LISNews: Librarian News

Here\'s a great Story from christianitytoday.com on the often over looked Church Library. They say the church libray can be a vital resource for the congregation. Lois Ward, president of the Church & Synagogue Library Association in Portland, Oregon, recommends that a committee of two or three people from your church work together, with the endorsement of the pastor and education board, to establish or upgrade a library.

\"It is a huge waste to have a room called a library with a whole lot of extremely good stuff with nice labels that will stay on the shelves forever,\" says Carolyn Hardin Engelhardt, director of the Vieth Resource Center at the Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. \"If you don\'t do publicity, hospitality, and outreach, you can waste your time.\"

Bob Cox sent in This Story from christianitytoday.com. It talks about a nationwide survey done by librarian David Burt, which found the viewing of pornography on the Internet by adults and minors is common in many of the country\'s public libraries. It\'s kind of an old story, seems worth a look though.
No kind words about the ALA.

\"Not only has it failed to acknowledge the extent of the problem, but it has established a party line which categorically discourages consideration of any kind or extent of filtering as a solution. Rather than facilitating an open and inclusive forum for discussion, the ALA has circled the wagons, thus disenfranchising thousands of librarians who do not agree with the official stance.\"

Mark C. Rosenzweig writes:Here\'s an Associated
Press Story of residual Cold War thinking at the
Library of Congress.

My Response:

Open Letter to James Billington, Librarian of Congress

Dear Mr. Billington,

As the Chief Librarian and Archivist of the Reference
Center for Marxist Studies in New York City, an
independent educational institution with custodianship
of the library, documentation and records of the
Communist Party USA, it is of great interest to me how
the historical papers of the CPUSA, sent to the USSR
for safe-keeping during a turbulent period, have
become the property of the principals involved in the
recent announcement from your office \"Library of
Congress Opens to Researchers the Records of the
Communist Party, USA\".

Much More.... -- Read More

The American Prospect has an Interesting Story on the past and future of libraries. Geoffrey Nunberg makes some very interesting points.

\"If we truly believe that universal access is both a public good and a private right, though, we have to realize that the public interest in obtaining information won\'t be satisfied simply by providing everyone with access to a computer and modem, no more than the public interest in reading books was satisfied once Carnegie had provided buildings to house them.\"