December 2006

PG writes “Diane Hofstede, a member of the Minneapolis City Council, writes in an editorial in the Star Tribune, “Libraries are not just brick and mortar, but they are the pulse of our community, they are people. As one librarian told me, it is America that passes through his doors every day, individuals yearning for knowledge, growth and betterment.””

Here’s a story that would delight any of us…finding a valuable item kept hidden under wraps for decades.

Librarian Candace Guite assisted John van Whye, a bye-fellow at Christ’s College in Cambridge UK and director of The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online in opening up a framed signed photograph of the naturalist himself.

Van Whye said: “During visits to the Old Library I was curious to know if this signature was just a scrap of paper cut from a letter, or if it was written on a document still preserved, though sealed inside the frame.” A previously undiscovered cheque from the Union Bank of London, made out by Darwin to self for ;£100 on March, 21 1872 was hidden behind the photo.

Cites & Insights vol. 7, number 1 (January 2007) is now available for downloading.

The 26-page issue (PDF as usual, but most essays are also available as HTML separates from the home page) includes:

• Bibs & Blather: Navel Gazing Part 6 – the usual start-of-volume essay.
• Perspective: Book Searching: OCA/GBS Update
• Trends & Quick Takes – Five trends and three quicker takes
• Finding a Balance: Patrons and the Library
• Interesting & Peculiar Products – three products, plus short notes on Editors’ Choices and Best Buys (replacing PC Progress)
• Perspective: The Death of the Disc?
• My Back Pages – eight mini-rants.

Happy holidays!

The Guardian reports that the title of the final Harry Potter has been announced by the publisher.

{{flourish of horns}}…it is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”.

By Otto Penzler, proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC (not to be confused with Murder Ink, which is closing in a week), here’s his list from the New York Sun. He suggests that you not buy the new Thomas Pynchon for your friends; and if you do and they feign delight, he recommends that you get new friends.

GSO writes “The first issue of Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research is now online. The electronic journal is a practitioner’s journal of The Partnership published twice a year. Articles may be contributed at any time for publication consideration. Potential articles are reviewed by members of an editorial review committee. Articles fall into several categories. Feature articles on theory & research and on innovations in practice are in-depth, peer-reviewed articles and fall in the range of 1,000 to 5,000 words. Other types of articles include viewpoints, conference presentations, profiles, news& announcements, professional development and reviews. “

Anonymous Patron writes “One library in Australia is taking a “novel” approach to love.” A 150-year old Australian public library has a new true-romance section after introducing speed-dating nights for lovers of classic texts.

“Literacy is not an end in itself. It is a fundamental human right.” (UNESCO, 1975). It is linked to other fundamental rights–rights that are universal, indivisible, interconnected and interdependent.
Becoming literate involves much more than language use and singular routes to language acquisition. It calls literate beings to recognize socio-political contexts of teaching and learning, image multiple possibilities for literate activity, and act as agents of change. As educators we have the responsibility to make visible the complexities of becoming literate in the new millennium. This year’s National Council of Teachers of English summer institute will focus on literacy as a human right.
–See A Librarian at the Kitchen Table.

[Thanks, TK].

Check Out The tagometer. Spotted on blog.del.icio.us

Tagometer includes an up-to-date count of others who’ve already bookmarked the page, as well as a fresh list of the top tags applied.

Visitors can click on the count to see more detail on who bookmarked your page, when they did it, and how they tagged it. The list of tags shows visitors why your page is interesting, and clicking on a tag takes them to similar sites on del.icio.us.

This past week at Free Government Information (FGI)
(http://freegovinfo.info ), we continued our poll looking into reasons why we have over 1500 daily visitors yet suffer a dearth of comments. Ironically the poll thread has become our busiest comment thread ever.

Also this week, December BOTM Duane McCollum and the FGI volunteers posted the following stories:

Duane’s postings:

• The History News Network
• PART and Expectmore.gov

Volunteer postings:

• New Library Page to Collect Video, Audio Spots – Daniel
• Best Titles Ever! The Video – Daniel
• Docs Video: Proof of Concept – Daniel
• Need Document Cover Art? – Daniel
• Jan 2007: DRM TECHNOLOGIES & Higher Education: an online workshop – Daniel
• Why can’t depositories do this? – Daniel

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice or some other holiday of light, the volunteers at FGI wish you a happy holiday season and a new year full of transparency and accountability in government!

If you use Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com) or some other RSS reader, consider subscribing to the FGI Feed at http://freegovinfo.info/blog/feed to get FGI stories as they are posted. 160 people already have.