July 2010

Kafka Experts Will Have to Keep Waiting…

If it were any other writer, today’s unfolding of events in an anonymous bank vault in Zurich would be described as Kafkaesque. But the latest twist in a legal battle over the estate of Franz Kafka probably deserves some other adjective.

Four deposit boxes were pried open. Inside were manuscripts, drawings and letters from the Czech writer that had been locked away for more than 50 years, as Kafka experts around the world waited with baited breath. But the expectant Kafka enthusiasts, historians and critics will have to wait longer, after two Israeli sisters who insist they own the papers by inheritance from their mother banned all reporting of the boxes’ contents.

They were opened on the orders of Talia Koppelman, a judge from the Tel Aviv family court. Last week she also ordered the opening of six safety deposit boxes in Israeli banks containing other Kafka works.

Today’s unlocking at Zurich’s UBS bank of safes sealed since 1956 was attended by lawyers representing, on one side, Eve and Ruth Hoffe and the German literature archive, and, on the other, the state of Israel and its national library.

Update from Guardian UK and some background on the case .

July 21, 2010 by Legal Issues Libraries

How thieves target rare books

How thieves target rare books
A book thief who served a four-year jail sentence should have turned over a new leaf. Instead, he has been sent back to prison after targeting one of Britain’s most distinguished libraries. The case highlights a little known, but widespread crime.

“It kills history… damaging books in such a way that you can’t see the provenance,” he says.

July 21, 2010 by Books Libraries

The Web Means the End of Forgetting

The Web Means the End of Forgetting
When historians of the future look back on the perils of the early digital age, Stacy Snyder may well be an icon. The problem she faced is only one example of a challenge that, in big and small ways, is confronting millions of people around the globe: how best to live our lives in a world where the Internet records everything and forgets nothing — where every online photo, status update, Twitter post and blog entry by and about us can be stored forever. With Web sites like LOL Facebook Moments, which collects and shares embarrassing personal revelations from Facebook users, ill-advised photos and online chatter are coming back to haunt people months or years after the fact.

July 21, 2010 by EBooks Internet

NPR: Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries
Call it a hunch, but it seems to me that the thing is in the air that happens right before something — families with a million kids, cupcakes, wedding coordinators — suddenly becomes the thing everyone wants to do happy-fuzzy pop-culture stories about. Why?
Libraries get in fights.
Librarians know stuff.
Libraries are green and local.
“Open to the public” means “some days, you really have to wonder about people.”
There seems to be a preposterous level of goodwill.

July 21, 2010 by Libraries

House Moves to Make Funded Research Public

Moves to Make Funded Research Public
The U.S. House of Representatives has announced a public hearing to explore making publicly-funded research open to the public. Legislators in both the House and the Senate have already introduced bills calling for this. If they pass, the implications could be significant and might result in an economic jump.
Meanwhile… BP Launches Effort To Control Scientific Research Of Oil Disaster : The lucrative $250-an-hour deal “buys silence,” said Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs environmental lawyer who analyzed the contract. “It makes me feel like they were more interested in making sure we couldn’t testify against them than in having us testify for them,” said George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached by BP.

July 21, 2010 by Legal Issues

New Children’s Book Out Next Month…It’s a Book

For the benefit of future generations…

It’s a Book…by Lane Smith, Macmillan Children’s. The author writes about it here:

Unlike Grandpa (me), today’s kids are whip smart and tech savvy. I know eventually everything will be digital and kids won’t even know from a regular old book book and that’s fine. Truthfully? The reason I made the book? Certainly not to “throw down the gauntlet” as one critic has stated. Naw, I just thought digital vs. traditional made for a funny premise. No heavy message, I’m only in it for the laffs.

July 20, 2010 by Books

LOC and Partners Preserving the Internet

This week in Washington, DC, the Library of Congress is gathering its “Digital Preservation Partners” for a three-day session — one of a number of such meetings the library has been holding under a broad initiative called the “National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.” Its multi-year mission is “to develop a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations.”

It’s what Dan Gillmor of Salon calls a non-trivial task, for all kinds of technical, social and legal reasons. But it’s about as important for our future as anything I can imagine. We are creating vast amounts of information, and a lot of it is not just worth preserving but downright essential to save. Gillmor’s role this week, and at a workshop he joined last year, is to be thinking about the news.

July 20, 2010 by Internet Legal Issues Libraries

School Librarians Called On To Fast for 24 Hours in S. Africa

What is the 24 Hour Fast for School Libraries?

Equal Education (EE) calls on everyone to join our Fast for School Libraries from 6:00 pm on Thursday 29 July until 6:00 pm on Friday 30 July to show government that all children deserve a quality education which includes properly stocked libraries, managed by librarians.

Why is Equal Education fasting (not eating) for 24 hours?

As a result of EE’s consistent campaigning a National Policy recognising the need for a library or library stocks in every school was published by government on 11 June 2010.

In addition, School Libraries Guidelines have been drafted, but these must be improved to give schools a clear instruction to establish libraries and must be accompanied by a budget allocation. It is crucial that post for school librarians are established.

Most importantly, Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure must be finalised for all schools. All these document will only be implemented when government has a budget, plan and timetable to ensure that all schools in South Africa have libraries with a librarian.

The campaign is working but there is a long way to go!

July 20, 2010 by Librarians Libraries School Libraries

Author Tess Gerritsen on Public Libraries

When Library Manager Lesa Holstine asked author Tess Gerritsen to do a guest post on her blog, Lesa’s Book Critiques, she expected the writer might blog about her new book, Ice Cold, which debuted at #10 on this past Sunday’s New York Times bestseller list. Instead, Gerritsen offered a piece on recent budget cuts to public libraries across the country, and the place public libraries have had in her life.

July 19, 2010 by Authors Libraries

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