September 2004

wordy1 writes “NY Times [id: forlisnews pw: readthis] reports: Art dealer and book collector, Raymond Danowski, has donated some 60,000 volumes and tens of thousands more of periodicals, posters, recordings and other items devoted to 20th-century poetry in the English language to the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University.”

Durst writes “I apologize for all the acronyms. This is for those of you that end up doing reference for anyone in the military.

Yesterday a new DoD (Department of Defense) search capability opened up at http://www.dod.mil/search/. This first phase will use a DTIC-hosted DoD search engine to search over 100 DoD public web sites. Eventually they hope to index the entire public DoD Domain.”

Daniel adds: For those keeping score, DTIC stands for Defense Technical Information Center. In addition to DoD web sites, the search engine lets you search news by specific kinds of releases (i.e. news releases, transcripts, background briefings, etc.)

Anonymous Patron writes “The VDC Development Team ([email protected]) is
pleased to announce the official 1.0 Release of
the VDC.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=25954“

The Curmudgeony Librarian writes “A recent study of literacy revealed a major literacy gap among poor South African students.
Disadvantaged students lag two or more years behind in language and literacy, with more than 60 percent not achieving the reading and numeracy levels set in the national curriculum. It is reported that many of the children have not even seen a book in their lives. With poverty at an all time high, books priced out of reach, and they themselves illiterate; many parents are unable to help their children learn to read. A member of the study urged the South African government to step in and to fund pre-school level literacy efforts. Those interested in helping African literacy efforts or donating books, consider contacting Books For Africa at Booksforafrica.org.”

Reuters is reporting that a part of the USA PATRIOT Act that addressed accessing the records of financial institutions has been found unconstitutional by a federal judge earlier today.

The ACLU argued that the anti-terrorism laws give the FBI unconstitutional power to demand sensitive information without adequate safeguards.

“Such a challenge is necessary to vindicate important rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” Marreo [sic] said.

The Curmudgeony Librarian writes “It all started when Manish Kaushal, spotted something wrong with a whale in his textbook. The keenly observant third grade student realized that a picture of a whale was incorrectly identified as a humpback. Though his classroom teacher was skeptical, Manish pressed on. Another student, Amy Zahn, agreed to help. With Amy’s assistance and a trip to the local library, he was proven right. With evidence of the error in hand, their teacher encouraged them to write the publisher Harcourt. The publisher agreed, saying that they were right and the mistake would be corrected in the next edition.”

Still diligently at work putting together her collection of “Library Romance” stories due out in 2005, author Madeline Lefebvre invites those of you who haven’t yet responded to her request for stories to submit one for her book. The author reassures us that “pseudonyms may be used to protect privacy” and that stories of unrequited love (sob) may also be included.

Here’s the home page with a truly adorable entrance screen: Library Romances .

The Friends of Cuban Libraries writes “As the international library community increasingly focuses on Vaclav Havel’s August 10 appeal to IFLA, containing an appeal for IFLA to condemn the heightened persecution of Cuba’s independent librarians, the Cuban government is trying to distract attention from this key issue. The Cuban regime is now trying to change the subject away from the repression of the independent librarians by making false charges of “espionage” and “terrorism.”

For more details, please refer to the Recent News section of the Friends of Cuban Libraries website (www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org).”

Update: 09/29 10:32 EST by B:Took “Cuban” out of the title to match The Story.

Anonymous Patron writes “Trudeau cabinet confronted Information Age back in 1973; No one had heard of the Internet back then and Canada’s freedom-of-information law was still a decade away.

But the cabinet of Pierre Trudeau grappled with the emerging Information Age in 1973, forging early policies on computer communications and access to public records, newly disclosed documents show.”

Anonymous Patron writes “Ottawa Citizen – canada.com network Floods and pestilence have struck the Ottawa Public Library’s main branch, says the city’s library board chairman.

As well, the tail end of Hurricane Frances, which inundated the city earlier this month, flooded the top two floors of the main branch, causing damage to walls and floors.”