April 2001

Shortage of librarians plagues library boom

Good news, Los Angeles has built five libraries and doesn\’t have enough librarians to work in the buildings.
They say it is not only a local problem. Nationally, the supply of librarians is falling far short of the rising demands. About 22% of the nation\’s 191,000 librarians will turn 65 in the next decade.

There were 1,000 openings at the ALA, but only 481 job-seekers showed up. Hopefully that means salaries will start to go up, and I won\’t have any problem finding a new job!

LA Times.com has The Story

\”The new librarian is really a swinging person, because he or she can manage information and that\’s an incredible skill in today\’s world. I mean, who among us hasn\’t done an Internet search and gotten 5,486 hits?
But a librarian knows how to find that precise bit of information you need.
\”

Finish Sam’s Book

Speaking of Buffalo, the Buffalo & Erie County Library is running a Mark Twain Writing Competition
"A Murder, a Mystery and a Marriage,".
Cash prizes of $5,000 for first place,
$3,000 for second place and $1,000 for third place will be awarded in the international
competition. It\’s easy, just finish the book and win! Read the First 2 Chapters and see what you can do……

Community Reading

Someone writes \”A very interesting program in Rochester, NY where the whole community read the same book: \”A Lesson Before Dying\” by Ernest Gaines.

Full Story \”

They say we tried it here in Buffalo last year, though I somehow must\’ve missed it. Great quote from the story:

\”encouraging everyone in a
community to read the same
book conjures up a social
phenomenon displaced long
ago by America\’s
TV-obsessed culture: a collective literary experience
\”

Neat book, neat idea, anything to get people to turn off the TV for a second is a good idea.

An Easy ‘A’

The Houston Chronicle has This Story that seems to unfairly lump Questia in with paper mills and other ways students use the web to cheat.
No doubt the internet is a cheaters paradise, but is Questia (or any of the other e-Libraries) making it easy to cheat?

\”Professors are really anchored in the book and printed culture, But the students aren\’t.\”

DMCA and Free Speech

The RIAA used the DMCA to stop a research project that involved hacking a watermarking technology promoted by the five major record labels. A few good stories to read up on this issue:


Is the RIAA running scared? from Salon says this move by the RIAA \”shows just how wary of free speech the recording industry has become\”, but, this case could potentially undermine the widely disparaged DMCA.


Similar Story at the NY Times.


Wired calls it Another Stain on Copyright Law. \”Once again, the law intended to promote the distribution of content on the Internet has instead been used to restrict it.\”

“Tin Drum” legal fees OK’d

The Oklahoma City Council finally decided Tuesday to
pay court-ordered legal fees for a man who sued after
police confiscated his rented videotape of \”The Tin
Drum\” because they believed it
contained child pornography.
Then they promptly forgot to actually authorize the
$143,047 payment. The city has now spent more than
$700,000 to settle the case.


James writes:
\”The civic leaders have
dragged their collective feet for years, thereby fully
disclosing what fools they are. The reluctance to pay up
shows their ignorance and fundamentilst training in
that instead of paying for their lose, they continue to
keep the issue alive, perhaps hoping that god will take
pity on them and strike the ACLU and Michael Camfiled
dead and remove the \”sin\” of freedom to read and view
from Oklahoma City.
\”

You can read more at the
(Worst
Newspaper in America) The
Oklahoman Archives
aren\’t free, but there does
appear to be a number of stories on this subject. This
entire thing is just a sad joke.

On Library Services and Management

Judy Westbrook was kind enough to send along more
information on Robert S. Martin, just nominated to be
Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.


He was in charge of this outsourcing study , \”The
Impact of Outsourcing and Privatization on Library
Services and Management
\”. The study examined in
detail outsourcing of cataloging, selection, and
management of library operations. They say they found
no evidence that outsourcing per se represents a threat
to library governance, or to the role of the library in
protecting the First Amendment rights of the public.

The most fascinating library buildings in world!

Godfrey
Oswald
writes \”I recently returned from an
extensive trip last week to some European countries to
obtain routine outside photographs of the national
libraries, as part of my ongoing book project to update
the 1999 Internet version of the forthcoming Book of
Library Records


I was left dumbstruck for more than half an hour when I
made my first trip to the new Bibliothèques Nationale in
south Paris, having seen
the old building in central Paris many times before.


But on the way home, I realised a new entry for the book
project will be a great idea: The most fascinating library
buildings in the world


I will naturaly want the opinions of all librarians to be
paramount, and not just mine, so I have decided to ask
librarians to give me their
vote for the most fascinating library buildings in the
world. \”

Find out how you can vote………

Godfrey
Oswald
writes \”I recently returned from an
extensive trip last week to some European countries to
obtain routine outside photographs of the national
libraries, as part of my ongoing book project to update
the 1999 Internet version of the forthcoming Book of
Library Records


I was left dumbstruck for more than half an hour when I
made my first trip to the new Bibliothèques Nationale in
south Paris, having seen
the old building in central Paris many times before.


But on the way home, I realised a new entry for the book
project will be a great idea: The most fascinating library
buildings in the world


I will naturaly want the opinions of all librarians to be
paramount, and not just mine, so I have decided to ask
librarians to give me their
vote for the most fascinating library buildings in the
world. \”

Find out how you can vote………

\”I was not expecting what I saw at the new
Bibliothèques Nationale. It seems architectural
designs of library buildings is now just as
significant as the overall volume of books in a library:
what looks good outside, must look good inside!



But on the way home, I realised a new entry for the book
project will be a great idea: The most fascinating library
buildings in the world



I will naturaly want the opinions of all librarians to be
paramount, and not just mine, so I have decided to ask
librarians to give me their
vote for the most fascinating library buildings in the
world.



The four new categories to vote for will be:



10 most fascinating national library buildings in the
world

10 most fascinating university library buildings in the
world

10 most fascinating public library buildings in the
world

10 most fascinating special library buildings in the
world



Please send in your vote for one or more of the four
categories.



Please vote for only ONE library building in each
category, and if possible a few sentences on why the
library building has your vote. If
possible an attached JPEG or GIF photo of the library
will be very much appreciated.



I will then make a tally of all votes received, and
calculate the 10 libraries for each category that have the
most votes.



The voting period will run till May 10th. The results of the
voting will be published in the book.



Please send in your votes now. Thanks.



Votes can be e-mailed to [email protected]



Are you travelling soon, and will be visiting a library.

Addresses for most national libraries in the world can
be found at:

http://www.geocities.com/infolibrary/Page19.htm



Addresses for other libraries in the world can be found
at:

http://www.geocities.com/infolibrary/Page28.htm



Thank you very much indeed for your important votes,
and your help.



Sincere regards.


Godfrey Oswald MSc.

information scientist and author

Info Connect LIS Directory 2001 \”

Tests no substitue for RIF

Ron Force writes
\”An editorial in the Spokane (WA)
Spokesman-Review decries the elimination of the
Reading is Fundamental program in the Bush
education budget. They contrast the $23 million spent
on distributing books with the proposed $350 million
for testing. \”
Kids won\’t learn to love reading if Big
Brother merely hands them a test. How about giving
them good books?\”

Full Story \”

What if Filters Don’t Work?

Ender writes:

\”Okay, so now that it\’s mandatory that governments (libraries)
use filters, can we (in conjunciton) with libraries start sueing the
pants off of all the corporations selling filters as selling defective
products? And after we kill all of them off, or they restrict
themselves to all non-government users, we sue the government for not
providing libraries with filters – as there is no effective market for
government filters…\”

So if libraries are required to install filters, and the law turns out to be constitutional, is there any kind of legal recourse a library would have if the filters screw things up?


I\’d love to hold Microsoft responsible when Windows crashes and destroys all my data, is this the same kind of thing?
My car broke down, can I sue Chrysler?

Ultimatly who is responsible when something you are forced to use doesn\’t work? Who decides if they aren\’t working?