June 2005

Mylene Mangalindan of the The Wall Street Journal
writes, “Can a $300 stock be a “buy”?

The shares of Internet-search leader Google Inc. topped that level yesterday, less than a year after its initial public offering at $85 a share.

Despite the lofty price, 24 of 30 stock analysts on Wall Street rate the company as a “buy,” or “strong buy.” Mark Mahaney, of Smith Barney, has posted a price target of $360 a share, recalling some of the outlandish price targets at the height of the Internet-stock bubble in 1999.

At its 4 p.m. price on the Nasdaq Stock Market of $304.10, up $6.85, or 2.3%, Google commands a market capitalization of $84.5 billion, ranking it 23rd among U.S. corporations, just ahead of Home Depot Inc. and just behind PepsiCo Inc.

The rich valuation is rooted in the growth of online ads, which accounted for 99% of Google’s revenue last year.”

Story from Bloomberg News or theWSJ (you gotta sign up).

Speaking of theft, here’s news from Paris of a theft on a very grand scale, where the curator of the French National Library (Michel Garel, an internationally known expert on Hebrew texts) is accused of stealing over 30,000 books, many rare and irreplaceable.

So chaotic are the library’s cataloguing and security systems it is impossible to know when books were stolen. Some may have been “lost” in an institution that houses 35 million objects. But a year-long investigation by the president of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) found the library had been systematically pillaged over many years.

More coverage from the AP.

Update: 06/28 17:04 EST by B:The accused, Michel Garel, claims it’s not his fault in this UPI story.

Further to our story last month on Irma H. Duke, former director and 30-year veteran of the Phenix City-Russell County Library (GA), a judge has ruled that Ms. Duke will not receive jail time for her crime but must repay the money she took and serve probation.

Duke was fired last summer after an investigation disclosed that she took advantage of a process in which she was issued pre-signed blank checks to pay library employees.

Within the three-year period covered by the investigation, Duke routinely wrote herself two paychecks when she was due only one and misused $70,000 of library funds. Story from the Ledger-Enquirer.

The book selection for July – August 2005 is The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800 by Lucien Febvre, Henri-Jean Martin, David Gerard (Translator)

Books, and the printed word more generally, are aspects of modern life that are all too often taken for granted. Yet the emergence of the book was a process of immense historical importance and heralded the dawning of the epoch of modernity. In this much praised history of that process, Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin mesh together economic and technological history, sociology and anthropology, as well as the study of modes of consciousness, to root the development of the printed word in the changing social relations and ideological struggles of Western Europe.

JET wants us to know what The Guardian has to say about the literary Hussein.

Critics judge it boring, but some in the Middle East consider Get Out of Here, Curse You!, the latest novel by Saddam Hussein, dangerous.

The former Iraqi dictator is behind bars and stripped of power but Jordan was anxious enough to ban his tale yesterday, claiming it could damage regional relations.

I suppose this is one author who will definitely NOT be doing a book tour this summer.

the_anarchivist writes: “John Scalzo, a librarian who decided to add PlayStation 2 games to his public library’s collection, reports back with the success his idea has found, including a list of the most popular titles in his library. Read the complete article at Gaming Target.”

JET tells us that Terry McMillan, author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, is currently involved in a very messy divorce from Jonathan Plummer, the man who inspired the novel of passion and rebirth.

An SF Gate article includes juicy details such as accusations that Plummer is gay, attempts to invalidate the pre-nuptial agreement that keeps him from McMillan’s royalties, and the suggestion that the marriage was partly an immigration dodge.

JET handed us this Guardian article:

Unlike Mao’s Little Red Book, Mein Kampf was never given away. It was always sold. Forget Dan Brown: Hitler was – among all his other achievements – the bestselling author of the century, and canny with it. He died stinking rich on his royalties.

That golden stream still rolls in. But rolls nowhere. The state of Bavaria (appointed as the book’s postwar estate) resolutely declines payment. Hitler’s surviving relatives have never made any legal claim. Some lucre is too filthy to handle.

The article includes a fascinating bit about the British publishing the book during the war (proceeds to the Red Cross), in an effort to display “what we were fighting against”. The book remains hugely popular; the bestselling title in Turkey this year, for instance; and though Bavaria’s refusal certainly seems noble, the publishers aren’t saying “no” to their cut, I’m sure.

Note: Next week’s report will be a day or two late because of the 4th of July holidays.

This Week in LibraryBlogLand
Week ending June 26, 2005

Nitro Librarian, whose library is near a middle school, explains how her library is an island in the storm.

Jenny Levine (Shifted Librarian) on blogs, voice, and reputation. Somewhat related: Karen Schneider notes that information is becoming increasingly synchronous.

Rochelle at Random Access Mazar says “radical reference is about answering questions as they emerge, where they emerge.”

thrashor’s Chris Hammond-Thrasher comments on whether ALA safeguarding its PATRIOT Act report findings on a server in Canada really puts the records outside U.S. jurisdiction.

Jessamyn (librarian.net) points to two library-related articles in the July/August issue of Utne.

Job stuff: As Michael McGrorty (Library Dust) prepared to go to Chicago for ALA Annual, he wondered about job interview questions–the good, the bad, and the ugly. Morgan Wilson at Exploded Library adds an Australian point of the view to the “library shortage” debate. Meanwhile, at Confessions of a Science Librarian, John Dupuis begins to imagine how his job will change in the next ten years.

Old guard vs. new guard: While Information Wants to be Free’s Meredith Farkas gets tired of condescending “old guard” librarians and vendors pulling the age and experience card, Millenial skagirlie over at playing in the library agrees with the Beck and Wade quote, “A boomer who can’t pick up a new computer program is basically just not trying.” More comments on the latter at Tame the Web.

Tech stuff: Before heading to ALA, Karen Schneider asked readers for their opinions about technology trends and issues. More responses at LITA Blog from Eric Lease, Sarah Houghton, Thomas Dowling, Roy Tennant, Marshall Breeding, Leo Klein, and Rick Roche. Genny at LITA Blog has a report about the ALA Top Tech panel.

re the July/August Online article, “Web-Based Chat VS. Instant Messaging” (by Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton): long comments at the L-net staff information blog, lbr, Library Voice, and Digital Reference (Teaching Librarian).

Follow-up re Christopher Harris’ idea about turning RSS feeds into Marc records: comments at his blog (Infomancy), at Catalogablog, and at Library Web Chic.

Follow-up re Steven Bell’s question about where are the academic librarian bloggers: Chad Boeninger (Library Voice) explains “Why This Academic Librarian Blogs.

Con report: “Games, Learning, and Society Conference” (Madison, Wisc.): reports from Jenny Levine, June 23-24 (start here).

More SLA reports, from scitech library question and the information auditor (start here).

Tons o’ reports from ALA Chicago. A few of them are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. A list of ALA bloggers here.

Also from ALA Chicago, several video clips of Barack Obama’s speech here.

Note: Next week’s report will be a day or two late because of the 4th of July holidays.

This Week in LibraryBlogLand
Week ending June 26, 2005

Nitro Librarian, whose library is near a middle school, explains how her library is an island in the storm.

Jenny Levine (Shifted Librarian) on blogs, voice, and reputation. Somewhat related: Karen Schneider notes that information is becoming increasingly synchronous.

Rochelle at Random Access Mazar says “radical reference is about answering questions as they emerge, where they emerge.”

thrashor’s Chris Hammond-Thrasher comments on whether ALA safeguarding its PATRIOT Act report findings on a server in Canada really puts the records outside U.S. jurisdiction.

Jessamyn (librarian.net) points to two library-related articles in the July/August issue of Utne.

Job stuff: As Michael McGrorty (Library Dust) prepared to go to Chicago for ALA Annual, he wondered about job interview questions–the good, the bad, and the ugly. Morgan Wilson at Exploded Library adds an Australian point of the view to the “library shortage” debate. Meanwhile, at Confessions of a Science Librarian, John Dupuis begins to imagine how his job will change in the next ten years.

Old guard vs. new guard: While Information Wants to be Free’s Meredith Farkas gets tired of condescending “old guard” librarians and vendors pulling the age and experience card, Millenial skagirlie over at playing in the library agrees with the Beck and Wade quote, “A boomer who can’t pick up a new computer program is basically just not trying.” More comments on the latter at Tame the Web.

Tech stuff: Before heading to ALA, Karen Schneider asked readers for their opinions about technology trends and issues. More responses at LITA Blog from Eric Lease, Sarah Houghton, Thomas Dowling, Roy Tennant, Marshall Breeding, Leo Klein, and Rick Roche. Genny at LITA Blog has a report about the ALA Top Tech panel.

re the July/August Online article, “Web-Based Chat VS. Instant Messaging” (by Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton): long comments at the L-net staff information blog, lbr, Library Voice, and Digital Reference (Teaching Librarian).

Follow-up re Christopher Harris’ idea about turning RSS feeds into Marc records: comments at his blog (Infomancy), at Catalogablog, and at Library Web Chic.

Follow-up re Steven Bell’s question about where are the academic librarian bloggers: Chad Boeninger (Library Voice) explains “Why This Academic Librarian Blogs.

Con report: “Games, Learning, and Society Conference” (Madison, Wisc.): reports from Jenny Levine, June 23-24 (start here).

More SLA reports, from scitech library question and the information auditor (start here).

Tons o’ reports from ALA Chicago. A few of them are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. A list of ALA bloggers here.

Also from ALA Chicago, several video clips of Barack Obama’s speech here.

From the Christian Science Monitor via CBS News is an explanation of how and why Google devised its GOOGLE PRINT PROGRAM.

Marissa Mayer, director of consumer Web products, recalls: “We had all these cockamamie schemes for how we could get content. We thought, well, could we just buy books? But then you don’t get the old content. We thought maybe we should just buy one of every book, like from Amazon, and scan them all.”

Apparently, long before they discovered seven-figure robotic scanning equipment (not mentioned in the article) Mayer and Google co-founder Larry Page experimented with photographing every page of a book. Mayer now says: “Maybe inside of the next 10 years we’ll have all the knowledge that’s ever been published in book form available and searchable online…. It’s really a grand vision.”

…on a rather grand scale…