LISNews: Librarian News

The New York Daily News reports that "there's a scandal in the stacks at the Brooklyn Public Library."

The head of the system abruptly quit last week after a plan to lay off 13 employees backfired and ended in a very public embarrassment. Insiders said the firing fiasco was the last strike against Dionne Mack-Harvin. "The board was not happy with her," a source said. It wasn't supposed to end this way. Mack-Harvin took the post with great fanfare and a fabulous back story - the African-American daughter of a sharecropper who loved books and rose to her dream job. -- Read More

From Library Journal: They call them “paralibrarians” in Massachusetts now. The main reason for that is Allison Sloan, the 2010 winner of LJ's Paraprofessional of the Year Award, sponsored by DEMCO, Inc. Her outstanding service and her championship of the term paralibrarian illustrates her passionately held and most fundamental belief: “This is not just a nice job, this is a career.”

Each year at the MLA conference, Sloan is instrumental in developing new and exciting programs to bring librarians and paralibrarians together in a partnership to grow library services, open communication, and demonstrate the strength of teamwork. The 2005 program, “Extreme Customer Service: Springfield College Builds a New Desk,” recounted an innovative project to combine the reference and circulation desks—and cross-train paralibrarians to answer reference questions and librarians to provide circulation tasks.

Sloan's enthusiasm connected a dedicated group of library staffers who rejuvenated the MLA Paralibrarian Section.

Following up on yesterday's story about a public forum on the candidates for Director of the Lexington Library, here's an opportunity to view the three candidates in actionon youTube. Who made the best impression (as if it's up to you...)?

From the Phoenix Center study itself:

"We find that broadband use at home or at public locations reduces defection from the labor market due to discouragement by over 50 percent (50%). Dialup Internet use also has a statistically significant effect, reducing labor market discouragement by about one-third. These results provide useful insights for policymakers: on the demand-side, our results show that programs to promote Internet use keep the jobless active in job search and may equate to more employment; and, on the supply-side, our results demonstrate that the promotion of shared connections, such as at libraries, in unserved and underserved areas may, in fact, produce substantial societal benefits."