LISNews: Librarian News

From Daniel Rubin's column in The Philadelphia Inquirer: Now that everyone's an expert on fast facts, I wonder what has become of those Free Library of Philadelphia treasures known as the Know-It-Alls.

When I last visited these general-information specialists, in 1991, business was brisk. Surrounded by a wall of books and directories, they fielded 50 phone calls an hour from Philadelphians wondering how to spell Tiananmen Square, what glasnost is, how far to Fargo?

The rotating staff of 14 librarians - each with a master's in science - was in such demand that each caller was limited to three questions.

Well, all that was so last century.

Today, there's one full-fledged Know-It-All left - Lori Morse, a librarian who runs the General Information department. She's backed up now by nine less-seasoned librarian assistants.

Where the department used to field 400 calls a day, now phone requests for what Morse calls "ready research" can be counted on one hand.

"We get maybe a couple a week," she said. "We've turned more into customer service representatives - people needing to renew books, needing help downloading e-books."

Oh man I love stories like this one out of Utah! An estimated 300 volunteers turned out Saturday to help move 50,000 books from the old Uintah County Library into the new one.

A mother of five was put into handcuffs and hauled off to jail for neglecting to return her library book.

Story from the LA Times Jacket Copy. The incarcerated woman, who borrowed the book from the Portales NM Library, plans to sue.

From the New York Times: Yonkers, NY library worker embezzled late fees over a period of seven years and now faces jail time.

Margo Reed, who earned about $43,000 a year and was described as a conscientious, trusted and well-liked longtime employee, was responsible for taking $163,582 in library fines collected by the three public library branches in Yonkers. It was her job to collect fines — 10 cents for most books, 50 cents for new seven-day ones — and turn them over to the city for deposit.

According to her guilty plea, from July 7, 2004, to Dec. 7, 2010, she would regularly alter the collection paperwork to reflect a lower amount of fees and pocket the difference after taking money out of the library deposit bag. Stephen Force, the Yonkers Library director, said officials discovered that she regularly used correction fluid to alter the receipt sent to her and then entered the new number on the paperwork she filed when she sent the money to the city. The difference between what she received and what she reported was usually $100 or more, he said.