April 2007

Every weekend, Russell Wattenburg, creator of The Book Thing gives away thousands of donated books to eager bibliophiles in the Baltimore area. How does he do it? A spartan lifestyle, but also through a profitible business from the sale of select on-line books. Some find his charitable efforts easier to criticize than to condone. More from The Baltimore Sun.

Not the kind of board member you want to have…David Bryan, principal of a vocational school in the Albany NY school district, has been accused of grand larceny in the form of about $40,000 of stolen checks from the Rensselaerville Library, part of the Upper Hudson Library System.

Larry Greenwood writes “What if you showed up for work at your library one day and the doors were locked, or worse, the building has been completely destroyed and the collection burned.

Larry Greenwood, a retired academic librarian, has begun a story about the life and times of a librarian working at the Great Library of Alexandria in early 5th century. It is an interesting look at religious fundamentalism and its influence on ancient libraries and librarians. The story is serialized in blog format.”

mdoneil writes “Indiana University’s School of Infomatics professors have published a study that notes that phishing scams may get up to 14 percent response rates (heck I’m lucky if my work email gets that).

This result is in a paper by Drs. Jakobsson and Ratkiewicz of the School. The paper “Designing Ethical Phishing Experiments: A study of (ROT13) rOnl auction query features. is interesting in and of itself, valid and ethical phishing experiments!”

To all the librarians that are Star Wars fans:

The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film is 13th best selling book on Amazon.

The book is a little expensive for the common Joe so people may be going to the library to look for it.

An Anonymous Patron writes ”
*I want to be a librarian*.
a music video (4:10) by New Zealand band HauntedLove, which performs
ghostly pop tunes about werewolves, haunted museums, vengeful
librarians, love inside computers, and ponies that just won’t go. Filmed
on location at the Dunedin Public Library. Camera work by Claudia
Babirat, direction and editing/effects by Don Ferns. Starring Haunted
Love (Rainy McMaster and Geva Downey) and Henri Davidson….
YouTube, Apr. 9″

First lady Laura Bush was honored Tuesday night for her foundation’s donations to Gulf Coast school libraries devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

“Schools are essential to the recovery that is under way,” Mrs. Bush told guests at a dinner sponsored by the Community Foundation, a public charity. “Until schools are rebuilt, families can’t come home.”

The first lady said it takes $50,000 to rebuild an elementary school library and $100,000 to restock a high school library. Last week, she visited New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School and the Holy Cross School for Boys in New Orleans to announce grants.

Somebody writes “From The International Herald Tribune: The head of China’s General Administration of Press and Publications has been removed from his post, state media reported Tuesday, following an outcry earlier this year over the administration’s alleged decision to ban eight books. The move comes after noted Chinese author Zhang Yihe issued a public statement in January blasting the administration for allegedly announcing at a closed-door meeting that one of her books about Peking Opera as well as seven other titles by other writers were banned. The ban was never formally announced.”

birdie writes “The New York Times has a story about how librarians at Virginia Tech University have called in archival experts from the Library of Congress to preserve memories of grief, love and forgiveness from the scene of last weeks murders on campus.”

The typically slow winter months for traditional retailers did not seem to put a chill on the shopping at Amazon.com.

The company, based in Seattle, announced yesterday that its quarterly profit increased 38 percent, to $145 million, compared with $106 million in the period last year. It cited improving margins in its core retail business and increased sales in categories like electronics and soft goods, including jewelry, apparel and shoes.

Wall Street reacted positively to the report, which was released after the close of regular trading. Shares of Amazon.com shot up more than 12 percent after hours to over $50. During regular trading, Amazon shares fell to $44.75, down 2 cents, after slowly gaining all week on expectations of a strong quarter.
Story continued here.