December 2008

Eleven Philly Libraries…Struggling for Survival in Court

Philadelphia Inquirer – Library advocates on Monday asked a judge to prevent the city from shuttering 11 branches at year’s end, closures they contend are illegal and endanger some communities.

“Libraries are no longer just depositories of book and magazines and other media,” plaintiffs’ attorney Irv Ackelsberg told the court. “(They are) sanctuaries of learning and safety for our children within the streets that hold many dangers for them.”

Mayor Michael Nutter plans to close the libraries beginning Thursday to help narrow an estimated $1 billion budget deficit over the next five years.

But Ackelsberg cited a 1988 ordinance that states “no city-owned facility shall be closed” without the approval of City Council. He asked the judge to prohibit the mayor from closing the branches unless council approves.

Lincoln Library Acquires Civil War Letters

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A collection of letters and sketches penned by a Civil War soldier has been acquired by Springfield’s Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

The correspondence was purchased from the Union soldier’s family for $25,000.

Born in Scotland in 1823, William Wyllie became a corporal with the 58th Illinois Infantry after enlisting from St. Charles.

Library officials say his letters are extremely detailed. (Wyllie) was very literate and made very astute observations.” “He explains things,” said Glenna Schroeder-Lein, with the library’s manuscripts department. “What being on guard duty is, how long the shifts are, how things were cooked.”

Wyllie, a stonemason with a fourth-grade education, was born in Scotland in 1823. He enlisted from St. Charles when he was about 40 years old. His entries reveal a devoutly religious man. He comments on sermons and was scornful of officers who drank and gambled. The letters include accounts of a whiskey riot and the Red River Campaign of 1864. He was guard at a Confederate prison.

He almost always was writing, sometimes stopping abruptly and, after a day or two, picking up where he left off. But he also spent his free time during the war knitting gloves and socks he sent back to his three children, one of whom, a young daughter named Lillie, died while he was away.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A collection of letters and sketches penned by a Civil War soldier has been acquired by Springfield’s Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

The correspondence was purchased from the Union soldier’s family for $25,000.

Born in Scotland in 1823, William Wyllie became a corporal with the 58th Illinois Infantry after enlisting from St. Charles.

Library officials say his letters are extremely detailed. (Wyllie) was very literate and made very astute observations.” “He explains things,” said Glenna Schroeder-Lein, with the library’s manuscripts department. “What being on guard duty is, how long the shifts are, how things were cooked.”

Wyllie, a stonemason with a fourth-grade education, was born in Scotland in 1823. He enlisted from St. Charles when he was about 40 years old. His entries reveal a devoutly religious man. He comments on sermons and was scornful of officers who drank and gambled. The letters include accounts of a whiskey riot and the Red River Campaign of 1864. He was guard at a Confederate prison.

He almost always was writing, sometimes stopping abruptly and, after a day or two, picking up where he left off. But he also spent his free time during the war knitting gloves and socks he sent back to his three children, one of whom, a young daughter named Lillie, died while he was away.

Springfield State Journal-Register and Chicago Tribune report.

Forget About That Ssshhh…No Sleeping in the Library

Washington Post reports: New rules have been proposed for D.C. public libraries, including a ban on sleeping and a limit on bringing in bags, in what library officials called an effort to make the system more welcoming.

But Mary Ann Luby, an advocate for the homeless, said the bag and sleeping rules “are going to be hard on people.” Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper said she expected the new rules to take effect Feb. 1 at the Martin Luther King Jr. library downtown and at the system’s branches.

“Everyone is still welcome,” she said, adding that she expected the homeless to use the libraries and hoped “lots of other people do, too” (i.e., maybe not a preponderance of the homeless?)

King’s County WA County Does Away With Jail Librarians

Self-help books, best-sellers, graphic novels and history — these are among the popular books with inmates at the King County Jail.

But beginning in January, it won’t be a librarian making the deliveries. Instead inmates, working under the supervision of a corrections officer, will be handing out the books.

The county’s Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention will save about $240,000 annually by ending its contract with the King County Library System, which historically has provided librarians and a collection of books for the jail’s inmates.

“It wasn’t an efficient use of their money,” said Nancy Smith, director of outreach services for the library system. Seattle P.I. reports.

UK Culture Minister Proposing International Norms for Anglophone Internet

Proposing to better police the Internet so as to protect children, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport in the United Kingdom’s cabinet is proposing international legal norms for websites. At present Secretary Burnham does not believe the UK itself has a body to undertake classifying websites although he is interested in a film-style rating system. Burnham’s proposal would involve talks with the incoming Obama administration to lay the groundwork of international legal norms to force change in industry.

A Seldom Used Law Library

Sounds like someone disapproves of this law library…

WORCESTER (MA)— As the state has slashed social services and laid off employees to deal with a severe fiscal crisis, the trial court system has been spending about $700 a day to heat an otherwise vacant 163-year-old courthouse to keep the dwindling number of patrons of a small law library warm in the winter.

To get to the public law library in the deserted old Superior Courthouse, a visitor must pass through a metal detector manned by a security guard.

Once inside the overstuffed library, tucked in a remote corner of the cavernous 19th-century building, the first thing many who enter the warren of small rooms notice is a blast of hot air from the antiquated heating system.

Since September 2007, taxpayers have shelled out more than $124,000 on heating oil to warm the little-used repository of books, documents and computer terminals in the library, the last remaining occupant of the crumbling edifice at 2 Main Street. More from the Worcester Telegram.

Publication of disputed Holocaust memoir canceled

The publisher of a disputed Holocaust memoir has canceled the book, adding the name Herman Rosenblat to an increasingly long list of literary fakers and ending with a heartbreaking crash his story — embraced by Oprah Winfrey among others — of meeting his future wife at a concentration camp.

“I wanted to bring happiness to people,” Rosenblat said in a statement issued Saturday through his agent, Andrea Hurst. “I brought hope to a lot of people. My motivation was to make good in this world.”

Rosenblat’s “Angel at the Fence” had been scheduled to come out in February, but Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), withdrew the memoir following allegations by scholars, friends and family members that his tale was untrue.

Full article here.