August 2003

Is your boss an idiot?

CNN asks Is your boss an idiot?

They say being the bright charge of a dim bulb often means suppressing the urge to say so many things, such as:
“Okay, did you not get the memo that it’s the 21st century?”

“Going where no man has gone before again, are we?”

and so on… Unfortunately, you have two choices: Get over it or get out.

Ikea bigger than the Bible

Anonymous Patron writes “Ikea bigger than the Bible: Ikea’ s information about shelves, lamps and beds is printed in more copies worldwide.

Not the Bible nor Shakespeare or Harry Potter come even close to the Swedish furniture giant. The Ikea catalogue is being printed in more copies than the Bible, according to Dagbladet.

130 million catalogues are just around the corner, in 28 different languages. A total of 36 countries around the world are waiting to receive this year’s catalogue, full of flat packed, cheap furniture.

http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/english/article129082 .ece

The Work of Prison Librarians

I’ve been intrigued by the prison library stories posted on LISnews in recent months. Here’s another, featuring an interview with a librarian in Canada’s largest prison. The cardinal rules of prison librarianship, according to the article, “Don’t get involved in fights, don’t fraternize with inmates and, most importantly, do no favours.” Read more about the work of prison librarians at the Toronto Star.

Library of Congress Is Bursting at Seams

Associated Press says The space problem began 200 years ago and has only worsened as the library accumulated 127 million items, with 10,000 more coming in every working day.

Most of the books are in the Madison Building, which is among Washington’s biggest but can’t come close to meeting the needs of the world’s largest library collection. To handle some of the millions of items, the library is building warehouses at Fort Meade, Md., 30 miles from Capitol Hill. The first of what could be as many as 13 buildings is finished and already almost half-full. About 500,000 volumes have been trucked from Washington – 2,500 a day.

About twice as far in the opposite direction, storage is being developed at Culpeper, Va., for the library’s audiovisual material – such as recordings of Elvis Presley and Theodore Roosevelt, and movies of Thomas Edison and Ronald Reagan.

Facts, Figures on Library of Congress

‘Welchia’ virus clogs library’s computers

Let This Be a lesson for all of us.

On Monday, computers in the San Antonio city’s library system were slowed by the virus that generates so much network traffic that accessing the Internet and other operations become impossible.

By Tuesday afternoon, library computers had become inoperable and librarians lost the ability to check the automated catalog to see if a book was in stock, computers used by the public were shut down, and books had to be checked out manually.

Rhetortic vs Reality: Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act

The Friends Committee on National Legislation says The Justice Department has charged that the media and civil liberties advocates are misrepresenting the procedures and effect of section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act (PL 107-56). The civil liberties community stands by its claims.

On July 30, 2003, Barbara Comstock, Director of Public Affairs for the Justice Department, issued a press release regarding Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. They take look at the claims in her statement and compare them to the reality of section 215.