LISNews: Librarian News

The Dallasnews is running This One on a man who landed in jail because of Cinderella and Tom and Jerry. They say that about 20 people have been arrested in 10 years in Nolan County, TX.

His failure to return the two books he\'d checked out for his children, plus two others about handwriting analysis, cost him more than $1,000, jeopardized his job and left him with a criminal record.

\"It\'s crazy,\" said Mr. Fox. \"It\'s ludicrous. This is on my record as theft; nobody can believe it was over library books.\"

Here\'s an entertaining commentary on the pros-and-cons of
Oxford University\'s somewhat archaic but venerable Bodleian Library:

I should mention that the library takes four to five hours to \"fetch\" a book from its stacks. Readers are advised to order what they need in the morning so they\'ll have it by afternoon. An all-morning wait should be enough to force a person into careful consideration. So why I ordered Universalis Arithmetica is a puzzler. This book is a ridiculously valuable first edition of a massively important work, true. Newton was still at Cambridge in 1707 when the Bodleian\'s edition was printed. . .

More from the National Post.

Richard Feldman writes: \"Thought you might want to pick up the story on Santa Fe, NM main library\'s being closed for up to 4 months because of mold infestation. The local paper currently has a story. I don\'t know how long that link will continue to work.\"

Is there a plague of killer molds sweeping the nation I don\'t know about? I think this is mold story #4.

Although the idea of using landfill money to help fund the building of the new Freeport (IL) library has been well received by council members, there is still enough opposition to cause people to be gaurdedly optimistic. The $2.5 million funding commitment is far from the amount they need to secure. Some want the issue to go on a referendum to be voted upon by citizens. One of the issues is whether to build a one-story facility at the cost of $7 million or add a shell for a second story for $8 million. more...