LISNews: Librarian News

The Office of Communications at the Library of Congress announced that Mississippi Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey was named 19th US Poet Laureate. Trethwey will hold the positions concurrently. Poets.org has a profile posted of the new appointee. Huffington Post and the New York Times have more on the appointment as well.

Most of us learned about the significance of April 23rd back in high school (the Bard's birthday), but now there's another reason to celebrate. April 23, 2012 is the first US World Book Night, when publishers will donate and volunteers will distribute free books to anyone who wants them. Want to be a part of it? Sign up as a volunteer on their site before February 1.

World Book Night premiers this year in the US. Bookstores & libraries will be distribution points. Did you sign up? What book do you want to distribute? I did (for Poisonwood Bible). Here are the book options, thirty in all.

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the British counterpart to the American Library Association, issued jointly with the UK's National Literacy Trust a press release condemning the announced 2012 closure of Hertfordshire Schools Library Services.

Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, writing at al-Jazeera English, notes that Internet censorship is moving westward and becoming a more mainstream notion in various countries.

Key quote:

Most problematically, setting a precedent of blocking websites simply makes it that much easier for a government or ISP to extend filtering as they wish.