LISNews: Power Influencer, Passion Catalyst

From Doctor Who to Buffy to Borges' Babel, we visit some notable libraries in popular culture.

Piece on NPR

Two rare volumes stolen by an employee from Sweden’s Royal Library will be returned today in New York after the antique book seller in Baltimore who purchased them agreed to hand them over to the FBI.

The chief of the Royal Library’s Manuscript Department, Anders Burius, stole at least 56 rare or one-of-a-kind books in his 10 years of employment, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement stamped July 17. The books to be returned “contain early depictions of the United States by explorers,” the attorney’s office said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-07-24/books-stolen-by-librarian-who-committed-suicide-...

Post by Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing

Excerpt: In a 2010 interview with The Book Page, Neil Gaiman neatly set out the case for libraries and librarians in the 21st century; the remarks are even more relevant today, as libraries fight for a fair deal from publisher for ebooks, and with austerity-maddened local governments for their very survival.

For years, thousands of children throughout the world have been studying a poem about sunflowers believing it to be the work of the 19th-century poet William Blake.

Reading lists have included it for study, websites have included it in lesson plans and four US state school boards have recommended it to students. There is even anecdotal evidence of one of Britain’s Ofsted inspectors accepting “the fact” of Blake’s authorship of the poem when it was presented to her by a group of young students via a project on their display board.

Now though, after a 12-year misunderstanding which illustrates how effectively the internet can spread misinformation, the record could finally be put straight thanks to the diligence of a Hertfordshire librarian and blogger.

Thomas Pitchford, aka “The Library Spider”, has verified that the poem – “Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room” – was written by a 1980s US poet, Nancy Willard, and published in an anthology of hers dedicated to Blake’s work, A Visit to William Blake’s Inn.

Story from The Independent.