LISNews: Librarian News

Someone point out SFGate has This Story on the fact that Rowling has thus far signed no final contract for \"Order of the Phoenix\", still tentatively scheduled for this fall, David Kipen, asks:
\"What if Rowling turned her back on the notoriously screwy publishing industry and, like Dylan, went electric?\"

He says The consequences would be threefold and immediate, First, many nice neighborhood bookstores would curl up and die overnight, Second, those same nice booksellers would have plenty of company in bankruptcy court, Third, a downloadable Harry Potter book would put the fast-expiring micro- industry of e-book publishing incontrovertibly on the map once and for all.

Someone passed along This One from up in Mayfield, MI.

More than 200 people showed up to the school board meeting night with the intention of keeping Harry Potter Books out of the schools.
The board then voted 5-0 in favor of using the four released Harry Potter books as supplemental reading for eighth-grade Fundamental English students. Worried this would endanger future millage requests, a teacher said:

\"BELIEVE ME, our schools are in bad shape,\" he said. \"The community must pull together for this.

\"Part of the voting community is alienated by insisting upon the use of the Harry Potter books,\" he continued. \"What do we have, really, to lose if we give up the use of the Harry Potter books?\"

From The New York Post via Fox News, Bill Hoffman writes...

\"Here\'s a peek at the next Harry Potter film, and it shows that the boy wizard is going to have a little competition in the love department. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets features a dashing new character named Professor Gilderoy Lockhart. The golden-haired Lockhart comes to the Hogwarts School to teach a class in \"Defense Against the Dark Arts.\" And Harry\'s pal Hermione promptly develops a crush on Lockhart, much to the teen\'s chagrin. The professor will be played by handsome Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh, 41, whose past loves include Helena Bonham Carter and ex-wife Emma Thompson. The next film, which reportedly is due out Nov. 15. Potter No. 2 is a darker tale of good versus evil in which Harry returns for his second year at Hogwarts to find pupils mysteriously turning to stone.\" More

From The Guardian...

\"A Harry Potter \"hateline\" phone service set up in Austria has been extended to the UK, Ananova reports. Callers pay a minimum of 75p to vent their anger at the boy wizard.
The books may be bestsellers and the film has been a smash hit, but it seems not everyone is Harry Potter mad. The phoneline has been extended to Britain, Germany and Switzerland \"by popular demand.\" More