LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

As gaming in libraries becomes more of a commonplace and less of a radical notion, librarians will be forced to deal with the same kinds of issues they encountered when libraries began to carry movies.

When libraries started stocking VHS cassettes, there was a huge debate over R rated movies. Should libraries stock such films even though many R rated movies garner Academy Awards and other film acclaims? Now the rating issue isn't over R, it's M for Mature. Should a library carry a game or not simply based off its rating? Grand Theft Auto IV is rated M but received accolades throughout the entire gaming world. How reliable is the rating? Do we check it out to minors? And the list goes on.

We've had our share of trouble with game ratings here in the States, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the good folks over in the United Kingdom are slogging through similar problems.

More from the Beeb.

Maybe you don't know Bill Knott. Hell, maybe you don't know more than five living poets, and you work in a library. But you should pop over to Knott's blog, where he publishes his poetry, and rants against his former publisher, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and Pulitzer prizewinners alike. Now he turns his attention to librarians, or rather the stereotype of librarians. Is he serious? You decide.

You can question them about their discard policies, but don't delude yourself they'll tell you the truth: remember they're public employees, they're like members of your legislature, malfeasants who hide their evil behind walls of bureaucratise and lies.

Today, May 3, is free ! Make sure you go pick yours up as nothing beats free stuff!

Eric Roger Green Has A Column in The Denver Post:

There is no proof that one can have a truly balanced library collection based on all the ambiguities involved. Librarians will continue to receive collection challenges, which they should. We need to communicate that there is no perfect system. Our patrons must also understand this as well. We can challenge our patrons to take responsibility for this process. We might achieve a respectable, but imperfect representative collection. Or would robot Librarians do better?

The Marginal Revolution Blog Says the partial monopolization of for-fee journals makes it possible to produce status returns to motivate both editors and referees. Returning to the free setting, refereeing will survive insofar as writing detailed referee comments on other people's work helps with your own research; it is interesting to ponder in which fields this might hold.

Library and Archives Canada has announced the elimination of the Canadian Book Exchange Centre.

Opened 35 years ago, the exchange centre is a massive swap shop for public and academic libraries across Canada. Libraries donate books and periodicals their patrons no longer use and, in response to requests by other libraries, the centre redistributes them.

Canadian Library Association executive director Don Butcher said while it's true that libraries collections are shifting to digital, Library and Archives Canada should have consulted the library community before cutting the centre and made a greater effort to find alternatives.

According to Rochelle , who talked to Amazon customer support, libraries that are lending out Kindles (Amazon's ebook reader) to patrons are in violation of the terms of service. She makes some compelling points on questions that Amazon needs to answer, such as ways to disable people from downloading without disabling the account.

This article comes to us courtesy of ALA's Library Direct e-mail. Johnsonton County is on the hunt for books to remove from its collection after removing "How the Girls lost their accents". What scariest of all is that they aren't waiting to react, they're just looking for books that are "offensive."

mdoneil writes "Are you weeding in the 200s.? Well you better be careful about which books you pitch. Some of those books cannot be thrown away according to The God Squad.
No Bibles with the coffee grounds. No Korans in the dustbin. You have to bury them. The books would be covered and buried respectfully though not necessarily in a cemetery. They should be covered and then buried. "Dust to dust" refers to the disposal of all holy vessels."

Book auction from the late AMS (Advanced Marketing Services)...if you're in the Indianapolis, IN area, you might want to check out the announcement here. Auction is in Indianapolis on Tuesday, October 9. A brochure may be downloaded from the auctioneer's website.