LISNews: Librarian News

Here is a cute little article about a man who had to decide whether he wanted clean clothes or his books.

\"BUFFALO, New York (AP) -- For 30 years, it was love. George Kelley and the little numbers who kept him company in all those hotel rooms.

They\'d always own a little piece of his heart. And a great big part of his home. Or so he thought.\"  -- Read More

The title sounds like a latter day parody of Sound of Music, but the related question is serious. Aquinas asked: If a tree falls in forest with none to hear, is there a sound? Today that question is a cliche where once it was profound, but if a phone STOPS ringing in the desert because of the Net, is there silence?

Tom Brokaw reported on the NBC Nightly News recently as follows:
Remember earlier this spring, when we introduced you to a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere in California\'s Mojave Desert? Its number had gotten onto the Internet and people called in from around the world. Well, the line now is officially dead. But the legend lives on. Here\'s NBC\'s Roger O\'Neill.

For more see:
http://www.deuceofclubs.com/moj/broke2/index.html -- Read More

Ron Force sent in this Story From The Seattle
Times, Friday, April 21 edition.

\"Architect Rem Koolhaas not only has designed a
striking exterior for the Seattle Public Library, but he\'s
apparently set on revolutionizing the library\'s interior, as
well.

Rumor is he wants the entire library collection (a k a
books) placed in a continuous sequence, arranged on
shelves ascending seamlessly from lower level to
upper levels. -- Read More

Frank Ryan writes \"Here is a good story - and a true
one!

A consultant colleague who specialised in thesaurus
construction was at a party. She was button-holed by an IT
\"techie\" who was very keen to make an impression. In the
course of their conversation he realised that what they
had in common was \"databases\". He described at length a
database of internal documents that he and his colleagues
had constructed and how after a few thousand records they
started to add \"tags\" to the records i.e. specific
words describing their content.

At this point my colleague interrupted and said \"Oh, you
mean a thesaurus of controlled terms\". The downcast
techie replied \"Has this been done before\"?