May 2010

The executive director of Mid-Columbia Libraries was dismissed from her $110,000-a-year-job Monday night following an executive session with the board.

Gloria Garcia, board chairwoman, said the decision to end Danielle Krol’s employment was difficult but the best thing for the library district.

“(She) was dismissed immediately, without cause, as allowed by her contract,” Garcia said Tuesday in a phone interview.

Krol, 60, who became executive director in 2004, was not available for comment.

Kyle Cox, the library’s administrative services director, was chosen by the board to be the “Mid-Columbia Libraries person in charge,” Garcia said, adding that he will not assume the title of interim executive director.

Prior to going into what became a 90-minute executive session, the board considered and approved a travel request from Krol, who asked to make a one-day side trip from attending the American Library Association Conference in Washington, D.C., in June to tour the award-winning public library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. Garcia said the firing made the planned trip unnecessary.

Krol’s predecessor, Phelps Shephard, had been the executive director for 10 years before also being fired for an undisclosed reason in September 2003. Several commentators apparently feel that the firing was overdue; read more in the Tri-City Herald.

Find and share spoken-word programs at Spokenword.org

Reflective blog post from the creator of Spokenword.org.

Spokenword.org was created by the same people that started “IT Conversations”

Forgive the editorial but: awesome.

Via BoingBoing: an NYPL staffer identified only as “David” wrote to Boingboing: “We’re facing a crippling proposed budget cut at the NYPL–so we called Improv Everywhere, who recreated Ghostbusters in our main reading room to a delighted crowd of onlookers to see if they bust budget cuts as well as they bust ghosts. We could use all the support we can get right now in changing minds at City Hall.”

Click to view video

Don’t Close the Book on Libraries (NYPL)

Royal date for library staff in flood-hit Cockermouth
Staff who set up a temporary library in a Cumbrian church when devastating floods struck, have been invited to a Royal tea party at Buckingham Palace.

The temporary library proved to be a vital resource as affected families and businesses were given internet access as well as photocopying and printing facilities.

Work is ongoing at Cockermouth Library to dry out the building and repair the damage and it is hoped the building will be up and running again in the next few months.

Version one of the Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography is now available from Digital Scholarship.

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcpb/dcpb.htm

This bibliography presents over 360 selected English-language articles, books, and technical reports that are useful in understanding digital curation and preservation.

Most sources have been published between 2000 and the present; however, a limited number of key sources published prior to 2000 are also included. Where possible, links are provided to sources that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints for published articles in disciplinary archives and institutional repositories. Note that e-prints and published articles may not be identical.

See the scope note for further details:

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcpb/scope.htm

For a discussion of the numerous changes in my digital publications since my resignation (http://bit.ly/GW4Ih) from the University of Houston Libraries, see the Digital Scholarship Publications Overview.

http://digital-scholarship.org/cwb/dsoverviewx.htm

The following recent Digital Scholarship publications may also be of interest:

* Digital Scholarship 2009

http://digital-scholarship.org/sepb/annual/ds2009.htm

* Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 6

http://digital-scholarship.org/gbsb/gbsb.htm

* Institutional Repository Bibliography, Version 2

http://digital-scholarship.org/irb/irb.html

* Electronic Theses and Dissertations Bibliography, Version
4

http://digital-scholarship.org/etdb/etdb.htm

—

Best Regards,
Charles

Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
Publisher, Digital Scholarship
http://digital-scholarship.org/
http://digital-scholarship.com/cwb/dschronology.htm

30 Libraries, Million Books for Liberia
At least two public libraries will shortly be constructed in each of Liberia’s 15 counties.The project is set for implementation by a Liberian organization based in the American State of North Dakota, Liberian Center for Growth and Development.

As part of the project, one million books will be given to the Government of Liberia (GOL), through the Ministry of Education, for use by students.

Inmates see prison libraries as tools to making a better life
Men and women in the prison’s drug-treatment programs usually walk out of their weekly visits to the library with five books – the maximum amount they are allowed to check out at once – most of which focus on beating an addiction, stopping the cycle of child abuse or losing weight.

Navigating the modern Canadian novel
One of the most perplexing issues in Canadian literature is that it is haunted by a lack of critics. There are book reviewers and there are academics, but what has been missing is the voice that can see how the literature fits together. Good critics offer context to content. They see through the maze of the new and the old and map what they see so that others can follow and learn and make discoveries from the great blur of words that fills our minds and shelfscapes.

Nylink to Wind Down Operations Over Next 12 Months
Nylink, a non-profit membership organization, will phase out its operations over the next 12 months. Steep declines in Nylink’s revenue as a result of fundamental changes in its business environment have seriously degraded Nylink’s ability to remain fully self-supporting. Part of the State University of New York System, Nylink has operated as a self-funded entity serving libraries throughout New York.

In “Readers Reflect” author Numeroff reflects on receiving her first library card (photo of the author below).

I remember getting my first library card, not believing that there were so many books to choose from that I could bring home , read tall of them, bring them back and then takc out more again! Unfortunately, this was in the 60s and the library I went to only let you take out six at a time! I very quickly became a voracious. Some of my favorites were anything by Beverly Cleary, Lois Lenski, and, Marguerite Henry. But, the two books that made the biggest impact were STUART LITTLE, and, ELOISE!

The stories excited me so much that I tried to write my own book. The first one was about a horse called Trixie who went shopping in Macy’s. When I was 9, I KNEW I was going to be a children’s book writer, but didn’t think about paying rent! After I graduated from Pratt Insitute in Brooklyn, NY, I went to San Francisco for two weeks and stayed for seven years! In that time, I registered with a temp agency, got MediCal, got fired from a myriad of part time jobs, and, managed to write and illustrate nine books. I got $500,oo for my first advance!