LISNews: Librarian News

Uuuh, nope!:
In conclusion, there is a massive market failure going on right now. Magazines have outlived newspapers, based in-part on their affiliation with women. Not only that, but women have brought novels back into the popular consciousness, with young women leading the way.

With some small exceptions, the major new media ventures of the last decade have bypassed women altogether, and it is a regrettable mistake. It’s a big reason why — for all the success of Bleacher Report, Vox Media, Gawker, and HuffingtonPost — nobody seriously talked about IPOs.

“Shhh!”

Books are just about the Librarian’s most favorite thing in the entire world. Reading them can take you on exciting adventures in far-off lands, introduce you to new friends and cultures, and let you discover poetry, classic literature, science fiction and much more. If only everybody loved to read as much as she does, the world would be a better place…and quieter, too!

The Librarian feels that it’s extremely important to treat a book with the proper respect. You should always use a bookmark instead of folding down the corner of the page. Take good care of the dust jacket, and don’t scribble in the margins. And above all else, never – ever – return it to the library late!

Technology companies will occasionally acknowledge they were wrong — just last week Apple had to apologize to its Chinese customers — but you hardly ever hear them express doubt about the glorious future they are building for us all.

So it is refreshing to see Jason Merkoski, a leader of the team that built Amazon’s first Kindle, dispense with the usual techo-utopianism and say, “I think we’ve made a proverbial pact with the devil in digitizing our words.” And this: “If you’re willing to overlook the fact that Big Brother won’t be a politician but an ad man and that he’ll have the face of Google.” Mr. Merkoski even has mixed feelings about Amazon, which he left two years ago. “It’s hard to love Amazon,” he notes. “Not the way we love Apple or a bookstore.”

Full article

Mr. Merkoski just wrote a book - Burning the Page: The eBook revolution and the future of reading (Looks like the book is only coming out in ebook form)

The indication that an ordinary string of rare book thefts has evolved into a terrifying string of rare book thefts often comes down to this: the presence of a man whose sole job it is to get rid of library ownership marks. No other single trait indicates as certainly that a theft ring has moved from the amateur to the professional ranks. So while it seems encouraging that five people involved in the Girolamini Library thefts have been sentenced for their crimes, it had better only be the beginning of people being prosecuted. One of the men charged two months ago with playing a part in the scheme was a Bologna bookbinder whose job was to scrub books of their marks — and his presence, like that of a single cockroach, signals a much larger problem.

How to attract library patrons, build the community and show people that librarians are cool? One of the ways to do this is organising Bicycool Library in your town.

Bicycool Library is a bike ride for book and bike lovers usually organised by librarians. The idea of the event was born in Poland and first edition was organised in May 2010. In 2012 it was organised in almost 100 places in Poland. This year it will be organised between May 1st and June 9th in many places all over the world.

One of main goals of organising the Bicycool Library is to promote reading and riding a bike as a way of spending time. Promoting libraries and fighting against stereotypes about librarians is also very important to organisers. They would like to show people that library is the place where they can find not only books, but many unusual interesting events as well.

The Bicycool Library is also helpful in library advocacy. This action helps libraries to collect community and show that library connects people and give them oportunity to do something together and simply to have fun.

There are many ways library can organise it and make local event attractive. Variety of ideas and inspirations for organisers are avaliable on the project website: bicycoollibrary.org. Local organisers can also register there their local edition. This is the way to let organisers and librarians all over the world know how many local events will be organised. Also everybody will be able to see that a town is taking part in it, because every city, town and village will be marked on a special map showing “bicycool” places.

Soon more useful materials will be released on a Bicycool Library’s website, so make sure to visit the website regularly or simply like the project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bicycool.Library.

If you are interested in organising Bicycool Library in your town, let people know and register your local edition on the website. -- Read More

Highly recommend this story in New Haven (CT)'s Daily Nutmeg about an innovative approach to arts publicity

http://dailynutmeg.com/2013/04/10/stage-page-engage-off-script-by-the-book/

Several Texas A&M professors know something that generations of teachers could only hope to guess: whether students are reading their textbooks.

They know when students are skipping pages, failing to highlight significant passages, not bothering to take notes — or simply not opening the book at all.

“It’s Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent,” said Tracy Hurley, the dean of the school of business. (If the intent is good anything goes)

Article from the NY Times.

While many libraries are, of course, still run by municipalities or schools, it has become more common for people to create their own, many of them, like Mellow Pages, seeking to include material that is unusual or that is curated with a particular audience in mind. For instance, ABC No Rio, a community and cultural center on the Lower East Side, maintains a zine library. And a group of librarians who joined the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York created a library at Zuccotti Park.

Read more about it at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/nyregion/at-a-do-it-yourself-salon-in-brooklyn-books-obscu...

TORONTO, Apr. 9, 2013 — Elementary school students in Guatemala will be able to borrow books from the library for the first time, thanks in large part to the work of librarians and library students.

Librarians Without Borders members from across North America will be traveling to the Miguel Angel Asturias Academy in Quetzeltenango (Xela), Guatemala from April 13-28, 2013 to collaborate on the development and operation of a school library.

LWB has partnered with the Asturias Academy since 2009 to support the Academy’s vision to build a sustainable community library in the school. This year’s on-site work marks a major transition for their library: we are implementing cataloging, searching and borrowing technologies (and training the staff on these tools) to enable students to locate and check out books for the very first time.

Many Guatemalans are restricted from getting a quality education, in part due to a severe lack of access to books and literacy materials. In a country where books are taxed beyond the reach of the 75% of the population who live in poverty, it’s almost impossible to get children excited about reading because many cannot get actual books in their hands.

This year, we plan to change that.

Over the course of 2012, with the help of a full-time on-site librarian funded by Librarians Without Borders, students far surpassed the reading goal of 4 books per year, reading on average some 14 books per year. Given this enthusiasm, imagine the impact on (the less than 60%) literacy levels of Asturias’ predominantly indigenous students and their families — once they can check books out of the library and bring them into their homes. This is an unprecedented opportunity in Guatemala.

About Librarians Without Borders -- Read More

The scientists who were recruited to appear at a conference called Entomology-2013 thought they had been selected to make a presentation to the leading professional association of scientists who study insects.

But they found out the hard way that they were wrong. The prestigious, academically sanctioned conference they had in mind has a slightly different name: Entomology 2013 (without the hyphen). The one they had signed up for featured speakers who were recruited by e-mail, not vetted by leading academics. Those who agreed to appear were later charged a hefty fee for the privilege, and pretty much anyone who paid got a spot on the podium that could be used to pad a résumé.

Full article

Review of Josh Hanagarne's book in today's issue of Shelf Awareness.

Josh Hanagarne, blogger at The World's Strongest Librarian, "might be the only person whose first three-hundred-pound bench press was accompanied by the Recorded Books production of Don Quixote." This is just one of his remarkable singularities. A gentle giant who tears phone books for fun, at 6'7" he tends to catch the eye at the Salt Lake City Public Library, even when his Tourette Syndrome is not acting up. His memoir explores these contradictions and oddities, and his remarkable journey from idyllic childhood to painfully jerky young adulthood to a contented family and work life.

The authors own site explains why he isn't reading reviews of his book.

Celebrate National Library Week - April 14-20, 2013

More info at ALA.org

Theft claims more victims and causes greater economic injury than any other criminal offense. Yet theft law is enigmatic, and fundamental questions about what should count as stealing remain unresolved—especially misappropriations of intellectual property, information, ideas, identities, and virtual property.

More about book here.

New York Times Op-Ed on how new legislation on imported copies of American authors works affects issues of copyright.

LAST month, the Supreme Court decided to allow the importation and resale of foreign editions of American works, which are often cheaper than domestic editions. Until now, courts have forbidden such activity as a violation of copyright. Not only does this ruling open the gates to a surge in cheap imports, but since they will be sold in a secondary market, authors won’t get royalties.

This may sound like a minor problem; authors already contend with an enormous domestic market for secondhand books. But it is the latest example of how the global electronic marketplace is rapidly depleting authors’ income streams. It seems almost every player — publishers, search engines, libraries, pirates and even some scholars — is vying for position at authors’ expense.

First it was Goodreads....then...

(be sure to watch the video's gruesome climax!)

A positive story identifying services in NH libraries covered by a prominent NH newspaper.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20130408/NEWS/130409256

This week's program brings a telephone interview with author Dan Flynn of FlynnFiles.com who wrote a piece at The American Spectator that was commented upon by The Annoyed Librarian. After that there are a couple examples provided by federal agencies of how not to do public service announcements. There is no news miscellany this week and there is a bit of an explanation as to what went wrong one way or another.

Download here (MP3) (Ogg Vorbis) (Free Lossless Audio Codec), or subscribe to the podcast (MP3) to have episodes delivered to your media player. We suggest subscribing by way of a service like gpodder.net. Matériel purchasing needs including subsistence support selections can be found via Amazon.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/.

As we may appreciate, library buildings are nowadays as fascinating as their book collections. Often the appearance of a building outside gives us some insight of what to expect inside. What really makes a library building fascinating? The size of the building, the shape of the building, the age of the building? Perhaps the architecture of the building is groundbreaking, or perhaps it is simply a very expensive building!

Back in 2003 and again in 2006, during research work for the first and second edition of Library World Records, the author sent out e-mails to several Internet-based bulletin boards for librarians around the world, asking for a vote on the most fascinating library buildings in the world they had visited or seen at home or abroad. The categories voted for were:

1. 10 most fascinating national library buildings.
2. 10 most fascinating university library buildings.
3. 10 most fascinating public library buildings.
4. 10 most fascinating special library buildings.

The results for both the 2003 and 2006 votes on the most fascinating library buildings in the world, with photographs of all the winning library buildings voted for, were published respectively in the 1st and 2nd edition of Library World Records.

Now with a much bigger 3rd edition of Library World Records almost finished, it is time once again cast your vote. The results of this current survey on the most fascinating library buildings in the world, with photographs of all the winning library buildings voted, will be published in the forthcoming 3rd edition of Library World Records

To vote, go to
http://www.lwrw.org/formphp.html

Your votes are very much appreciated.
Godfrey Oswald
BSc, MSc,

Library World Records
London.