May 2000

Yellow Pages reaches out and touches the library

Excite News has this article on the Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages sponsoring a reading program in public libraries.



\”Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages and the Norfolk Public Library (NPL) today launched the \”Take Me to the Library\” program, encouraging adults to bring children ages K-3 to visit their local libraries. Third graders from Jacox Elementary School were captivated by the voice of actor and Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages spokesperson, James Earl Jones, as he read Grandfather\’s Journey in the children\’s reading room of the Kirn Memorial Library.\”

Excite News has this article on the Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages sponsoring a reading program in public libraries.



\”Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages and the Norfolk Public Library (NPL) today launched the \”Take Me to the Library\” program, encouraging adults to bring children ages K-3 to visit their local libraries. Third graders from Jacox Elementary School were captivated by the voice of actor and Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages spokesperson, James Earl Jones, as he read Grandfather\’s Journey in the children\’s reading room of the Kirn Memorial Library.\”

\”Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages funded the program with a $20,000 grant, one of the few corporate sponsorships of NPL\’s activities. This donation will make the program possible, providing access to necessary resources. Literacy is a corporate-wide mission for Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages.

\”Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages shares the Norfolk Public Library\’s focus on literacy and the need to encourage children at a young age to learn about libraries,\” said Mary Jo Howe, vice president, Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages. \”We hope to foster a love of reading through this program with the help of the Norfolk Public Library. As a continual advocate of community literacy programs, Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages finds it necessary to do as much as we can to create fun and educational programs such as this one. It is our hope that the program\’s excitement will generate additional interest in this city initiative.\”

May 22, 2000 by Librarians Libraries School Libraries

Everything you wanted to know about LISNews.

You may have noticed a lack of email and headlines from LISNews lately. That was mostly due to the fact that I (Blake Carver) was sick, and I started a new job that is keeping me pretty busy.

How can you post your own stories? Who am I? What is this all about? Where do the ads come from? Why don\’t the headlines by email work? Read on for all the boring details.

You may have noticed a lack of email and headlines from LISNews lately. That was mostly due to the fact that I (Blake Carver) was sick, and I started a new job that is keeping me pretty busy.

How can you post your own stories? Who am I? What is this all about? Where do the ads come from? Why don\’t the headlines by email work? Read on for all the boring details.
LISNews was started in November of last year, by Steve Galbraith and Myself. I love slashdot and thought it would be great if librarians had a slashdot of their own, so I just did it. At the time I was a librarian here in Buffalo, NY (no, it\’s not a subburb of NYC), now I work for Chek.com doing web sites and stuff. I do all the work on LISNews in my spare time, assisted mostly by Nabeal the mad programmer. So things don\’t always work, and I don\’t always have the time to fix them. I also don\’t bother to check my spelling all the time, I am always amazed at how nasty librarian\’s are. I\’ve gotten flamed like you would not believe kuz of my poor spelling and grammar. You\’d think they were paying for this!

Over the past few months LISNews has grown to have about 800 visitors a day, there are about 600 people on the mailing list. The news is focused primarily on what I find interesting, since I post most of the stories. Which is why I am always begging for help. I don\’t want to post most of the stories, then all you end up with is the news according to Blake, which is not what this is all about. Anyone can post a story, if you are interested please let me know. Wouldn’t it be cool to have your name on all over such a cool website? I also try to keep politics and other social issues out of the stories I post. I leave that kind of thing to Rory and Jessyman. The one and only rule I have is avoid getting myself in trouble. Call me a chicken if you must.

If you are a subscriber of our email list hopefully you\’re being patient with our sporadic mailings that don\’t always work. We wrote the code for that ourselves and it still has a few bugs to be worked out.
The options should be working now. For some reason it sends out empty mailings from time to time as well. I am working on that.

The ads come from sites that I like, it\’s as simple as that. If you would like an ad, let me know, especially for non-profit sites. Some day I\’ll start selling ads, but till then, they are FREE. I\’ll also gladly trade an ad or two if you are willing to help out in anyway.

Anything else you need to know?

May 22, 2000 by Libraries LISNews

Watching readers eyeballs

Anyone who does web sites must check out theStanford Poytner Project. They watched peoples eyes as they read news web pages. The eyes could be tracked as screens scrolled normally. They say this is the first such scrolling-screen eyetracking effort. They reached a few interesting conclusions.

Where do eyes go initially after firing up the first screenful of online news? To text, most likely.
Also contrary to much current belief, we found that banner ads do catch online readers\’ attention. For the 45 percent of banner ads looked at at all, our subjects\’ eyes fixated (definition) on them for an average one second. That is long enough to perceive the ad.

Anyone who does web sites must check out theStanford Poytner Project. They watched peoples eyes as they read news web pages. The eyes could be tracked as screens scrolled normally. They say this is the first such scrolling-screen eyetracking effort. They reached a few interesting conclusions.

Where do eyes go initially after firing up the first screenful of online news? To text, most likely.
Also contrary to much current belief, we found that banner ads do catch online readers\’ attention. For the 45 percent of banner ads looked at at all, our subjects\’ eyes fixated (definition) on them for an average one second. That is long enough to perceive the ad.
We found that 30-year-olds were more likely to read local news than either 60-year olds or 20-year-olds. And 20-year-olds read more science and sports news than did other age groups. Virtually all ages read opinion articles in healthy proportion to their total article reading.


A higher proportion of women read local news than did men, and by a tiny margin also read more heavily in this category. Overall, 48 percent of all participants read local news.

May 22, 2000 by Internet Technology

A librarian’s love for children and books

The Miami Herald has this article about a childrens librarian who has had a huge impact on the children she serves.


\”As the head children\’s librarian at the Helen B. Hoffman Library in Plantation, Ostendorf, also known as “Miss Miki,\’\’ has been a bright light for children and families who say she has a way of making young people feel at home and excited about reading.

“I love the library, and I love Miki, too,\’\’ said Eileen Hanley, who visits the library with her children Katherine, 4, and Allison, 2. “She knows each of the kids by name.\’\’

The Miami Herald has this article about a childrens librarian who has had a huge impact on the children she serves.


\”As the head children\’s librarian at the Helen B. Hoffman Library in Plantation, Ostendorf, also known as “Miss Miki,\’\’ has been a bright light for children and families who say she has a way of making young people feel at home and excited about reading.

“I love the library, and I love Miki, too,\’\’ said Eileen Hanley, who visits the library with her children Katherine, 4, and Allison, 2. “She knows each of the kids by name.\’\’


\”Miki Ostendorf grew up in a community in Columbus, Miss., where TV sets were scarce, but kids\’ imaginations were vast.

“Everyone would read and make up stories and tell stories,\’\’ she says with a soft twang and an infectious laugh. “Southerners are that way.\’\’


\”Ostendorf, 55, who taught schoolchildren for 22 years in Plantation and has worked at the library for five years, said she always lived within walking distance of libraries. The librarians who made an effort to know her, she said, kept her coming back.

“I know how very important it is for a kid for someone to know their name,\’\’ she said.\”

May 21, 2000 by Books Librarians Libraries School Libraries

Techies Wage War on Copyright Cartels

ZDnet.com has this article on the copyright issue that has everyone in an uproar.


\”Cyber-rights advocates, open-source evangelists and even librarians met at Stanford Law School on Thursday in an attempt to limit the effectiveness of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 — a piece of legislation that gives music producers, Hollywood studios and software companies unprecedented powers over the use of copyrighted works.\”

ZDnet.com has this article on the copyright issue that has everyone in an uproar.


\”Cyber-rights advocates, open-source evangelists and even librarians met at Stanford Law School on Thursday in an attempt to limit the effectiveness of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 — a piece of legislation that gives music producers, Hollywood studios and software companies unprecedented powers over the use of copyrighted works.\”

\”For librarians, changes to the copyright law could mean that their ability to loan out information sources, or give free access to such sources, would be severely curtailed.\”


\”\”American copyright law is supposed to encourage creativity, but what we are seeing — 200 years later — is a situation where the law discourages the creative process,\” Siva Vaidhyanathan, a faculty fellow in the School of Culture and Communications at New York University, said at a press conference before a meeting whose outcome could handcuff the law.\”

May 20, 2000 by Legal Issues Libraries Music School Libraries

2/3 of Utah libraries filter the web

The Salt Lake Tribune has this article on the filtering situation in Utah. They don\’t mess around out there.


\”It won\’t be hard for libraries to satisfy a new Utah law requiring them to keep children from using library computers to peep at the Internet\’s dark side.
That\’s because most libraries already are doing so, says State Librarian Amy Owen.
An informal survey conducted by Owen\’s office last fall showed all but two libraries already had policies restricting Internet access — and those two were in the process of writing them. One library, Rich County\’s, did not provide Internet access to patrons.\”

The Salt Lake Tribune has this article on the filtering situation in Utah. They don\’t mess around out there.


\”It won\’t be hard for libraries to satisfy a new Utah law requiring them to keep children from using library computers to peep at the Internet\’s dark side.
That\’s because most libraries already are doing so, says State Librarian Amy Owen.
An informal survey conducted by Owen\’s office last fall showed all but two libraries already had policies restricting Internet access — and those two were in the process of writing them. One library, Rich County\’s, did not provide Internet access to patrons.\”



\”House Bill 157 gives public libraries that receive state funding until July 2001 to adopt policies to keep children from viewing Internet obscenity.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Reed Richards told librarians Thursday at the Utah Library Association meeting in Ogden that they should heed the law or face more onerous legislative mandates.
Richards and Salt Lake County Commissioner Mark Shurtleff spoke to several hundred librarians about the Internet. Richards is the Democratic nominee for attorney general, and Shurtleff will face Frank Mylar in the Republican primary for the same office.
Many libraries use filters, which prevent the viewing of certain Web pages, game-playing, e-mail and chat-room use. But filters are not perfect. Innocent Web sites also are blocked and some bad sites slip through, warned Shurtleff and Richards.\”

May 20, 2000 by Internet Legal Issues Libraries Web Filters

Gotta love those librarians

I am pleased to post this article from Michigan Live


\”With his mother perched at his left shoulder and the librarian at his right, the boy, who looked to be about 9 years old, sat a terminal and the librarian taught him how to use the computerized card catalogue system.

The librarian walked him through each step, one at a time. First, she would tell him what to do. Then she would watch him do it.

When the boy finally located the item or two he needed, she could have moved on to the next customer; she didn\’t.

\”Do you want me to help you find the book?\” she asked him.

I was impressed at her gentleness, patience and dedication. I must admit, that, by this point, I was wondering whether she would be as diligent with me.\”

May 19, 2000 by Librarians Libraries

1 out of 10 kids use the web instead of reference books

The Guardian Unlimited.com has this story about a study released that states that 1 out of every 10 children now use the web to get reference information, and not books.


\”Almost one in 10 children have stopped using reference books and are relying on electronic sources – chiefly the internet – to get their information, according to the fullest study of national reading habits.
The report offers the first statistical evidence that a new generation of children growing up in the microchip era has markedly different attitudes to acquiring knowledge from those of their parents\”

The Guardian Unlimited.com has this story about a study released that states that 1 out of every 10 children now use the web to get reference information, and not books.


\”Almost one in 10 children have stopped using reference books and are relying on electronic sources – chiefly the internet – to get their information, according to the fullest study of national reading habits.
The report offers the first statistical evidence that a new generation of children growing up in the microchip era has markedly different attitudes to acquiring knowledge from those of their parents\”


\”By the age of five, a small minority of them (about 15%) has started looking things up on the net or CD-roms. By the age of 15, some 58% of them are using these sources – only 2% fewer than those looking up non-fiction books.

After the peak age of 15, use of the net or disks for reference falls sharply and books become more popular. The report, funded by the Library and Information Commission, finds that most children and youngsters still use books as well as electronic access.

But it adds: \”As many as 9% of children use electronic sources exclusively for obtaining reference information. They don\’t use books for this purpose.\”

May 19, 2000 by Books Internet Libraries

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