February 2010

Article on the prolific author , now 71, whose love of literature began in her hometown, Lockport NY, at the library.

Book Patrol points us to an article in the March issue Smithsonian Magazine, which tells us that contrary to Thomas Wolfe’s dictum, “Joyce Carol Oates Goes Home Again.”

Bruce sent over Children read to dogs at Tucson libraries
Pima County public libraries are taking part in the “Read To A Dog” program, which gives kids an opportunity to read whatever book they want. Hooch, a rottweiler, is one of several dogs taking part in the program.

As the LISNews Librarian Essay Contest winds down it seems like a good time to formally announce the LISNews Librian Joke Contest! We won’t judge each joke, but anyone who submits a joke will be entered to win some cool prizes.

From www.funkandweber.com and www.StitchingForLiteracy.com …a set of four Needle and ThREAD: Stitching for Literacy cross stitch bookmark patterns, including two designed from the old chicken-and-frog library joke. You know, a chicken walks into a library and says, “book, Book, BOOK!” (you gotta say it like a chicken), so the librarian gives her a book. The chicken takes the book outside and down to a pond where a frog sits on a lily pad and croaks, “read-it, read-it” (that’s right, say it like a frog).

Book Marks from www.InMyBook.com
Web Hosting from www.LISHost.org

You’ll want to submit your joke(s) HERE starting on MONDAY.

Follow along on the tracker page (https://lisnews.org/joketracker) or RSS feed (https://lisnews.org/jokes/rss)

From the article:

Six book publishers have gained an injunction against file-hosting company, RapidShare. The Swiss-based ‘cyberlocker’ service must monitor user uploads to ensure that around 148 titles, many of them textbooks, are never made available to its users. Failure to do so could result in $339,000 fines, or even jail time for company bosses.

For those who don’t know, RapidShare is site where one can upload files for off-site storage and distribution. It’s that “distribution” that it’s well known for as thousands of people upload larger files to the service with the intention of allowing others to download. Though it’s well known in certain circles for hosting pirated content, it’s strange that the first shot fired against it should come from the publishing industry rather than the recording or motion picture industries.

More from TorrentFreak.

From Book Patrol: It started innocently enough. Over dinner a friend mentioned that he saw a used bookmobile for sale on Craigslist and wished he could by it. That was all the impetus Tom Corwin needed.

He was soon off to suburban Chicago to buy the decommissioned bookmobile. He paid $7500 for it.

Corwin has already garnered the support of the National Book Foundation, the Association of American Publishers and the American Library Association for the project and has signed a deal with Whitewater Films in Los Angeles for the documentary which will be titled “Behind the Wheel of the Bookmobile.” The film will also include information on the history of bookmobiles.

Authors that have already signed up in support include Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Junot Diaz, Tom Robbins and Scott Turow, with many of them to take a turn at the wheel…here they are.

Follow the tour on the website and on Twitter.

Decades of civil strife have left their mark on Jaffna, the heartland of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. Bombed-out buildings are a reminder of the fierce battles waged over the historic city.

The most potent symbol of the struggle, and the uneasy peace since fighting ended last May, is Jaffna’s public library, which was torched in 1981 by an anti-Tamil mob. Nearly 100,000 books and manuscripts, including irreplaceable palm-leaf Tamil texts, went up in smoke. It was an act of cultural vandalism that fed the Tamil resistance movement.

Eventually the library was rebuilt by Sri Lanka’s government and reopened in 2003. It has plenty of new books in Tamil and English on its wooden shelves. But restoring the spirit of the library presents a far greater challenge, says the chief librarian, S. Thanabaalasinham.

C.S. Monitor has the full story.

Record Online reports: (Upstate NY) TUXEDO – Town police said a former librarian in the Tuxedo School District embezzled more than $12,000 from the district’s teachers union while serving as its president and treasurer. Police said Teresa E. Haslam, 45, of Chester, issued herself 20 checks and one electronic transfer from the union’s account between November 2008 and May 2009, when she left the district. According to the union, all but $645.98 has been repaid.

Haslam, who’s charged with grand larceny, a felony, turned herself in Wednesday. She was issued an appearance ticket and is due back in Town Court on March 18.

“WESTMINSTER, Md. — Bryan Hissong is 31, happily married, and the father of a 2-year-old named Olivia. He seems quite content with his life.

But Marilyn Johnson, who is not his wife, loves him and has said so very publicly. It doesn’t matter that she has never met him. Hissong is a librarian.

He doesn’t look like the clichéd librarian of old. He favors plaid shirts and is sporting a beard on his babyface — but that doesn’t matter to Johnson, either. She’s well aware that librarians wear many disguises these days. Often they’re pierced, tattooed, punk with bright blue hair. She loves them all.

Who knew librarians had become so … cool?” asks USA Today (we did).

Johnson does an interview with Jon Michaud in this week’s New Yorker blog. Here’s a snippet:

Ever think of becoming a librarian yourself?

I worked as a page at my local library when I was in high school. I earned 95 cents an hour. After a year, I asked for a raise; I wanted to earn a dollar an hour. They turned me down, so I quit. And that was the end of my library career. I’m really sorry now I played hardball over a nickel. I’m never more at home than when I’m in a library.

How nice to have the reading public recognize the intrinsic value of your profession and the many marvelous examples of librarianship at work.

Online archive of UK science launches
The British Library has begun a project to create a vast, online oral history and archive of British science.

The three-year project will see 200 British scientists interviewed and their recollections recorded for the audio library.

An advisory board will help the project pick key technological innovators and scientists for the archive.

Retaining Librarians through Mentoring
Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools (HCPS) noticed that the district’s newly hired librarians had a substantial (56%) turnover rate. In 2004, a voluntary mentoring system emerged within the district that encouraged seasoned librarians to reach out to new hires. By the 2005 school year, an official long-distance mentoring program was launched pairing those new to the job with established librarians in other schools. Co-coordinators Joyce Ricks, librarian at Twin Hickory Elementary, and Susan Howe, librarian at Tuckahoe Middle School, spearheaded the program, which was christened Collaborative Partners.