March 2007

Filipino Librarian writes “Aside from Library Related Conferences (LRC), you can now check the International Calendar of Information Science Conferences (ICISC) for international conferences on information science and related disciplines. Unlike LRC, ICISC is backed up by a group, specifically the American Society for Information Science & Technology. More…”

Keith Tipton sent along one from VOANews: One of the foundations of any civilized community is that storehouse of information and knowledge known as the library. But in the digital age, many people are finding information on the Internet or on digitized media that can only be accessed with a computer. At the same time, the sheer amount of information available has grown enormously. All of this was the focus of a recent conference at Rice University in Houston, Texas on the future of libraries.

Here’s something Professor Henry Higgins could have used…a new service from the British Library called Sounds Familiar, accents and dialects of the UK.

From the website: “Do you call a bread roll a cob, batch, bread cake, barm cake or scuffler? How do you pronounce the words cup and plant? And are you sitting or sat at this computer? The UK is a rich landscape of regional accents and dialects, each evidence of our society’s continuity and change, our local history and our day-to-day lives. This site, aimed at A-Level English students across the UK, captures and celebrates the diversity of spoken English in the second half of the twentieth century.” No mention of how us Yanks mangle the mother tongue.

More in this press release from Managing Information

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Starr Hoffman writes “On March 10th, NPR’s Weekend Edition aired a story on the University of North Texas Libraries‘ CyberCemetery . The CyberCemetery, which is now affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration, archives the websites of defunct government agencies and commissions.

You can read the transcript or listen to an mp3 of the story on NPR’s website, or you can access the original, uncut version by the North Texas NPR affiliate, KERA.”

stevenj writes “What will those zany college newspaper editors think of next for their annual spoof issues. From an article in The Michigan Journal, the student newspaper of the University of Michigan-Dearborn titled “Michigan Library to Remove All Books; Students Won’t Notice”:

Students visiting UM-D’s newly-renovated Mardigian Library will find plenty of room to study and hang out, now that the books are gone. Library administrators undertook the renovations in response to a Student Government petition, removing all books and shelving and installing a state-of-the-art sound system and night club-style lighting.

When you think about it, maybe that part about “Students Won’t Notice” may not be so outlandish.

See this story at: http://media.www.themichiganjournal.com/media/stor age/paper255/news/2007/03/27/AprilFools/Mardigian. Library.To.Remove.All.Books.Students.Wont.Notice-2 807391.shtml“

A week or two ago, I reported that NewsMax, ultra-conservative right-wing news-gathering organization claimed that archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library were deliberately ignoring requests to provide information on the former First Lady’s eight years at the White House.

I wrote to the Clinton Library on behalf of our LISNews readers, and here’s the response I received from the library’s Senior Archivist, Melissa Walker:

“Dear Robin,
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Library holds Clinton Presidential records that are covered under the provisions of the Presidential Records Act (PRA). The PRA makes all of these records available to Freedom of Information Act requests five years after the end of a Presidential administration, which for Clinton Presidential records began on January 20, 2006. All FOIA requests throughout the NARA system are treated, as the law requires, on a first-in, first-out basis, which means that as requests are received they are filed in queues based on the date, size and complexity of the request.

The Clinton Library has experienced an unprecedented number of FOIA requests filed since January 2006 and currently has received 356 such requests. Once a FOIA request comes to the front of a queue, the responsive records must be reviewed on a page-by-page basis for both Presidential restrictive categories and Freedom of Information Act exemptions. Given the size and number of the FOIA requests we have received to date, all requesters are waiting their turn. Some will have to wait longer than others simply because of the date, size or complexity of their request. We are trying to be equitable to all requesters and process these records as quickly as we can.

Sincerely,

Melissa Walker
Supervisory Archivist
William J. Clinton Presidential Library
National Archives and Records Administration”

Boilerplate, but I was impressed that they responded to my query in a timely fashion.

A week or two ago, I reported that NewsMax, ultra-conservative right-wing news-gathering organization claimed that archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library were deliberately ignoring requests to provide information on the former First Lady’s eight years at the White House.

I wrote to the Clinton Library on behalf of our LISNews readers, and here’s the response I received from the library’s Senior Archivist, Melissa Walker:

“Dear Robin,
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Library holds Clinton Presidential records that are covered under the provisions of the Presidential Records Act (PRA). The PRA makes all of these records available to Freedom of Information Act requests five years after the end of a Presidential administration, which for Clinton Presidential records began on January 20, 2006. All FOIA requests throughout the NARA system are treated, as the law requires, on a first-in, first-out basis, which means that as requests are received they are filed in queues based on the date, size and complexity of the request.

The Clinton Library has experienced an unprecedented number of FOIA requests filed since January 2006 and currently has received 356 such requests. Once a FOIA request comes to the front of a queue, the responsive records must be reviewed on a page-by-page basis for both Presidential restrictive categories and Freedom of Information Act exemptions. Given the size and number of the FOIA requests we have received to date, all requesters are waiting their turn. Some will have to wait longer than others simply because of the date, size or complexity of their request. We are trying to be equitable to all requesters and process these records as quickly as we can.

Sincerely,

Melissa Walker
Supervisory Archivist
William J. Clinton Presidential Library
National Archives and Records Administration”

Boilerplate, but I was impressed that they responded to my query in a timely fashion.

digijen writes to tell us of a new restaurant on the south side of Pittsburgh called The Library.

“Executive chef Steve Harlow created an ‘American eclectic’ menu, which features creatively dubbed cuisine such as meat dish ‘The Slaughterhouse Five Minus Two,’ cheese plate ‘Of Mice and Men’ and a pasta entree named after Hunter S. Thompson.”

There’s a website which is just a nicely designed splash page at this point, but it looks like a fun place to be. Is ALA going to Pittsburgh any time soon?

[Update: I missed the link to the menu on my first viewing of the website.]

As noted at The Shifted Librarian, pundit parodist Stephen Colbert chose to trademark a random phrase during an interview with EFF lawyer John Perry Barlow. The phrase? “Librarians are hiding something.”

View the video at the Shifted link.

Inspired by a poem from a young patron written in honor of her birthday, Carla Morris, a librarian at the Provo (UT) Library has written a children’s picture book “The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians.” The book, published by Peachtree Press took six years to put together; mostly waiting for illustrator Brad Sneed to supply the pictures. Deseret News reports, and here’s the publishers catalog copy.

Martin writes “The author of this article recently completed work on a book of quotations. He wanted to be as accurate as possible about ascribing memorable lines to their true origins, or at least to their earliest discoverable uses. What did he use? Why, gold mines such as JSTOR, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, the Times Digital Archive, LexisNexis, Newspaperarchive, Questia, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, and Literature Online that allowed him to dig much more deeply into old newspapers, magazines, speeches, and books than could the compilers of any previous quotation dictionary. How did he know about all these great resources? He’s a librarian, or course!
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=mrzc6xfb9 p62bhjq0r58yn3cxfxw9ybx“