LISNews: Librarian News

Here's a story from the Toronto Star about the growing demand for Urban Literature by younger readers. According to the article, urban literature is a genre that "appeals to teenage girls and young adults who want to read books that reflect the raw voices of inner city life and the hip-hop culture that informs it." Urban lit authors that most librarians might recognize include Eric Jerome Dickey, Sister Souljah and Sharon Flake. I highly recommend the article to YA librarians and those who buy popular fiction. Time to weed out a few of the extra copies of Harry Potter and make room on the shelf for this genre.

Deb Waugh writes "The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library offers many excellent resources for high school librarians. Sign up today for their Online Book Clubs. You'll receive the first few chapters of new books in your e-mail, giving you a chance to form a first-hand opinion of them."

Here's A Dallas News Story [Reg. Required] on University of North Texas professor, Carol Simpson, who has devoted the last two summers to making sure that libraries are available to schoolchildren in Negril, Jamaica, and Chiang Rai, Thailand. She's led groups of UNT students to both towns to catalog thousands of donated books and set up libraries.

"We didn't want to come in like a fairy godmother, wave the magic wand and create a library and then go," said Dr. Simpson, assistant professor at the university's School of Library and Information Sciences. "We wanted to create something that they would be able to maintain and continue to be able to use. We wanted to use a real library as a laboratory. -- Read More

"Shortly after Iran fell to Islamic revolutionaries in 1979, a book dealer sending volumes to Harvard's libraries cut out pictures of the deposed Shah so that the books would not be confiscated."

"The removed pages were sent separately later, but the incident illustrates the lengths that dealers and Harvard library collectors have to go to keep collections of regional publications current."

"The Iranian example was just one of many given on Thursday (May 8) during the Spring 2003 Librarians' Assembly, which brings together librarians from across the University and which was held in Harvard Hall." (from The Harvard Gazette)