August 2001

Ananova reports: a German English teacher has determined the hidden meanings of the names in Harry Potter. Harry, for example, means: \”hero from a poor house.\” Harry is Heinrich meaning champion and Potter is from Potters Field, traditional burial ground of the poor.

For the Tornado Insider, Marco Frojo writes…

\”In order to escape the tough competition that characterises the online music market, Hifind has decided to concentrate on a small but profitable niche, that of music for the world of cinema, radio and television production. In this way, while Napster continues to suffer amid general indifference, waiting for its new owner, Bertelsmann, to decide how to commercially exploit the company that cost more than a billion dollars, the Hamburg-based company (through its own subsidiary, Initaudio) has presented its new platform Audience, which should make its online debut in October, at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) in Berlin.\” more…

jen writes \”It\’s the novelist-as-celebrity.There\’s a new group of magazines with a new target audience. Readers. Book readers. Basically, the magazines try to avoid the sleepy, antiquarian end of literature while still extolling bookstores, book fairs, book stars and, of course, books. This is book culture as pop culture.\” — Too bad they don\’t also extol public libraries. And who knew that Keith Richards had a mahogany-trimmed library? \”

Full Story from SLToday.com

\”We treat authors and books as another part of the entertainment industry — just the way Spin or Rolling Stone or even Golf Digest cover their respective fields.\”

Richard Feldman writes: \”Thought you might want to pick up the story on Santa Fe, NM main library\’s being closed for up to 4 months because of mold infestation. The local paper currently has a story. I don\’t know how long that link will continue to work.\”

Is there a plague of killer molds sweeping the nation I don\’t know about? I think this is mold story #4.

The Seattle Public Library System has been forced to formulate a policy to address the issue of unattended children being left at its branches:

At the Columbia branch on Rainier Avenue South, young-adult librarian Sarah Webb recalled a 3-year-old who often came with an older sister and then was left alone, or three little girls from 5 to 8 years old who were being left at the library more than six hours a day. \”Sometimes they get bored,\” Webb said. \”They run out of stuff to do. They get antsy. They\’re here six hours with nothing to eat.\”

A formal policy would provide guidance for staffers, who have typically been trained in library science, not child welfare. . .

More from the The Seattle Times.

Where are the child welfare authorities? And ALA wonders why so few people are interested in public library work . . .

ALA Councilor at large Mark Rosenzweig writes:

Now that with the hue-and-cry about the State Deparment\’s attempt to recall the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volume on Indonesia actually seems to have reversed the decision and the volume . . . there appears to be a new volume which has been revealed as being supressed by the government. This latest one is about the history of illegal, covert US involvement in the Greek coup which led to [a] brutal military dictatorship . . .

More from a brand new Library Juice.

More info on the U.S. effort to suppress information about its activities in Greece appears in today\’s Washington Post. Additional information about the effort to recall accidently released proof of U.S. ties to Indonesian death squads can be found here.

When trustees of the Magness, (TN) library fired the librarian for wanting to relocate the library and provide patrons with improved service, the rest of the library\’s employees walked off the job. According to the article, the board member who served Librarian Susan Curtis with a piece of paper stating that \”her services were no longer needed, said, \”The board wants to strive to make the Magness Library more of what the original benefactors described it to be. We can be the cornerstone of Main Street revitalization. The library shouldn\’t just be a dusty, old book depository. Donations like the $100,000 given by Carrier Corporation could open the doors to making the library a place where piano recitals could be conducted and small community plays could be held.\” more… from The Southern Standard. —- Also be sure and read what the community says about it at the end of the article.

Kathy Wilson has written an article over at Salon, in which she describes her library experience…Ah, the public library circa 1982. The workhorse institution of the community, a perpetually underfunded repository of stuffy reference books, underpaid librarians, used book sales, tax forms, broken microfiche readers — and pornography.\” more…

Although the idea of using landfill money to help fund the building of the new Freeport (IL) library has been well received by council members, there is still enough opposition to cause people to be gaurdedly optimistic. The $2.5 million funding commitment is far from the amount they need to secure. Some want the issue to go on a referendum to be voted upon by citizens. One of the issues is whether to build a one-story facility at the cost of $7 million or add a shell for a second story for $8 million. more…

For the Christian Science Monitor, Marilyn Gardner writes..

\”To a dedicated book lover, a library is a wondrous place. Walk through the door, and the pleasant, nose-tingling smell of paper and glue offers a silent welcome, a promise of the literary gold inside, waiting to be mined. So many books and magazines! So many words filling printed pages and dancing across computer screens! So many ideas, waiting to inspire thought and provoke discussion! No wonder those three little words, free public library, remain among the sweetest in the language – not only in English, but in any language.\” more…