June 2008

iLibrarian continues to point at all sorts of good stuff. This time it’s 100 Useful Niche Search Engines You’ve Never Heard Of. Though the general Google site is often touted as the number one search engine online, college students sometimes need more specific tools to help them uncover quality information on the Web that they can use for class projects, research papers, and even job and apartment searches. This list features a huge variety of search engines that can be useful to students, including tools that find photos, sound effects, summer internships, health and medical information, reference guides, and a lot more.

From KCRG.com Earlier this week, the situation didn’t seem quite so dire for the main branch of the Cedar Rapids Public Library when it was learned that the library had only taken on 5 feet of water. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been safe enough to get a full crew in for recovery efforts, so mold has claimed even more of the collection. Foundation staff member Marie Devries said, “It’s never going to be the same again, but it will be our library. It will be the community library again and will provide the same great service we always have.”

Included in the article is information about branch locations that are open and a plea to not donate any books, as the organization is not able to process donations. What they need is your $$.

From David Pogue, NYT Technology Columnist

Well! My goodness!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how some of the computer books I’ve written wound up getting widely pirated online after I sent electronic PDF versions to readers who claimed to be blind.

That online column set off quite a firestorm. Readers, bloggers and pundits across the spectrum chimed in. Most of them painted me as a tenth-century village idiot.

But upon closer inspection, what looks like universal condemnation turns out to be a cacophony of conflicting lines of reasoning.

Full blog entry here.

Library Associates Companies has put together LibGig (http://libgig.com/) the new professional networking website dedicated to bringing together everyone who accesses, organizes, creates, manages, produces or distributes information for a living.

The goal is to establish a common, human link within the enormous and multi-faceted information industry through dialogue, interaction and sharing of interesting stories, as well as dynamic and exclusive content that encourages feedback and debate. The site includes LibGig Careers, LibGig Schools and the LibGig Community.

A Very Defiant Duckling Named Ender who sent over Text Message from Los Angeles: On the demented, celebrity-crazed, surrender-happy, endlessly-on-the-verge-of-being-wiped-off-the-planet publishing industry. (Note to panicked book lovers: Everything is going to be okay.) “One hundred new independent bookstores opened in America last year. One speaker describes “recolonizing the parts of America that chain stores had left barren.” This is, by any measure, a big deal. A few years ago, the talk from ABA was that, for the first time in years, as many independent bookstores in America had opened as closed. After hundreds of great bookstores had already been lost, that had seemed like a milestone.”

Thanks to Charley for Researcher Finds Bibles’ Subtext in Design and Fonts: In the beginning was the word — followed by printing presses and typography that brought new depths of meaning and creativity to language. For some designers and printers, the ultimate challenge is the Bible, the design of which could be affected by politics and religious beliefs, as well as by aesthetic and commercial concerns.

Ann Lane Petry was born on October 12, 1908 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was the second daughter of Peter C. Lane and Bertha James Lane. She grew up middle class in a predominantly white community. Her parents both had a professional status in the community. Her father owned the local drugstore and worked as a pharmacist. Her mother was a licensed chiropodist, and worked also in many other occupations such as a hairdresser, a barber, a manufacturer, and an entrepreneur. This status helped to shield her from a somewhat hostile community environment.

Petry first encountered racial prejudice when she was on a Sunday school outing at the age of seven. This, along with other experiences of racial prejudice and oppression, brought about a feeling of outrage within her. This outrage remained with her for many years. The memories that Petry holds of her family are those of a caring and protective environment. Her parents created an environment that enabled her to survive against the effects of bigotry and isolation.

Biography continued here.

Article in the NYT about one of Petry’s books: An Author’s Look At 1940’s Harlem Is Being Reissued

Police are looking for a man possibly dressed in drag they say attempted to kidnap two girls from the Salt Lake City Downtown Library.
An 8-year-old girl and her 5-year old-sister were at the library when the suspect grabbed their wrists and tried to pull them outside on Wednesday afternoon, according to Salt Lake City police.

Full article here.

Most prison librarians are hardworking and dedicated, but not many have received what Sue Wilkinson, librarian at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham UK, just received; the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or MBE, a British order of chivalry established by King George V in 1917.

According to the Evesham Journal, the recipient is quite pleased particularly since 2008 is the National Year of Reading in Britain.

It’s getting harder to comprehend the world economy without understanding two of the world’s most rapidly growing economic powers — China and India. A new crop of books focuses on how that astonishing growth will play out in the global economy. Complete piece at NPR.