Librarians

Announcing Volume I, Issue 1 of The Political Librarian, our new journal at the intersection local libraries, public policy and tax policy.

We are interested in featuring new voices and lines of inquiry, and are interested in publishing opinion pieces, white papers, and peer reviewed works.  You are invited to contribute to Vol 2 Issue 1 for a March 2016 publication date.  Our editorial guidelines are posted for your review and consideration.

Thanks to our editorial team, including series editor Lindsay Sarin, and general editors Johnna Purcell and Rachel Korman.  We are proud to announce our editorial board

From The Political Librarian - Vol I Issue 1 | EveryLibrary

Librarians down under are cooking up a campaign to change the country's copyright laws according to this ABC story.

"However, those involved want people to bake biscuits and cakes rather than picket Parliament.

Social media users are being encouraged to cook a vintage recipe and share a photo of the result.

The aim is to encourage the Attorney-General to look at changing the law so that unpublished works are treated the same way as published ones."

College Librarian in China Admits He Replaced Art With Fakes from ABC News.

A former chief librarian at a Chinese university admitted in court Tuesday to stealing more than 140 paintings by grandmasters in a gallery under his watch and replacing them with fakes he painted himself.

For two years up until 2006, Xiao Yuan substituted famous works including landscapes and calligraphies in a gallery within the library of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

He told the court in his defense that the practice appeared to be rampant and the handling of such paintings was not secure. He said he noticed fakes already hanging in the gallery on his first day on the job. Later, after he replaced some of the remaining masters with his own fakes, he was surprised when he noticed his fake paintings were being substituted with even more fakes.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WVEC) Now this was a cool job, being part of a brand new program from Virginia Beach Public Library, initiated by librarian Kellye Carter, called Books at the Beach.

On this day another librarian with 33 years experience was helping us out, Denise Barnhart. The WVEC reporter, Joe Flanagan (pictured, center) was worried that offering free books to Oceanfront visitors may be a challenge because he didn't have any librarian skills.

"We can teach that. We can't teach compassion. We can't teach caring. But we can teach anybody how to do the day-to-day things," said Kellye Carter, manager of the Oceanfront Area Library. The books were collected by the Friends of the Library.

From the CCPL website: Charleston County Public Library is devastated by the senseless shootings Wednesday night at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston that took the lives of nine members of our community, including one of our own - St. Andrews Regional Library Manager Cynthia Hurd. Cynthia was a tireless servant of the community who spent her life helping residents, making sure they had every opportunity for an education and personal growth.

To honor our co-worker and all those lost, Charleston County Public Library's 16 locations are closed today, Thursday, June 18, 2015.

Cynthia worked with Charleston County Public Library 31 years, serving as branch manager of the John L. Dart Branch from 1990-2011 before becoming manager of the St. Andrews Regional Library.

Her loss is incomprehensible, and we ask for prayers for her family, her co-workers, her church and this entire community as we come together to face this tragic loss.

James Billington, the librarian of Congress who has led the world’s largest library for nearly three decades and brought it into the digital age, announced Wednesday that he will step down at year’s end.

The Library of Congress said Billington, 86, will retire on Jan. 1. He notified President Barack Obama of his plans, and the post will be filled by a presidential nomination with Senate confirmation.

From Librarian of Congress to step down after nearly 3 decades - The Washington Post

From 2Paragraphs (written for the modern attention span):

500 Questions is the new TV quiz game where contestants try to answer a series of rapid-fire questions. The show is being broadcast for seven consecutive nights. Tonight, May 27 is the sixth night (8pm on ABC). .

The contestant who came closest to answering all 500 Questions was librarian Steve Bahnaman. The affable, knowledgeable man works at the Campbell University library.He planned to get a PhD in religion but “that ended up not being something I wanted to do.” Turns out he preferred “being around research and helping people with research.” Bahnaman will return to his job $110,000 richer after answering 167 of the 500 Questions.

Somehow, they seem forever tied in my mind to librarians. Does anyone know how that came about?

Here's their story:

Ninety-two years ago, Sam Born opened a little candy store in Brooklyn selling daily-made confections he boasted were fresh because they were “just born.” In 1953, the Just Born company began producing marshmallow chicks called Peeps, and the sugary, squishy treats now have a huge, devoted following. Here are 11 things we bet you didn’t know about the iconic Easter candy.

After a long day of answering questions and serving up information to the public (students, etc), a librarian could use a laugh. So pick up a copy of Roz Warren's OUR BODIES, OUR SHELVES: A COLLECTION OF LIBRARY HUMOR (HOPress, 2015) and see what might be between the covers that tickles your funnybone.

Here's an excerpt from one story: Freeze! It's the Library Police [a librarian's fantasy of recovering stolen books]

"Open up bitch! It's LIBRARY SQUAD!

Library Squad! A group of enraged middle-aged librarians. We're brainy, we're relentless. We'll hunt you down. We'll never give up. We know the Dewey Decimal Sysytem and we're not afraid to use it. And we always get our book.

And if you resist? We'll shush you. Permanently."

In addition to her library duties at the Bala Cynwyd Library right outside Philadelphia, Roz Warren writes forThe New York Times, The Funny Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Jewish Forward and The Huffington Post. And she‘s been featured on the Today Show. Our Bodies, Our Shelves is her thirteenth humor book. Years ago, Roz left the practice of law to take a job at her local public library “because I was tired of making so damn much money.” She doesn't regret it.

Our Bodies, Our Shelves, ISBN 9780692406465

Laurie Chipps quit her library job and abandoned her apartment and her many friends to explore new avenues....on a bike.

But Chipps, 36, said she still wasn't happy — a state that led to her decision to ride a bicycle 4,229 miles across the United States. Chipps' trip — which will take her from Yorktown, Virginia, through 10 states before ending in Astoria, Oregon, — begins today.

"I'm kind of ready to trade all the concrete for more forests and streams," Chipps said. "I'll try to put it simply: I had everything in my life, but a couple of years ago, I felt unhappy and not content with what I had."

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150428/ukrainian-village/unhappy-librarian-quits-take-4229-...

Besides author Jessamyn West, it might be any a number of folk.

Story via Medium. https://medium.com/message/king-of-the-dipshits-139658a95e0e

Today, April 16th is National Librarian Day and what better way to celebrate than with the release of her book OUR BODIES,OUR SHELVES: A COLLECTION OF LIBRARY HUMOR (HOPress, 2015). In addition to her library duties at the Bala Cynwyd Library right outside Philadelphia, Roz Warren writes forThe New York Times, The Funny Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Jewish Forward and The Huffington Post. And she‘s been featured on the Today Show. (Twice!) And she frequents publisher Humor Outcasts as well. Our Bodies, Our Shelves is her thirteenth humor book. Years ago, Roz left the practice of law to take a job at her local public library “because I was tired of making so damn much money.” She has no regrets. CLICK here to hear the interview!

It's the anniversary of the death of Darrington librarian Linda McPherson and her library honored her memory. She was one of 43 people lost a year ago in the Washington state mudslide.

The answer to the first question was "I love reading books," but it was obvious that there was no career in reading for me. Then I remembered my library experiences as a student, and I wondered if there was such a thing as a master's degree for librarians. Google told me there was such a thing, so I enrolled in 2002, finished my graduate degree in library and information science by 2004, took the board exam for librarians, got my license to practice, and eventually left for Canada to study for a PhD in book history.

From Why I became a librarian

If that clichéd version of a librarian doesn’t sound familiar, you must be one of the lucky ones who knows the cardigan-wearing, tea-drinking, bright-eyed mistresses of the Dewey Decimal system. Your kind of librarian helps you find just the right book every time, and she always winks as she waves your late fee. Whether you know the crotchety, nightmare-inducing vision from your high school or the soft voice and vanilla-scented angel from the days of early reading, most people think of one these conventions when they think of librarians.

From 11 Of The Coolest Librarians From Pop Culture, Because Not Every Librarian Is Like the One From Your High School | Bustle

For all you comics geeks.

Graphic novel and comic book fans are book lovers, so it is no surprise that libraries and librarians are portrayed fairly frequently in all sorts of graphic works. Here are some comics that feature libraries and librarians and are perfect for some light reading or for a fun library display.

Interesting history of an early Vassar grad who later became a librarian:

Anita Hemmings was a black woman who was passing for white, and it almost got her kicked out of Vassar on the very eve of her graduation in 1897. Hat tip to Robin Bradford @Tuphlos

Safely graduated from what was perhaps the most prestigious women’s college in the nation, Anita went on to join the staff of the Boston Public Library as their foreign cataloguer, doing translations and bibliographies. She was proficient in seven languages, including Latin, French, and ancient Greek.

By 1914 she was listed in Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada. That listing noted that she “favors woman suffrage.” She also became a friend of African American civil rights activist W. E. B. Dubois.

Maybe you've heard about a photo/video project by Kyle Cassidy that was looking for funding last year. You'll be happy to know that the project has been funded on Kickstarter.

On June 29th, 2014 618 backers carried our Kickstarter across the finish line with $12,245, allowing us to not only photograph and interview more than 300 Librarians at the ALA conference in Las Vegas, but to also fund the stretch goals of creating a series of stock photographs for libraries to use, doing five hours of video interviews, and doing some photography for the new Joan of Dark book on knitting projects for book lovers.

If you're not familiar with the project, here's more about it .

via PUB-LIB: SKYPE/ZOOM WITH A 3-TIME IDITAROD MUSHER AND HER IDITAROD LEAD DOG!

Karen Land, writer, oral historian, public speaker, and three-time participant in the 1,150-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race across Alaska will be Skyping/Zooming with students across the globe this Winter/Spring 2015. E-mail [email protected] for more information and to set up a date! (the Iditarod starts March 7, 2015)