LISNews: Librarian News

from author of thirteen books, Henry David Sterry.

SWANSEA, Mass. - An outpouring of support for Penny the cat, the unofficial mascot of the Swansea Public Library, has led a Massachusetts man to give up his efforts to evict the cat from the public building.

Patrick Higgins sent an email to Swansea Public Library trustees last Saturday, which said he would file a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice if Penny was not removed from the premises. According to Higgins, people allergic to cats would be unable to use the library which meant the public building did not comply with the American Disabilities Act.

As news of Penny’s potential eviction spread, supporters for the neighborhood cat began to rally creating petitions to keep the Penny on the premises. One petition on Change.org has elicited nearly 1,800 signatures.

From the über-conservative American Spectator. Posted by Daniel J. Flynn on Friday Mar 29th at 5:09am

"Today’s public library could be mistaken for a halfway house, homeless shelter, or federal penetentiary."

I write from the public library, which doubles as my city’s daytime homeless shelter. I spend four hours a day there reading and writing. Other patrons, often accompanied by all of their worldly possessions, go there to sleep, masturbate, and stare blankly at the lights. Isn’t this what the local Greyhound terminal is for?

A diversion program for juvenile delinquents apparently meets daily on the first floor. Since the building’s architect imprudently designed the library as a giant open space without walls, their promiscuous use of the “f” word and spirited imitations of famous rappers travel unimpeded to me on the third level — more of a platform two stories above the ground than a separate floor. To encourage such misbehavior, a local library — thankfully not the one I visit — begged its town’s government for $2,000 to buy video games. Libraries once served as refuges against noise. Now the library’s cacophony makes an iPod necessary equipment to drown out the din.

Openness yields to secretiveness elsewhere. Computer cubicles double as makeshift peep-show booths. To protect privacy at the public library, staff has generously equipped computer screens with a tinted gloss that makes the visuals invisible to all save those who look upon them at a direct angle. I mostly glimpse social media and computer games on the screens when I pass. Occasionally, pornographic videos jump out at passersby. Noticing the behavior, rather than the behavior itself, is terribly offensive, so I make it my business to mind my business around pervs who make their business everybody’s business.

More.

In an interview Thursday, Goodreads CEO Otis Chandler and Amazon’s VP of Kindle content Russ Grandinetti stressed that Goodreads will not change for the worse following its acquisition by Amazon.

Full interview here.

In reaction to the recent purchase of Goodreads by Amazon.com, LibraryThing announced the following:

In the wake of Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads, we’ve had some blow-back on the fact that LibraryThing charges for a membership to add more than 200 books. In fact, when you go to pay, it’s pay-what-you-want. The money helps pay for the site, and keeps us advertisement-free for members. Also, we believe customers should be customers, with the loyalty and rights of customers, not the thing we sell to our real customers.

However, some people don’t like it. And we want everyone. So, as a test and a welcome, we’re giving out free year’s accounts to everyone who signs up through the end of Sunday. We’ve also upgraded everyone who signed up since 4pm yesterday.

More on their site.

They neglected to mention however that they too are part-owned by Amazon.com (40% due to previous small business purchases by Amazon). This was referenced in the NYTimes article about Amazon's purchase of Goodreads.

"The deal is made more significant because Amazon already owned part or all of Goodreads’ competitors, Shelfari and LibraryThing. It bought Shelfari in 2008. It also owns a portion of LibraryThing as a result of buying companies that already owned a stake in the site. Both are much smaller and have grown much more slowly than Goodreads."

But publishers of subscription journals insist that such views are misguided — born of a failure to appreciate the value they add to the papers they publish, and to the research community as a whole. They say that their commercial operations are in fact quite efficient, so that if a switch to open-access publishing led scientists to drive down fees by choosing cheaper journals, it would undermine important values such as editorial quality.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 28, 2013-- Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Goodreads, a leading site for readers and book recommendations that helps people find and share books they love.

“Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading,” said Russ Grandinetti, Amazon Vice President, Kindle Content. “Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world. In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped thousands of authors reach a wider audience and make a better living at their craft. Together we intend to build many new ways to delight readers and authors alike.”

“Books – and the stories and ideas captured inside them – are part of our social fabric,” said Otis Chandler, Goodreads CEO and co-founder. “People love to talk about ideas and share their passion for the stories they read. I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity to partner with Amazon and Kindle. We’re now going to be able to move faster in bringing the Goodreads experience to millions of readers around the world. We’re looking forward to inspiring greater literary discussion and helping more readers find great books, whether they read in print or digitally.”

“I just found out my two favorite people are getting married,” said Hugh Howey, best-selling author of WOOL. “The best place to discuss books is joining up with the best place to buy books – To Be Read piles everywhere must be groaning in anticipation.”

Following the acquisition, Goodreads’s headquarters will remain in San Francisco, CA. Founded in 2007, Goodreads now has more than 16 million members and there are more than 30,000 books clubs on the Goodreads site. Over just the past 90 days, Goodreads members have added more than four books per second to the “want to read” shelves on Goodreads. -- Read More

The Cuyahoga County Public Library Board is making plans to abandon the historic Telling Mansion Library in South Euclid-Lyndhurst, Ohio and to replace it with a new, more expensive facility further from the center of the communities it serves.

Do you think an historic building can be a 21st century library? The people who live in this community think so, but read this interesting case study and decide for yourself?

Via MediaBistro GalleyCat: A Chicago Public Library patron wrote a book about his relationship and proposed in the library last weekend. As you can see by the lovely photograph in the story, she said yes.

Where in the library would you get engaged? Here’s more about the library marriage proposal, the most romantic use of the stacks we’ve ever seen.

Jason and Molly both love books and libraries. So Jason decided the library was the perfect place to pop the question… after he wrote a story about how they met, had it illustrated and bound into a book, and then placed on the shelves in the Thomas Hughes Children’s Library. He and Molly “found” the book on Saturday and we are happy to report she said YES! Congratulations to you both – we wish you a long, happy, and book-filled life together!

Libraries & Peeps, inseparable. What is your library doing with Peeps this week?

NYT article discussing the Supap Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc case.

Excerpt from article:
More profoundly, the decision might even hasten the near-demise of print — spurring publishers into a digital world where they can license their books rather than sell them, adding some bells and whistles while gaining some protection from the first-sale clause.

Full article

Inside a Catholic convent deep in St. Augustine's historic district, stacks of centuries-old, sepia-toned papers offer clues to what life was like for early residents of the nation's oldest permanently occupied city.

These parish documents date back to 1594, and they record the births, deaths, marriages and baptisms of the people who lived in St. Augustine from that time through the mid-1700s. They're the earliest written documents from any region of the United States, according to J. Michael Francis, a history professor at the University of South Florida.

A national digital library endowment: More details, an FAQ, and an invitation to librarians and others to help shape the proposal

Full piece here

Fabian Scherschel at The H Online presents a feature comparing alternatives to Google Reader for those looking to replace it in their daily lives.

Lynne O’Brien, director of academic technology and instructional services at Duke University, said the “rapid uptake” of MOOCs had taken many people by surprise. As she put it, “These courses don’t seem to fit anything of the model that we have for how to do online education well.” She’s been hearing from instructors that “the process of preparing courses for this environment made them rethink” how they teach their on-campus courses. “Faculty have said it’s a huge amount of work but that it’s also a wonderful opportunity,” she said.

seattlepi.com: Welcome to The Richie Perez Radical Library, a new library created by the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective. The library, which was named for a South Bronx educator and activist who died in 2004, features "works by influential thinker-agitators, such as Angela Davis and Malcolm X, with writings by hip-hop luminaries including KRS-One, the RZA and Jay-Z."
The collective partnered with Bluestockings, an independent Lower East Side bookstore, to gather 300 mostly donated books to get things started.

No, this isn't a report from CiL2013, just a Theater Review From The NYTimes...
The production could stand to borrow a page from Addie: In matters of importance, you have to know when to throw caution to the wind. “Happy Birthday” runs through April 13 at the Beckett Theater, 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton; (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com.

Worries about the effect of libraries on the book trade are not new. But digital devices, which allow books to reach readers with ease and speed, intensify them. As Brian Napack, president of Macmillan, a big publisher, put it in 2011, the fear is that someone who gets a library card will “never have to buy a book again”.

Internet use is now so ubiquitous in the U.S. that not having access or online literacy can create major hurdles. As part of the NewsHour's series on broadband technology and its effect on society, Hari Sreenivasan explores the so-called digital divide with Vicky Rideout of VJR Consulting and former FCC official Karen Kornbluh.

Full piece here.

A new book documents the murders, murderers and capital punishment overseen by the highest court in the U.S. Jeffrey Brown talks with veteran journalists Martin Clancy and Tim O'Brien about their new work, "Murder at the Supreme Court," about some of the most notorious crimes and subsequent penalties.

Interview with authors here.