LISNews: Librarian News

All twelve episodes of Library War posted by TangognaT:

Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 1
Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 2
Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 3
Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 4
Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 5
Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 6
Toshokan Sens? – Library War Episode 7 -- Read More

If you're into the humourous side of books, and the occult, and the dark one who dwells in the pit...

Wait, I'll start over.

If you've never bothered to read the web comic Sinfest, you could do worse than to dig on its recent storyline of a bookish young lad who is training an evil, possessed book acquired directly from Satan's personal library. In today's episode, he teaches the book to speak... which may not be the best idea in the world.

Money is scarce, but hopefully humor is in good supply.

When the well-heeled patrons of New York's venerable Morgan Library wander through its new exhibition of cartoons about money, there may be some hollow laughter as they ponder their own hard times.

The exhibit of 70 years of New Yorker magazine cartoons titled "On the Money" was planned over a year ago, before the full scale of the financial crisis that has plunged the United States and much of the world into recession became apparent.

Here's the story from Reuters with two cartoons included.

Upon discovering a book depicting rabbit ending their lives in a number of unusual ways, a woman in Oregon checked the book out of the library, refused to return it, and threatened to burn it and any other copies that were purchased to replace the copy she stole. After a time though, and a good deal of community outrage, she did return the book and claimed that her threats were fueled by emotion and distorted by the media and they should be dismissed as such.

This even brings up a couple of interesting issues; information access denial by patron action and the reaction of the community to such action. I find it quite interesting that a community, many of whom stated that they did not care for the book, felt that it still should be included in the library holdings, and some even sent funds with which to procure another copy. Given the circumstances, I have to wonder if the woman in question would not have come forth with the book, or have carried out her threats to destroy that which she felt objectionable has the media not picked up on the story.

How common is it for this sort of action to take place? Given the regularity with which these sorts of stories make the news it seems to be a fairly regular occurrence. According to the ALA, more than a book a day is challenged in the United States.

Further Reading: -- Read More