February 2011

Not again. President Obama delivered the same message to media specialists as he did last year. In his FY2012 budget to Congress on Monday, he proposed eliminating Improving Literacy Through School Libraries, a decade-old federal program designed to boost academic achievement by providing students with access to up-to-date school library materials.

And he didn’t stop there.

For the first time since taking office, the president is cutting monies to public libraries, asking to slash funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) by about 10 percent—or $20.3million—to $193.2 million from its current $213.5 million. That would mean only $161.3 million in grants would be available next year for our nation’s 123,000 public libraries, down from $172.5 million in FY2010.

Full article at School Library Journal

The part of the brain thought to be responsible for processing visual text may not require vision at all, researchers report in the journal Current Biology.

This region, known as the visual word form area, processes words when people with normal vision read, but researchers found that it is also activated when the blind read using Braille.

Full article

As the world embraces its digital age — two billion people now use the Internet regularly — the line delineating two Americas has become more broadly drawn. There are those who have reliable, fast access to the Internet, and those, like about half of the 27,867 people here in Clarke County, AL who do not. For many here, where the median household income is $27,388, the existing cellphone and Internet options are too expensive.

The above is from an article in the the NY Times about the lack of connectivity in most of rural America. Length piece, but this portion about the library is of particular interest:

Gina Wilson, director of the Thomasville Library, oversees 11 terminals with lightning-fast Internet access. They attract the usual array of children and the unemployed during the day, as well as college students who take classes online. At night, people stop by after work to check their e-mail or scroll through Facebook.

Mrs. Wilson noticed that after hours, people would pull into the parking lot, open their laptops and try to use the library’s wireless signal. So she started leaving it on all night, and soon will post a sign on the door with the password (which, if you are in Thomasville and need to get online, is “guest.”)

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, [librarians are] “normally a quiet bunch” but about 250 from all corners of the state made some noise Wednesday at the Texas Capitol as they tried to head off looming budget cuts that would virtually eliminate state support for public libraries.

“If these programs are not funded, then it will affect every community, every school and every institution of higher education in the state,” said Gloria Meraz, communications director for the Texas Library Association.

The cutbacks could mean reduced access to TexShare, a mammoth database service available in 677 libraries, and to a K-12 database provided for 4.5 million Texas schoolchildren and 500,000 educators.

“If the Fort Worth Public Library had to negotiate for the TexShare database on their own, it would cost $2 million a year,” said Peggy Rudd, director of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Also targeted for elimination is funding for TexNet Interlibrary Loan programs and Loan Star Library Grants, which provides money to extend hours and other services.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/16/2855602/at-texas-capitol-librarians-protest.html#ixzz1EFTpju6Q

The Book Cellar, a nonprofit used bookstore in the basement of the Agoura Hills Library, is a hidden treasure trove that raises funds for the library and donates books to schools, prisons and even other nations.

Cozy and filled to the brim, the Book Cellar once again claimed a spot in L.A. Weekly’s Best of L.A. In the weekly’s 2010 “Best of” edition, the Cellar was named the “Best Excuse to Buy ‘Crime and Punishment.’” The Cellar won the publication’s “ Best Literary Mine” in the 2008 “ Best of L.A.” edition.

Eric and Diane Haupt have been managing the Book Cellar for years and count on community volunteers from the Friends of the Agoura Hills Library to man the store each week. Eric Haupt said 95 percent of the Cellar’s proceeds support the library. Since California’s economy tanked, the money has been used to bridge the gap left by state budget cuts.

Eric Haupt said he recently wrote a check for $7,000 to renew the library’s subscriptions to newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. “We’re doing great and we’re only open one day a week,” Eric Haupt said.

Report from The Acorn.

everything that is wrong with bookmarks
The history of bookmarks is one of those tragic stories in technology. When bookmarks were first introduced (by Netscape? or maybe it was Mosaic?) they were a huge step forward. Trying to memorize urls or writing them on paper clearly weren’t methods that worked well. The idea — and so simple too — that the browser could remember the urls for you was the perfect solution.

Sadly, since the “big bang” of bookmarks there have been precious few new explosions.

Computer’s artificial intelligence could be a boon to legal research — and might even come in handy in the courtroom.

Opinion piece in The National Law Journal

The Guardian has put together a composite of library scenes from a variety of movies here, including The Breakfast Club, Ghostbusters, The Squid and The Whale.

There are many reasons we need to save our libraries, not least because of their cinematic history. From thrillers to epic romances to teen comedies, the library is cinema’s go-to location when it wants somewhere with history, gravitas and a glass door that can shatter when you scream. They’re sacred places, spooky places – they’re downright sexy places. Characters can find the meaning of life and death in them, clues to help solve cases in them, or just have a big old sing song in them. With such a rich history, one does wonder what would happen if writers and directors no longer felt the need to use them in films. What would they use instead? The internet can never compete visually – who wants to see their leading man/lady finding out facts on Wikipedia? Discovering the murderer on an app? Searching the shelves of … Amazon? It just won’t do.

So sign every petition you can, borrow as many books as possible, keep libraries alive and open, on our high streets and in our cinemas. In other words, don’t ssssh.

LA Weekly: Due to drastically reduced library hours and staff, which were caused by severe, City Hall-approved budget cuts children’s librarian Terri Markson says her outreach work to local schools has been diminished, it’s very difficult to arrange student field trips to the Fairfax Branch, and the library is now closed on Mondays — a crucial day that starts off a student’s academic week.

“The library is where (kids) type up their homework,” says Markson, noting that many students from low- to middle-income families don’t own a computer and printer and go to a library to use those things.

It’s a shocking situation, in which politicians have quickly turned one of the largest and most respected library systems in the country into an institution that’s now less kid-friendly, less student-friendly, and less family-friendly. But Measure L, an initiative authored by L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks, seeks to help those kids and families by better funding L.A.’s public libraries.

The ballot measure will not increase taxes, but dedicates a slightly larger slice of existing money in the city’s general fund to the library system.

LA Weekly: Due to drastically reduced library hours and staff, which were caused by severe, City Hall-approved budget cuts children’s librarian Terri Markson says her outreach work to local schools has been diminished, it’s very difficult to arrange student field trips to the Fairfax Branch, and the library is now closed on Mondays — a crucial day that starts off a student’s academic week.

“The library is where (kids) type up their homework,” says Markson, noting that many students from low- to middle-income families don’t own a computer and printer and go to a library to use those things.

It’s a shocking situation, in which politicians have quickly turned one of the largest and most respected library systems in the country into an institution that’s now less kid-friendly, less student-friendly, and less family-friendly. But Measure L, an initiative authored by L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks, seeks to help those kids and families by better funding L.A.’s public libraries.

The ballot measure will not increase taxes, but dedicates a slightly larger slice of existing money in the city’s general fund to the library system.

L.A. Weekly, in fact, uncovered these embarrassing truths in the widely-read feature story “City of Airheads” which outraged many L.A. residents. Both of the city’s major newspaper, the LA Times and the Daily News oppose the measure.

Borders files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
Borders Group is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization after a long struggle to stay afloat as the book and music businesses changed beneath its feet.

The 40-year-old company plans to close about 30 percent of its stores, or about 200, over the next few weeks.