January 2011

The Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR)
About the Journal
The founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected. Despite that apparent drawback, here are a number of reasons you may choose to submit to the JofUR:

You can send your manuscript here without suffering waves of anxiety regarding the eventual fate of your submission. You know with 100% certainty that it will not be accepted for publication.
There are no page-fees.
You may claim to have submitted to the most prestigious journal (judged by acceptance rate).
The JofUR is one-of-a-kind. Merely submitting work to it may be considered a badge of honor.
You retain complete rights to your work, and are free to resubmit to other journals even before our review process is complete.
Decisions are often (though not always) rendered within hours of submission.

Helping indie bookstores survive on thin ice
But all that’s changing now. As competition from Amazon.com stiffens and the long-looming specter of e-books materializes into a stark new reality, indie bookstores are broadening their outreach in an effort to establish themselves as community nerve centers.

Article: A Fundamental Right to Read: Reader Privacy Protections in the U.S. Constitution

Article can be found at 82 U. Colo. L. Rev. 307 (2011)

Not available free online. If you have access to Lexis or Lexis Academic or subscribe to the University of Colorado Law Review you can read the article.

Newport News’ public library system is holding a stump the librarian contest. See: http://hamptonroads.com/2011/01/stump-librarians

Book weeding, changes stir debate at Central Library
Librarians say the Central Library is moving away from its commitment as a research library, hastily discarding thousands of books and degrading their professional roles within an increasingly demoralized workplace.

However, administrators say they are weeding large numbers of books to largely make way for a new tagging system while undertaking prudent changes in collections and needed staff restructuring during a period of great change.

Reviewing the impact of Kindle not supporting or supporting library books
Three possibilities for Kindle and Library Books
There are actually three possibilities when it comes to adding support for library books to Kindles –
1.Kindle doesn’t add support for library books.
2.Kindle adds support for library books using some format other than ePub.
3.Kindle adds support for library books using ePub.
The difference between the latter two might not matter much to customers who want library books, but it matters immensely to Amazon.
The 32% of people who want support for library books

Perceptions of Libraries, 2010: Context and Community

OCLC’s newest membership report, Perceptions of Libraries, 2010, a sequel to the 2005 Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources, is now available. The new report provides updated information and new insights into information consumers and their online habits, preferences, and perceptions. Particular attention was paid to how the current economic downturn has affected the information-seeking behaviors and how those changes are reflected in the use and perception of libraries.

This OCLC membership report explores:

•Technological and economic shifts since 2005
•Lifestyle changes Americans have made during the recession, including increased use of the library and other online resources
•How a negative change to employment status impacts use and perceptions of the library
•Perceptions of libraries and information resources based on life stage
The report is based on U.S. data from an online survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of OCLC. OCLC analyzed and summarized the results in order to produce this report.

Attention children’s book fans and amateur filmmakers: Can you make a video that compresses the story of a Newbery Award-winning book into 90 seconds or less?

Author James Kennedy and the New York Public Library are co-sponsoring the 90-Second Newbery Video Contest, which will culminate in “a star-studded 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the New York Public Library in Fall of 2011,” Kennedy wrote on his website. For an entertaining sample, check out the abbreviated version of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time on the website.

The Friends of the Rancho Mirage (CA) Public Library will hand almost all of its $2.2 million in assets over to Rancho Mirage and dissolve itself, under the terms of a settlement agreement which will end the city’s lawsuit against the organization. Report from My Desert News.

The city is to get $310,000 from the Friends’ account within a week to cover Library programs, improvements to the Community Room and other items included in the city’s funding request to the Friends from last August. About $1.8 million will be transferred to the Rancho Mirage Public Library Foundation, which the city formed as a replacement library fundraising arm when it filed suit in September.

The settlement ends a dispute which erupted in the fall of 2008, when the Friends board gave approval to buying a $25,000 sponsorship of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, a transaction never made after some board members raised objections.

This led to the city’s discovery that the Friends board had changed its bylaws, without notifying city officials, to eliminate an annual, automatic transfer of funds. The city had overlooked the end of the fund transfers.

The Friends board said most of the money it had in the bank was designated by donors to be in an endowment, set aside to draw interest, and not spent itself.

Emily Lloyd wonders Should a portion of the library building be rebranded and promoted as the ideal coworking space?

I follow a listserv for my neighborhood, and folks are often looking for coworking spaces (to rent) and others to cowork with. Plenty of people already run their small businesses from or do their freelance work at the library, but entirely independently, without the quietly social, communal feeling that it seems those who are looking for coworking spaces crave. Could we fashion a “coworking area,” much the way we fashion teen and children’s areas, in the library? And aggressively, cleverly promote it as a “coworking space–but better,” because workers in the library will have access to on-site librarians who can help them with database searches, etc?