Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey picked out the one person who could exemplify the purpose of the city\'s first branch library. -- Read More