LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Well-known librarian, educator and tireless reading advocate Nancy Pearl has been selected the winner of the 2010 Margaret E. Monroe Library Adult Services Award, an honor administered annually by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

The Monroe Award honors a librarian, library and information science researcher or educator who has made a significant contribution to library adult services. Pearl has an extensive career in librarianship and most recently was, until August 2004, the executive director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library.

In addition to these noteworthy credentials, Pearl has produced thousands of book reviews and bibliographies and has shared her readers’ advisory skills with other librarians through staff education, lectures and presentations across the country. She also continues to share her love of reading with others through her appearances on National Public Radio and her publications, including “Book Lust”, “More Book Lust”, “Book Crush: For Kids and Teens” and her three-part “Now Read This” series. Her next book, “Book Lust to Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds and Dreamers” will be published in September of 2010.

From The Resource Shelf. Congrats Nancy!

If you received an e-mail from the library manager at the Sinclairville Free Library, asking for $2,500, she would like you to know it is not real. Apparently her e-mail account was hacked and the person who got inside changed the password and is soliciting money from the people on her contact list.

From The Star: Toronto Public Library is pulling its part-time librarian from the Reading Room at the Hospital for Sick Children.

"We’re worried, but we understand that Toronto Public Library has been hit with a budget that doesn’t allow them to continue their services across the city at the same level,” says Dr. Bruce Ferguson, the hospital’s director of community health systems. “The first thing we (will) do is talk about how we can maintain services for patients and families.”

Sick Kids is one of three Toronto hospitals losing its part-time library staff because of city budget constraints.

The reading room has a collection of 13,500 materials that includes books, CDs and curriculum material that supports schoolchildren from kindergarten to Grade 12. Some Toronto public board teachers work permanently in the hospital, holding classes for students of the psychiatric ward, epilepsy patients, and kids in the substance-abuse program. Teachers also school patients who are at the hospital for more than five days to ensure they don’t fall behind.

“The Toronto Public Library is an incredibly valuable contributor and we will miss that librarian,” said Ferguson. “But we will sit down with our partners and the woman’s auxiliary and volunteer services and figure out how they’ll cope without the part-time staff member.”

Update on Bernie Margolis on his blog written by his wife Amanda Batey:

"I am devastated to tell you some terrible news. Bernie was diagnosed a few days ago with a dreadful type of blood cancer. We have an appointment at the famed Dana-Farber/ Harvard Cancer Center in Boston soon and anticipate that he will need a bone marrow transplant as well as in-hospital chemotherapy.

A friend in Michigan, Jim Luke, has put together this website so we all can stay in touch. As much as I would like to be available personally I need to focus my attention on Bernie. This is an opportunity to use the world’s new technology in a wonderful application. You can find out how Bernie’s doing and keep up to date by visiting BernieMargolis.com . You may want to bookmark this site. You can also comment, and express your love and support on this site. Bernie says you can argue with him if you are so disposed! See the “Tell Bernie” page/tab on the website. Bernie and I will read them all. You are all part of our larger Bernie-family. You can also register to be notified by email whenever we have news on the site."

Real Librarians Talk About Their Favorite Fictional Librarians
Librarians have a bit of a reputation to live up to. We expect them to be kind and resourceful. Well-read. Soft-spoken. These days, the bun and glasses are optional, but if you ask us, still fun in a kitschy way. But have you ever wondered what real librarians think an ideal librarian should be like? And more importantly, who are the imaginary librarians that they look up to? To find out, we caught up with our favorite blogging librarians from The Desk Set.

Congratulations Andy!!!! From Library Journal:

Flavor of the Month Move over, Cherry Garcia. If Andy Woodworth has his way, the next hot Ben & Jerry's flavor could be Gooey Decimal System.

The 32-year-old adult services librarian at Bordentown Library, NJ, Woodworth is creator of “People for a Library Themed Ben & Jerry's Flavor” a Facebook group he started in June 2009 that's mushroomed to more than 8000 members and quickly gained international media and blogging attention. (It's been picked up by Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, The New Yorker's The Book Bench blog, Britain's The Guardian, and even the United Arab Emirates newspaper, The National.)

But don't be fooled. Woodworth's project has a hidden agenda—it's part of a multipronged advocacy effort to get libraries noticed, appreciated, and funded.

I don't care what the name of the winning flavor is...but it's GOT TO have chocolate.

Betty White will guest-star on the season finale of The Middle. The four-time Emmy winner will play a school librarian who goes after a student over several overdue library books.

What? A librarian chasing down an overdue library book? What hijinx! Oh, one can only wonder where these writers get their ideas. We can only hope that zaniness and uncontrolled hilarity ensues.

Hey, LISNews has company...Salem Press (they publish literary and history reference libraries in a variety of formats) is looking for the coolest library/librarian blogs around. Here's their contest announcement:

As you are probably aware, blogs about libraries have spread across the web. There are (literally) hundreds of people writing about books, libraries, librarians and related subjects. If you count the blogs that come from specific institutions, spreading local news, there are thousands of the things. Some are funny. Some are brilliant. Others, aren't.

Salem Press' staff includes many fans of library blogs. We're entertained and enlightened by them. So, we've decided to recognize the best efforts in the field. Not only to praise the praise-worthy but also to publicize the good stuff. To that end, we're hosting something we call the Library Blog Awards. We think there should be a well-organized directory of library blogs and a "peoples' awards" program of some kind to let folks know what blogs are best-liked and most widely read.

Go for it bloggers!! Thanks to the Effing Librarian for the tip!

Former librarian charged with grand larceny
A former librarian for the Tuxedo School District is accused of embezzling $12,621 from the school district’s Teachers Employee Union.

The chief said the investigation began with a complaint filed by union members and that his department was assisted by the Orange County District Attorney’s Criminal Investigation Unit.

The New York Daily News reports that "there's a scandal in the stacks at the Brooklyn Public Library."

The head of the system abruptly quit last week after a plan to lay off 13 employees backfired and ended in a very public embarrassment. Insiders said the firing fiasco was the last strike against Dionne Mack-Harvin. "The board was not happy with her," a source said. It wasn't supposed to end this way. Mack-Harvin took the post with great fanfare and a fabulous back story - the African-American daughter of a sharecropper who loved books and rose to her dream job.