LISNews: Librarian News

Judy Westbrook was kind enough to send along more
information on Robert S. Martin, just nominated to be
Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

He was in charge of this outsourcing study , \"The
Impact of Outsourcing and Privatization on Library
Services and Management\". The study examined in
detail outsourcing of cataloging, selection, and
management of library operations. They say they found
no evidence that outsourcing per se represents a threat
to library governance, or to the role of the library in
protecting the First Amendment rights of the public.

Will the library crimes never stop?

Missouri libraries found someone Selling Stolen Books on eBay. Library officials first learned the books were missing in January after receiving a call from a New York man who purchased an O\'Brian book over the Internet that had the library\'s stamp and bar code.

In Tennessee, after her request to automate the library was Turned Down librarian Elizabeth Potts took matters into her own hands, then Someone Stole it. A giant pickle jar stuffed with money was stolen.

\'\'I just think it\'s kind of low down,\'\' Potts said. \'\'Somebody stole our pickle jar, and that was money we were collecting to fund automation of the library.\'\'

A few days back Helen wrote \"Check out a recent ad
by HP Labs, featuring librarian Eugenie Prime. Not sure
if this is a step forward or a step back . . . The Ad PDF \"

It\'s been submitted a few more times, with
one person taking a slightly different view, one person
wrote:

\"The April 16th issue of Time has a very repugnant
ad by HP sterotyping
every librarian who ever existed - you might want to tell
them what you
think, pages 70-71, Not to mention that primpy frumpy
whatever is not a librarian!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\"

I just don\'t know what to say on this one. In a
profession obsessed with image, what does This Ad say about us?

Here\'s a Cool Story from businessinvancouver.com on a local library making some good moves.

The Richmond Public Library is now offering classes on \"the Ironwood model\" of library management. Deputy chief librarian Cate McNeely even uses terms like \"merchandising\"! I\'m a big fan of this type of library management.

\"How do you do the things that we always talk about doing, but always say we don\'t have enough money or enough time or enough staff to do? We knew that if we did things in the traditional way, the majority of our resources would just be going to checking in and checking out books. And it would mean not being open 74 hours a week, not doing daily story time, not having the librarians available on the floor to help people choose that best book, and so on.\"