February 2005

William Lamb writes “Last night the 77th Annual Academy Awards gave out the film industry’s most coveted prizes in 21 different feature film categories. These categories range from Special Effects to Acting and Writing. Each year librarians check to see which award winners they own, which are available that they do not own and when other award winners will be released on DVD.

View the list“

The Palm Beach Post takes a look at the Florida Romance Writers’ (FRWriters.org) conference (called Wild on Writing). The event included a night of dancing, and days filled with seminars with titles like “How to Create Sexual Tension.” The hotel provided rich pasta and decadent pastries. The bar was always open.

Except: No one was there to find a real mate. The people being paired up were strictly fictional.

This Thursday, to coincide with World Book Day, culture minister Patricia Ferguson will begin the hunt. At a glittering ceremony, the minister will unveil a guide compiled with the Scottish Book Trust and the List magazine to the 100 Best Scottish Books of All Time and invite the public to start voting for their favourite work from the list.

But the campaign has run into controversy just days before it has begun after a draft list obtained by Scotland On Sunday shows a number of peculiar omissions and inclusions.

The winner will be announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August but if you think the arguments will end there, forget it – with only one book allowed per author, the tome in question might not even be on Maley’s list. Who’s to say that Welsh’s Marabou Stork Nightmares won’t be preferred to Trainspotting? And who can discount the Harry Potter factor? Barry Didcock Says There could be a few red faces in Charlotte Square come August.

rachel writes “PLEASE NOTE: The RSS Feed for Info Career Trends has changed. Please update your subscriptions to use http://www.lisjobs.com/newsletter/rss.xml. This is now a native feed, so should remain stable from here on out. The old feed is no longer being used as of Feb. 27, 2005. (This change does not affect e-mail subscribers in any way.)”

Julie Henry, Education Correspondent for The Telegraph Reports Secondary schools are to be given new Government guidelines to improve children’s reading in response to evidence that pupils are reading the same books in different years.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has expressed concern that the range of texts taught in schools is too narrow. The same novels are now being taught to pupils as they progress through schools, according to the watchdog.

Grace Lillevig writes “Customers of the Harris County Public Library System, in Houston, TX, now have library services at their fingertips – literally. The library system has a new web toolbar that customers can download. The toolbar allows customers to search the Harris County Catalog, access the Teen and Children’s site and even renew books. The toolbar, which is similar to the Google toolbar, can be downloaded for free at www.hcpl.net.

Harris County Public Library serves the county surrounding the Houston metropolitan area. The library system has 26 branches around the county. Both the Tomball and Cy-Fair branches are partnerships with the North Harris Montgomery Community College. The library system circulated over 8 million items last year.”

Jann Malone’s Richmond TImes Dispatch Column for this week is interesting. She asks five of the authors speaking at “Bring-Your-Book-Club Night” at next month’s Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville their thoughts about what makes a book a good choice for discussion.

Besides asking them what kind of book leads to the best discussions, she wanted to know what it is about their most recent books that make them good book group choices. And, since they know their work better than anyone else, she asked for questions that would make the discussion soar.

Here’s what they said.

“There are 70 million NASCAR fans in this country. Chances are you are going to have to relate to at least one of them.”

A Short Associated Press Piece says The transfer of Richard M. Nixon’s papers and tapes to his presidential library in Yorba Linda, Calif., may be delayed until 2007 because President Bush’s budget proposal did not include money for it.

twistedlibrarian writes “The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has undertaken the defense of retailer Gordon Lee of Legends in Rome, GA against charges arising from the dissemination of “Alternative Comics #2.â€? Lee was arrested on charges of distributing material depicting nudity, and distributing obscene material to a minor; the first charge alone, a felony offense in Georgia, carries a penalty of one to three years in prison and/or fines of up to $10,000, if convicted.

Comic Books Legal Defense Fund “

Anonymous Patron writes “Laura Bush has been doing some traveling. The AP Reports on her visit to Slovakia yesterday. They say she began by “by indulging in a private passion — visiting a library.” She got a standing ovation when she arrived to dedicate a new U.S. information center at Bratislava’s university. The InfoUSA Center will promote greater cultural and educational understanding between the United States and Slovakia. “