October 2003

I will be in New York City on Nov 3 doing an all day workshop on “Wireless Libraries: What’s in It for the Library, What’s in It for the Students” at the Metropolitan New York Library Council. Registration information is available at:
http://www.metro.org/2003_fall/wireless.html.

Today is the fifth annual International School Library Day. This year’s theme is “Breaking Down Barriers.” Find out more on the ISLD 2003 page at the International Association of School Librarianship – School Libraries Online site.
Any school librarians out there participating in this? Please post a comment to report on your activities.

Douglas K dropped us a juicy one from The Globe and Mail of Toronto.

First, let’s address the issue of promoting literature through “one book” and “votes for the best book” type events. Libraries, as oases of non-commercial activity in an age where all things, including books, have become mere cogs in the machine of capitalism, should step out of what is essentially book-industry marketing. At the library, if nowhere else, all books should be considered equal regardless of how much press an author is getting, or what awards are dispensed. If the public library can’t stay out of the fame game, it becomes an adjunct to the book industry, and not a last bastion upholding our collective right to free access to information. Libraries should be facilitating the latter, not acting as taste arbiters.

This brings me to the second concern: libraries offering a truly strange array of services and programs. What do Taiwanese birds, bereavement counselling, starting a small business, and bedroom feng shui have to do with collecting and giving access to information? Send the birds to the natural-history museum; return counselling to the doctor’s office and spiritual centres; let government employment centres advise aspiring small-business owners; and those interested in feng shui can sign up for (and pay for) a class.

Make sure to read the entire article. Niedzviecki makes some very interesting points.

OCLC has announced plans to open a subset of WorldCat records to Google access on an experimental basis. The 2 million record subset will represent the most popular and widely available books. The project is expected to go live in the latter half of November. Get the whole story from InfoToday.

The Volokh Conspiracy seems to be a blog run by Eugene and Sasha Volokh and various other legal minds, devoted to discussion of legal issues of many kinds. On Saturday, Eugene posted “Trouble for Amazon’s Book Search?” in which he reprinted an e-mail from The Author’s Guild about Amazon’s new full-text search, adding his own comments on the legal ramifications.

In his words, “I don’t know whether their claims about the authors’ contracts are accurate, but if they are, this could pose problems for Amazon. (Amazon would still have a decent fair use claim even if they can’t claim a contractual right, but it won’t be open and shut, for some of the reasons the e-mail below describes.) I leave it to readers to decide whether this shows that the copyright system imposes too many transaction costs on worthy endeavors, that publishers and other businesses violate authors’ rights, both, or neither…”

A landmark Carnegie library building in Minneapolis is being remodeled into a spa (Strib registration apparently required unless you get to the story through Google News), which opens for business in December.

“The upper level will have six pedicure chairs and a large manicure area, along with two plasma TVs. … On the lower level are locker rooms and a pool room for water shiatsu, a type of massage therapy done while the client floats in warm water. There also are rooms for aroma and mud therapy and a VIP room with a fireplace, a two-person Jacuzzi, a two-person steam bath and direct access to three treatment areas that can be used by couples and groups for $150 per hour per person. A day at the spa might cost $450.”

City officials in Urbandale, Iowa, are having a cow because kids are able to check out R-rated movies from the local library. The library board will discuss the video policy at its meeting tomorrow night.

Found this in an article entitled “20 Strange Ways to be Frugal” at Bankrate.com:

“20. Next time you need an umbrella, go to your local public library and ask for the lost and found department. Tell them that you left your black umbrella at the library last month. They will show you a selection of several black umbrellas. Select the most expensive and it’s yours. The bigger the library, the better the selection of umbrellas.”

Charles W. Bailey, Jr. writes “Version 51 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography
is now available here. This selective bibliography presents over 2,000 articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing
efforts on the Internet. Monster Acrobat file
here.

“The Berkshire Eagle had this story about librarian Nancy Walker hitting a big one.

Excerpt: “When Nancy Walker goes back to work as head librarian at Berkshire Community College next week, she won’t be driving her 2002 Toyota Camry.

Instead, she’ll be behind the wheel of a 2004 convertible Porsche Boxster…””

[via Katie]