LISNews: Librarian News

Jersey City NJ resident Juan Albornoz describes himself as a "pain in the butt," and is well-known to many city officials for being, as one unnamed council aide said, a "person with an opinion on everything." (translation??) So Albornoz did not shy away from expressing his opinion to the council at their last meeting on June 27 regarding some books from the Jersey City Free Public Library he found in a hamper earlier this month on Mercer Street, outside the library's Main Branch. The books, with their cover torn off and pages gutted - including titles by James Jones, William Kennedy, Joseph Heller, John Irving, R.K. Narayan, Muriel Spark, and P.D. James.

"I let them know that major works of American literature are being destroyed," Albornoz said. "The bottom line is what kind of city is this that would allow this destruction." Library Director Priscilla Gardner wished that he would have taken his opinion directly to her as oppposed to the City Counsel, but unfortunately that's not what Albornoz chose to do. Story from the Hudson Reporter.

Anonymous Patron writes "R. Crosby Kemper III is the director of the Kansas City (MO) public library sysytem, even though he has no MLS or library experience. What he does have is a cousin who chairs the library board and a very prominent family presence in the area. Kemper until 2005 was the CEO of UMB Bank (cuz is the CEO of another major bank in town). He boasts of a personal library of thousands of books his millionaire corporate friends must be very impressed with.

Now, he seems to want the public library to adopt a similar collection philosophy: "...the goal is to build a collection that is 'excellent and enduring.'

Never mind what regular taxpaying folks want to read.

Libraries ponder a collective dilemma is in Today's The Kansas City Star"

Grumpy Librarian writes "YBP's Community College Center provides "custom lists" of books on certain topics. I've always assumed that these were somehow selected, but the "Black History" list (released this month for obvious reasons) includes the book: Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose: An Illustrated History and Black November: The Carl D. Bradley Tragedy — a book about a commercial shipping accident.

Have we become so lazy in our collection development that vendors can search their catalogs for black AND history and call it a selection tool?"

The Chicago Trib has a story on how library director Colleen McCarroll of Shimer College, "the great books collection of the Midwest", weeded its collection of 30,000 books down to 10,000 when the campus moved to a new, smaller location.