LISNews: Librarian News

Anita Demetropoulos, a Maine shopkeeper, figured she would never see the day when her most relentless competitor, Amazon, would be forced to collect sales tax.

Now that Congress seems ready to do that, she is no longer sure it matters. Even in losing, the e-commerce powerhouse is triumphant. It no longer needs the tax break to vanquish its foes — and could even make money by collecting the new taxes for other retailers.

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Librarians Without Borders is recruiting Board members with non-profit management experience, to help us develop communications and fundraising strategies. Join our team! More information, including the application, can be found here. Apply by May 1 and feel free to send questions to nominations@lwb-online.org.

Librarians Without Borders (LWB) is an action-oriented non-profit organization that strives to narrow information access inequities worldwide by supporting libraries in developing regions and domestic communities. We enact our mission by collaborating with partner communities to identify their needs and then mobilize our volunteers – the core being student librarians in a service-learning model – for in-the-field development. We are powered by student committees at the majority of graduate library and information science programs across Canada, who are coordinated by an Executive team comprised of volunteer, professional librarians. 

Kindoma Storytime combines e-books with video sharing features. So now you can share a bedtime story with your child or grandchild from anywhere, if you both have iPads, good Wi-Fi, and have downloaded the free app from iTunes.

Originally a research initiative at Nokia, the project has been spun off as an independent company with the project leader, Tico Ballagas. According to Mr. Ballagas, the iPad was not around when the project was conceived, but has become the ideal device for delivering synchronous storytimes.

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From The Onion:

SANDUSKY, OH—In a moment of confusion, area teenager Eric Dooley briefly walked into a local teen outreach center Tuesday, a place that neither he nor any of his teenaged friends would ever knowingly enter.

"Oh, geez. I'm sorry," the 15-year-old said as he quickly assessed the four battered foosball tables, outdated PlayStation console, overly friendly counselor, and garish orange and purple paint scheme—all intended to appeal to him—before exiting the facility in less than six seconds. "This isn't where I'm supposed to be. Sorry. Sorry."

Dooley reportedly joined a gang later that afternoon.

When you see the word "Amazon", what's the first thing that springs to mind – the world's biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer – and which do you consider most important?

From Guardian UK:

These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have lodged objections to a bid made by the US e-commerce giant for a prime new piece of cyberspace: ".amazon".

The Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently .com), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses.

Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen — coauthors of a new book, The New Digital Age — recently returned from a highly publicized trip to North Korea. In the second part of their conversation with NPR's Audie Cornish, they discuss the role of the Internet in more repressive countries. "We fear that the natural action for, in particular, autocratic governments experiencing what we describe as 'virtual urbanization' will be to balkanize the Internet," says Cohen, "filtering out content so that way the Internet experience in that particular country looks as much like the physical society as possible."

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Mr. Blum is the editor of Amazon Kindle Singles, a Web service that is helping to promote a renaissance of novella-length journalism and fiction, known as e-shorts.

Amazon Kindle Singles is a hybrid. First, it is a store within the megastore of Amazon.com, offering a showcase of carefully selected original works of 5,000 to 30,000 words that come from an array of outside publishers as well as from in-house. Most sell for less than $2, and Mr. Blum is the final arbiter of what goes up for sale.

Full article in the NYT

From the New York Times:

DALLAS — President Obama has left little mystery about how he views his predecessor. “The failed policies of George W. Bush” wiped away a budget surplus and “squandered the legacy” of bipartisan foreign policy. Mr. Bush put two wars “on a credit card,” led the country away “from our values” and “crashed the economy."

But Mr. Obama will surely say none of that when he helps dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Thursday. Addressing a crowd of Bush supporters and administration veterans, the 44th president will no doubt extoll the virtues of the 43rd president and praise his years of service to the country.

It has become an awkward ritual of the modern presidency that the current occupier of the Oval Office is called upon to deliver a generous historical judgment of the previous tenant. With the opening of each new presidential library, the members of the world’s most exclusive fraternity put aside partisan differences to honor the shared experience of running the nation in difficult times.

E.L. Konigsburg, the author of the 1967 children's book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, about two children who run away from home to live secretly in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, died Friday. She was 83.

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From the New York Times:

More than four years after leaving office, former President George W. Bush has a question for America: So what would you have done?

In a new brick-and-limestone museum, visitors to an interactive theater will be presented with the stark choices that confronted the nation’s 43rd president: invade Iraq or leave Saddam Hussein in power? Deploy federal troops after Hurricane Katrina or rely on local forces? Bail out Wall Street or let the banks fail?

Slide show here.

OK, included "Laura Bush" as one of the topics, can we now please delete that one Blake?

Due to aggravated circumstances that have yet to abate, a truncated episode is presented with a news miscellany.

Related links:

• PCMag.com: The Windows 8 Revolt -- Microsoft still has the chance to ditch Windows 8 and return to its tried-and-true operating system. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that will happen.
• ZDNet: First real-world usage figures suggest Chromebooks are struggling
• The Register: Manual override: Raspberry Pi beginners' books -- Do the 'getting started' guides make your first slice of Pi more tasty?
• Ars Technica: Anonymous raises $54,000 to start a news site
• Public Libraries News: Fifty shades of volunteer library

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Story at Salon.com

The Boston bombing suspect wanted a Chechynan dictionary, "Snatch" and books on how to make fake IDs

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The Digital Public Library of America, intended to provide free open access to materials from libraries, museums, universities and archives across the country, launches at noon ET on Thursday.

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UPDATE: The launch was to happen in front of the Boston Public Library. Because of the events in Boston this week the launch is being delayed.
Source: http://dp.la/get-involved/events/launch/

Do you make experimental music? Will you be at (or near) ALA Annual in Chicago this year? Then be a part of "Librarians Like Noise", a night dedicated to... well... librarians who like noise. We're looking for performers! If you think you might be interested, email Steve Kemple, Music Reference Librarian from the Cincinnati Public Library, at steven.kemple@cincinnatilibrary.org.

The event will most likely be on the evening of Monday July 1 at a yet-to-be-determined Chicago-area venue.

Happy birthday to Blake Carver, our fearless leader!! Please join me in wishing him all the best.
smiling Blake
pensive Blake

Since Kickstarter launched in 2009, everyone from indie bands to technology developers to non-profit organizations has asked themselves, “Will crowdfunding work for me?” Libraries, which often turn to more civic-minded crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo and Fundly, are no exception. But the question remains: does it work?

Cassandra Elton got the idea to establish the Antelope Lending Library in a well-traversed mall on the Southeast side of Iowa City while she was working at an after-school program in a local elementary school. Elton found that her students—primarily from low-income and immigrant families—did not have access to the literary culture for which the city is known.

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Duck Duck Go is a small search engine based in Pennsylvania that is, according to Google at least, a Google competitor. OTM producer Chris Neary talks with Duck Duck Go founder Gabriel Weinberg, SearchEngineLand's Danny Sullivan, and a dedicated Duck Duck Go user about the site. Also, each of the OTM producers try Duck Duck Go, and only Duck Duck Go, for a week.

Full piece:On The Media

In 2012, Martin Richard, the 8-year-old Dorchester boy who was killed in the marathon explosions, marched at Boston’s City Hall to call for peace.

Richard’s second-grade class was there to “express themselves in a positive manner and become more engaged in the politics of the city,” according to a Boston.com story about the march.

The school says it is grieving for Martin and his family. It released his statement and identified Martin’s mother, another victim of the bombing, as a school librarian:

The Neighborhood House Charter School is mourning today the loss of our beloved student Martin Richard, during the tragic events at the Boston Marathon yesterday. He was a bright, energetic young boy who had big dreams and high hopes for his future. We are heartbroken by this loss.

We are also praying for his mother, Denise, our school librarian and sister Jane, another Neighborhood House Charter student, who were seriously injured yesterday. Our thoughts are with his father, Bill Richard, and older brother, Henry. They are a wonderful family and represent the very best this city has to offer.