LISNews: Librarian News

Here\'s One from AccessAtlanta that says Maya Angelou has softened a controversial quote proposed as the inscription for Savannah\'s first monument to African-Americans.

\"We were stolen, sold and brought together from the African continent. We got on the slave ships together. We lay back to belly in the holds of the slave ships in each others\' excrement and urine together, sometimes died together, and our lifeless bodies thrown overboard together,\" Angelou has said in lectures.

The inscription, if approved, would include this addition:

\"Today, we are standing up together, with faith and even some joy . . . \"

Thanks to Bob Cox for yet another story.

Here\'s An LATimes Story Bob Cox sent over on romance novelist Danielle Steel.
She has 26 residential permits in her tony Pacific Heights neighborhood--more than any San Franciscan this has unleashed passions not normally associated with her 50-odd romance novels.
There has not only been angry sniping from neighbors but also miffed letters to the editor and a recent local newspaper headline that read: \"Danielle\'s Parking Orgy.\"

\"No single-family home should ever be allowed to have 26 parking permits,\" said Myron Zimmerman, who lives across the street from Steel. \"It\'s way too excessive. She already has a huge underground garage and extra outside parking on her property. It puts people around here in a bind. If we have any kind of social event, we\'ve got to hire valet parkers.\"

Lee Hadden writes: \"There is An Article in the April 26 issue of the Times about the
original of the concept \"If a million monkeys pounded away on a million
typewriters for a million years, would Shakespeare\'s works be reproduced?\"

They say Folklore ascribes the vision of a typing pool of monkeys to T(homas) H(enry) Huxley, But the notion is older than Huxley, and may go back to Cicero:

“If anybody believes that this is possible, I do not see why he should not think that if an infinite number of examples of the 21 letters of the alphabet, made of gold or what you will, were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to fall so as to spell out, say, the whole text of the Annals of Ennius. In fact I doubt whether chance would permit them to spell out a single verse!”

While Bezos claims Amazon\'s used book sales \"lead to higher sales of new
books\" [LISNews: \"Bezos
Bites Back.\"], and Authors Guild\'s Aiken responds, \"We don\'t assert
all used book sales hurt the industry.  We say that Amazon\'s particular
way of marketing used books is harmful for authors and for publishers,\"
AP reporter, Hillel Italie, points out that \"neither side has produced
numbers backing its argument.\"

\"Amazon
chief defends sale of used books.\" -By Hillel
Italie  -AP
via  -NandoTimes

Now if only there were a giant database keeping track of all those sales
so that Bezos could clearly show how recent releases are actually helped
by offering them side by side with used copies for a fraction of the price... 
/sarcasm: off

LISNews Keywords:
amazon