LISNews: Librarian News

from NPR:

Talk show host Stephen Colbert's foray into children's books has landed him alongside some exalted literary company.

A playful new exhibit at Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum & Library pairs priceless material by James Joyce and Maurice Sendak with, um, perhaps less valuable items used by Colbert to write "I Am A Pole (And So Can You!)."

Colbert's pens, beer bottles and lunch remnants are certainly not the usual fare for the Rosenbach, the Philadelphia institution that houses the only complete manuscript of Joyce's "Ulysses."

But museum officials say the display reinforces their mission to engage and inspire visitors with collections that include papers from Lewis Carroll, Bram Stoker and Miguel de Cervantes.

"If I can do that by having Stephen Colbert make a joke about 'Ulysses,' why not?" said Rosenbach director Derick Dreher.

Donald J. Sobol, creator and author of the Encyclopedia Brown book series, passed away at the age of 79 today. I grew up reading those books and they taught me two things:

1. Girls can be just as smart and clever as a "boy genius" - Hiya, Sally.
2. How to read upside down - I still use this working with patrons.

RIP, Mr. Sobol. I left my Encyclopedia Brown mysteries behind, but I still keep and treasure the Encyclopedia Brown books of "Weird and Wonderful Facts."

Obituary: Los Angeles Times

Obituary: Wall Street Journal

A 451 Internet error code? Digital Trends has the details:

"Government-imposed online censorship has become increasingly prevalent over the past few years...When censorship does happen, we need a sign that clearly tells us that that’s the reason for a site’s inaccessibility.

Enter Tim Bray, a software developer at Google who has proposed a solution: a “451? error code that displays anytime you visit a site blocked by the government. The number 451 is in honor of late author Ray Bradbury, whose science fiction classic Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1950, warned of a dystopian world defined by government-imposed censorship (in the form of burning any house that contains books)."