February 2008

Good News from Indiana, where In 2006, library patrons checked out nearly 450,000 books and close to 650,000 audio-visual materials, including books on tape, CDs, DVDs and videos, Nilles said. Forty years earlier, in 1965 (a year after Kennedy Library opened), Muncie Public Library (MPL) circulated about 425,000 books and nearly 11,000 audio-visual materials.

“Libraries today are like your extra living room,” said Christy Ragle, public relations coordinator for the New Castle-Henry County Public Library. “They’re community centers, meeting places, the places where anyone can go — for free — to hang out.”

Spotted this one on Engadget I think: “As high density living puts a strain on private space, storage space tends to suffer the most. One of the items people find hard to let go of are books. To those who own a lot of books, books are much more than what meets the eye. Collections of books tend to be ones’ pride and memory on certain moments in life. When taking a dusty book of the shelf one may remember the state of mind on the first read years ago… LIVRE is a new age book, a product that addresses all of these aspects of book reading!”

Sara Holladay is a librarian at the University of Colorado, but her after-hours work employs the same skills (data analysis, etc.)…she’s the Fantasy Football Librarian. She’s a devoted fan of the Denver Broncos and the Northwestern Wildcats and has a soft spot for the Redskins as a Washington native (like me).

Blog entry ‘The Fifth Down’ in the New York Times.

We’re way overdue for an overdue book story! The BBC Saves The Day! An overdue book borrowed from a Cumbrian library more than a quarter of a century ago has been returned.
The book, Mining in the Lake Counties by WT Shaw, was posted back to Penrith Library anonymously during an amnesty.

It was last borrowed in April 1983 and was one of 400 overdue items returned to libraries throughout the county during the 10-day suspension of fines.

Charles Bock’s “Beautiful Children, a best-selling debut novel about characters adrift in Las Vegas, is the latest book to be offered for free online.

Starting Wednesday, Bock’s novel can be downloaded from the Web site http://www.beautifulchildren.net/read. The free electronic edition will also be available from such leading retailers as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.

“I want people to read the book,” Bock said in a statement issued Tuesday by the Random House Publishing Group. “If that means giving it away for free online, great.”

Full article here.

The city’s library board is refusing to cut $800,000 from its budget and will leave it up to city council to close branches or reduce hours.

Coun. Alan Halberstadt, board chairman of the library, told a news conference Friday that the city’s demand that the library cut 10 per cent of its budget is unreasonable.

Council, which begins final deliberations on its 2008 budget Tuesday, wants the library board to achieve the cuts without closing branches or reducing hours.

The former archivist for Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, VA, and his wife allegedly sold items taken from the museum and sold them on eBay. According to the indictment, the sales were done on eBay from January 2002 through September 2006.

The RMS Titanic items were part of Aks Collection bought by the museum for $80,000, according to the U.S. Attorney.

You may have heard about Google’s initiative to scan lots of university book collections and make them available through the Google Books service. Less well-known is an initiative by the Open Content Alliance (OCA) to also scan books, but to make them available to any search engine. The Triangle Research Libraries Network recently announced that they — that is to say the libraries at Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, and UNC — will be joining the OCA initiative and making public domain books from university libraries available online.

Good for the goose and good for the gander…

In Westport CT, the well-respected Westport Country Playhouse and the Westport Public Library have joined together in a program entitled PlayClub; an opportunity for the community to read and discuss several of the plays prior to their being staged at the Playhouse during the 2008 season.

“We’re lifting the curtain so our audience can peek at what’s behind it to become more engaged in our productions and discover the magic that creates ‘theatre,’” said Jodi Schoenbrun Carter, managing director, Westport Country Playhouse. Actress Joanne Woodward is one of the theater’s co-artistic directors.

Joan Hume, community relations director of Westport Public Library, stated, “The plays on the shelves of the Westport Public Library have long inspired Playhouse directors’ decisions on past performances. It’s a natural progression to join the two resources.”

The saga of an American who spent 39 years on the run for the attempted murder of a Chicago police officer, most of it hiding under an assumed name in Mississauga, Canada, ended today in a U.S. court, where he was sentenced to 30 days in jail, two years probation and a $250,000 fine.

“I wish the events which led to Mr. Knox’s injuries had never occurred,” Pannell said in court. “It was an American tragedy. By this plea, I accept responsibility for the part I played in that tragedy.”