March 2007

Janet Steiner, Tompkins County Public Library Director has a nice Column In The Ithaca Journal : Our library profession, like other professions, frequently uses jargon as a shorthand way of talking about ourselves. Jargon is not user-friendly. It suggests that there is an in group (us) and out group (you). It’s hard work to transcribe jargon into plain English and so we often continue using our favorite words like “databases” and “resources,” and wonder why no one understands what we are talking about.

News From Baruch CUNY: For three years several departments in the Weissman School of Liberal Arts have twisted the nipples of the Newman Library for the instillation of an erotic literature and film section. Once a department from the Zicklin School of Business joined the fight, the Newman Library could no longer disregard the need for a sexually explicit media section.

The section will open on the south-west quadrant of the fourth floor, converting a large study room into a secluded, dimly lit filth-pot. Since some freshmen below the age of 18 enter the college, a second form of identification will be checked near the beaded entrance by a bulky bald man named Ivan.

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette takes a look The Texas Board of Education and the process they follow to buy books. Texas is among 20 states, including California and Florida, with textbook “adoption,” a process that can be “curious, complex and costly” for publishers who enter the fray, said Jay A. Diskey, executive director of the School Division of the Association of American Publishers. Thirty other states are “open territories” with no state review of textbooks.

What does the Digital Age hold for the country’s libraries? A National Conference on Library and Information Science held earlier this month In Sri Lanka, discussed the issue with some fascinating results.
While many may not be able to see past the end of libraries as we know them, the potential in digital libraries is actually tremendous. These libraries could exist on the World Wide Web – no longer the prisoners of location. Books would no longer need to be printed – with all the cost and consumption of paper that implies. Circulation could be accomplished with a few clicks of a button.

Tina N. Burger dropped by to spread The Word on The Guggenheim Museum going with Koha. The Guggenheim chose LibLime for its open-source expertise, and is confident that the partnership will better enable the museum to achieve its future library automation goals: “Working with LibLime will greatly reduce the learning curve that presents itself in most new projects. As we are undertaking this project with the intent to adapt the system to our needs, rather than implementing a known system, their knowledge is invaluable.”

“Dear Abby: I work in a public library, where I deal with a lot of children and process many library card applications. I have a question for today’s parents and was wondering if your readers would respond.”

Novelist Jane Austen has been given a makeover for the cover of a book about her life after publishers decided an original image of her was unattractive. The BBC Reports Publishers traditionally use a portrait of Austen painted by her sister but Wordsworth have added make-up, hair extensions and removed her cap.

The original painting by Cassandra Austen, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, is thought by some scholars to be the only authentic portrait of the celebrated author.

But another portrait said to be of Austen is going up for auction at Christie’s in New York on 19 April and is expected to fetch between $400,000 and $800,000.

News today about a long-standing (see related links) copyright use dispute:

An American university professor who sued the James Joyce estate for the right to quote excerpts from ‘Finnegans Wake’ and letters between Joyce and his daughter will be able to use the material. The case was settled when the Joyce estate agreed not to sue Stanford professor Carol Shloss for copyright infringement if her work is only available in the US.

Will disparate international copyright laws create a divided Internet?

Libraries around the country are struggling with whether the need to protect children and other patrons outweighs the rights of visitors to view legally protected pornographic images on library computers.

That debate simmered Thursday in Sacramento, with the board governing the Sacramento Public Library ultimately adopting an Internet-use policy aimed at maintaining a “safe, welcoming and comfortable environment.”

Angela Page’s inability to work in the moldy middle-school library caused her to stop work, and now she’s been threatened with firing because of it…story from the Record Online. This earlier article gives a bit of background.