January 2005

The Denver Post reports on the changing nature of library collections. The Denver Public Library spent nearly 22 percent of its materials budget last year on music CDs and movies, a ratio higher than its neighboring library districts and many of its national peers.

http://search-engines-web.com/ writes “

Interesting in latest cutting-edge information about technology, design and entertainment being released to the world

http://infiniti.msn.com/i/d/main.swf?xmlsource=/fl ashxml.aspx

or

http://infiniti.msn.com/“

The Chinese American Librarians Association in 1973 as Mid-West Chinese American Librarians Association, a regional organization in Illinois. A year later, Chinese Librarians Association was formed in California in 1974. In 1976, Mid-West Chinese American Librarians Association was expanded to a national organization as Chinese American Librarians Association. By 1979, CALA had five chapters in Northeast, Mid-West, Atlantic, Southwest and California respectively. Chinese American Librarians Association and Chinese Librarians Association were merged in 1983. The merged organization retains CALA’s English name and Chinese Librarians Association’s Chinese name (hua ren tu shu guan yuan xie hui). With the establishment of the Florida Chapter in 1998, CALA now has six chapters and members throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Houston Chronicle looks at Mayor Bill White’s decision to restrict public library access to a sexually charged tome. The editorial says It would have been more appropriate for the mayor to have applied the same sense of urgency to appointing a special investigator to sort out the Houston Police Department crime lab mess and leave the selection or rejection of books to professional librarians. After all, the citizens who elected Bill White undoubtedly voted for his financial expertise and ability to make the city run smoothly, not his personal opinions about which public library books should be kept under lock and key.

“Now we know what it takes to get the administration of Mayor Bill White to bypass committees, task forces and established procedures in favor of taking immediate action. Judging by the hubbub surrounding porn queen Jenna Jameson’s autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: a Cautionary Tale, to jump-start the mayor, just have a city councilmember complain about a sexually provocative book in the city library.“

Yet Another Article, this time from Oklahoma, about a local mom who says she was shocked when her children were recently exposed to inappropriate images being viewed by computer users at the Ardmore Public Library. This is a good long article that looks at the issue rather well.

“Now, I’m not trying to cause trouble. I think what people look at on computers in their own homes is their business. But when they do it in public places and my children are exposed, then it’s my business,” she said.

twistedlibrarian writes “CHARLTON — Children at Above and Beyond After School Daycare have learned valuable lessons the last few months, profiting the town’s library.
Nearly 50 children enrolled at the center raised money in a variety of ways in an effort to help out the Charlton Public Library as it continues to work toward expanding.

Southbridge Evening News “

Rich writes “Friday’s Boston Herald reports that “a Harvard librarian allegedly dubbed too sexy for promotion has subponenaed Harvard President Lawrence Summers to testify in federal court about a university culture her lawsuit claims rendered her invisible because she is black woman.”

“Goodwin also claims one female boss said her career was stalled because her outfits were too sexy and colleagues had “heard things about her through the grapevine.”
“

Anonymous writes “The New York Times has an interesting article on a new biography on Judi Bari, an anti-logging activist and eco-celebrity. The author, Kate Coleman, has drawn demands from the executor of Ms. Bari’s estate that the publisher pull it from stores. It has also inspired an anti-Coleman Web site and led to shouting matches across bookshelves in backwoods places like the nearby town of Fort Bragg and elsewhere in Mendocino County, where many of Ms. Bari’s friends, admirers and colleagues from the radical group Earth First! live.

Ms. Coleman opened the promotion tour for her book, “The Secret Wars of Judi Bari,” at the Fort Bragg Public Library this month.

At one point, Ms. Watters said, the session was halted because those opposed to the book were interrupting Ms. Coleman and calling her a liar. Eventually the author slipped out the back door.”

ASDF writes “Internet Privacy: Overview and Pending Legislation [PDF] is a report from the Congressional Research Service Ëœ The Library of Congress by
Marcia S. Smith
Specialist in Aerospace and Telecommunications Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
From The report:
Internet privacy issues generally encompass two types of concerns. One is the
collection of personally identifiable information (PII) by website operators from
visitors to government and commercial websites, or by software that is surreptitiously
installed on a user’s computer (“spyware�) and transmits the information to someone
else. The other is the monitoring of electronic mail and Web usage by the
government or law enforcement officials, employers, or Internet Service Providers.”

Good News For Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the web in the late 1980s, has been named Greatest Briton 2004 at a ceremony attended by Gordon Brown. He says he was just “in the right place at the right time”. On receiving his award on Thursday, Sir Tim said: “I have won awards for computers but I have never won an award for being British.”