December 2005

The Deccan Herald has a report on the new state-of-the-art digital library at Bangalore Medical College (BMC) is unique in scale and concept.

A gift by the alumni of the college to mark its golden jubilee celebrations, users of the library can have access to full text articles from leading international and national journals, multimedia presentations by leading doctors and can also access materials in other libraries like the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Nimhans. The information is catalogued using open sources database Dspace.

Since budget cuts and a hiring freeze in May 2003 forced public libraries to drastically reduce their hours, the statewide system has been gradually restoring services.

The hiring freeze has been lifted, allowing the libraries to bring back about 85 of the 200 hours a week initially cut.

However, while the system has brought in 217 new staff members, employees are leaving the libraries in greater numbers and the number of vacancies is higher than it was before the freeze. Honolulu Advertiser Has More.

According to Henry Kisor at The Chicago Sun Times Too many new books seem to be trying to catch the eyes of a dwindling number of buyers. Almost 200,000 new titles appeared in 2004, according to the latest count, a 14 percent jump from 2003. A quarter of those titles came from vanity presses and “print on demand” subsidy publishers, leaving nearly 150,000 from legit– er, traditional publishing houses.

Peterborough Evening Telegraph – Peterborough,England,UK – Has a Nice Story on a group of school pupils are celebrating after helping to create a new library in their primary school. After a year of hard work to raise £8,000, staff and pupils at Matley Primary School kitted the brand new library with books and seating areas.

Having worked together to decide what should go in the library and how it could be put together, the children, aged up to 11, are now able to enjoy reading for pleasure in a comfortable environment.

Style Weekly covers The “Archives of the New Dominion.” The project aims to collect and preserve the 20th- and 21st-century cultural history of Richmond’s blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals and women’s activists basically everyone but “dead white men,” says Curtis Lyons, head of the special collections and archives at VCU. Adds Lorch, “It’s sad to say that these four groups are woefully underrepresented.”

Lorch is gathering historical documents from such groups as the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which started the nation’s first bilingual business center in 2003.

Kathleen writes “Librarians are encouraged to raise public awareness regarding the many ways in which disinformation and media manipulation are being used to mislead public opinion in all spheres of life. Here again is another example where we must be vigilant.

The Bush administration has been pressuring newspaper editors as reported by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post :
Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation has acknowledged taking payments years ago from a half-dozen lobbyists, including Abramoff…

“There is nothing unethical about taking money from someone and writing an article.”

The ALA encourages its members to help raise public consciousness regarding the many ways in which disinformation and media manipulation are being used to mislead public opinion in all spheres of life, and further encourages librarians to facilitate this awareness with collection development, library programming and public outreach that draws the public’s attention to those alternative sources of information dedicated to countering and revealing the disinformation often purveyed by the mainstream media”

stevenj writes “Two new search engines are profiled in this article, not because they necessarily do a better job (they actually just license the search technology from Google or Yahoo), but because they are trying a new approach to attracting Internet searchers. And, depending on who you want to help, yourself or others, you can make a choice. Blingo.com randomly awards prizes to its searchers, while Goodsearch.com allows searchers to have a donation made to their favorite charity. Both engines use portions of advertising revenues to fund the prizes or donations. Which will you choose? Read more about this at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/technology/26eco m.html?th&emc=th“

stevenj writes “Several metropolitan papers offer an article today about the national data released on Dec. 16, 2005 that reported a serious decline in college students’ literacy skills. Those who like to follow what ALA President Michael Gorman says to the press may want to see what he had to say, as one of the “experts” who was asked to react to the decline in literacy rates. One of his quotes: “It’s appalling; it’s really astounding. Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That’s not saying much for the remainder.”. This one from the Pittsburgh Gazette was slightly longer than others. Read it at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05360/628033.stm“

The CBC Reports A security guard pleaded guilty in a British court on Tuesday to stealing copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before its release and trying to blackmail publisher Bloomsbury. Aaron Lambert, 20, stole two copies of the sixth volume in the bestselling series by J.K. Rowling from the distribution centre where he worked on June 2, six weeks before it was due to hit store shelves.

According to Bookfinder, Top 10 out of print books of 2005 are:

1. Sex (1992) by Madonna — The pop icon’s first book, featuring erotic photos and more

2. Sisters (1981) by Lynne Cheney — Frontier lesbian romance in 19th century Wyoming

3. The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (1981) by Felicitas D. Goodman — An account of the case that inspired the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose

4. Where Troy Once Stood (1991) by Iman Wilkens — Posits that the Trojan War took place in England, and that The Iliad and The Odyssey are based on oral histories of a major war between Celtic peoples circa 1160 BCE

5. The Principles of Knitting (1988) by June Hemmons Hiatt — Methods and techniques of hand knitting, the ultimate resource

6. General Printing (1963) by Glen Cleeton — Everything you ever wanted to know about letterpress printing, but were afraid to ask

7. The New Soldier (1971) edited by John Kerry — Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s account of a mismanaged war

8. The Lion’s Paw (1946) by Robb White — An enduring children’s adventure story

9. Dear and Glorious Physician (1959) by Taylor Caldwell — A novel based on the life of Saint Luke, patron saint of painters, physicians, and healers

10. The Book of Counted Sorrows (2003) by Dean Koontz — The suspense novelist brings to life the fictional book of poetry he’s been referring to in all his novels

Also check out the The BookFinder.com Report, a measure of the most sought after
out of print titles in America.