May 2011

Three Books For The Grammar Lover In Your Life

What makes books about the decline of traditional grammar and usage so popular? Books like Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves lament the downfall of traditional punctuation standards and promise a return to good old days gone by. But there never was a golden age of language, because language itself is in a constant state of flux. Yet we still pride ourselves on speaking and writing “well” — even when the definition of “well” is a moving target.

How can we think about grammatical “correctness” when grammar’s rules are always evolving? These three books give some needed perspective to a lively — and heated — linguistic debate.

Full piece at NPR

May 18, 2011 by Books EBooks

Oprah/Frey, Round Two

Whatever James Frey’s reasons for ignoring friends’ and lawyers’ advice to not return to the Oprah Show five years after he endured a tongue-lashing there, the appearance offered an opportunity to bring attention to his new book, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. And that it did; the $50 print version rose to #253 from a lowly #10,286 on Amazon’s sales rankings and the $9.99 Kindle edition rose to #69.

Although the Oprah site describes the book as “the story of the Second Coming of Christ in today’s modern world — but in James’ book, Christ is a bisexual former alcoholic who lives in the Bronx and impregnates a stripper,” that description is not in the televised interview. Oprah simply says it is “controversial” because any book that uses “Bible” in the title will be. Frey says he hopes the book will “change people’s lives for the better” by getting them to “think about God differently,” making it sound tailor-made for the Oprah audience.

Story at EarlyWord.com

May 18, 2011 by Legal Issues

A Book in Every Home, and Then Some

When we imagine people without books, we think of villagers in places like Afghanistan. But many families in the United States have no children’s books at home. In some of the poorest areas of the country, it’s hard to find books for sale. A study (pdf) of low-income neighborhoods in Philadelphia, for example, found a ratio of one book for sale for every 300 children. Tens of millions of poor Americans can’t afford to buy books at all.

At Fixes, we like to highlight creative ways that markets can be harnessed to extend access to vital services like electricity, credit, or water. Today, I’m focusing on a nonprofit organization called First Book, which is spearheading a new market mechanism that is delivering millions of new, high quality books to low-income children through thousands of nonprofit organizations and Title I schools.

The First Book Marketplace is trying to do for publishing what micro-finance did for banking: crack open a vast potential market that is underserved at significant social cost. The organization’s goal is to democratize book access, but along the way, it may end up reinvigorating the book business.

Full piece

May 18, 2011 by Books School Libraries

Who Needs Literacy? Only Federal Program Funding School Libraries Eliminated

WASHINGTON, D.C.– The Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program was zeroed out under the Department of Education’s allocation for FY2011 funding (PDF), released today.

Improving Literacy Through School Libraries is the only federal program solely for our nation’s school libraries. This program supports local education agencies in improving reading achievement by providing students with increased access to up-to-date school library materials; well-equipped, technologically advanced school libraries; and professionally certified school librarians.

“This decision shows that school libraries have been abandoned by President Obama and the Department of Education,” Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association (ALA) Washington Office, said.

“The Department has withdrawn funding for numerous successful literacy programs in order to launch new initiatives to bolster science, technology, engineering, and math education. Apparently, what the Department of Education fails to realize is that the literacy and research skills students develop through an effective school library program are the very building blocks of STEM education. Withdrawing support from this crucial area of education is an astounding misstep by an Administration that purports to be a champion of education reform.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.– The Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program was zeroed out under the Department of Education’s allocation for FY2011 funding (PDF), released today.

Improving Literacy Through School Libraries is the only federal program solely for our nation’s school libraries. This program supports local education agencies in improving reading achievement by providing students with increased access to up-to-date school library materials; well-equipped, technologically advanced school libraries; and professionally certified school librarians.

“This decision shows that school libraries have been abandoned by President Obama and the Department of Education,” Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association (ALA) Washington Office, said.

“The Department has withdrawn funding for numerous successful literacy programs in order to launch new initiatives to bolster science, technology, engineering, and math education. Apparently, what the Department of Education fails to realize is that the literacy and research skills students develop through an effective school library program are the very building blocks of STEM education. Withdrawing support from this crucial area of education is an astounding misstep by an Administration that purports to be a champion of education reform.”

Nancy Everhart, president of the ALA’s Association of School Librarians (AASL), said school library programs provide students with the skills they need to select, interpret, form and communicate ideas in compelling ways with emerging technologies, preparing students for the demands of a global, competitive economy and a 21st century workplace.

“Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that students in schools with strong school library programs learn more, get better grades, and score higher on standardized tests even when differences in socioeconomic factors are taken into consideration,” Everhart said.

May 17, 2011 by American Library Association Libraries School Libraries

No Love for “Lovingly Alice” as School District Removes Book

A Paradise Valley, AZ mother is upset that her daughter was subjected to Lovingly Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.

“If you looked on the cover, it’s just a very young cute girl on the cover,” Lockhart said. “My (incoming) second-grader can pick this book up and think, ‘This is a cute book.’ There needs to be some sort of warning label.”

Officials with the Paradise Valley Unified School District have pulled the book from their shelves.

More from AZCentral.

May 17, 2011 by Books School Libraries

Go read this: women help fuel rise in ebook piracy

How do you know you are doing something wrong?

When 35-year-old women are a problem for your industry. Seriously, does ANYONE really believe that this age-group are pirating ebooks because they ‘hate’ publishers or dislike copyright?

No, they are downloading ebooks from illegal sources because they can’t find legal ones, the prices at legal sites are well beyond what they think are fair or simply because they haven’t been reached by legitimate publishers.

Full story at Teleread

May 17, 2011 by Books EBooks Legal Issues

Librarian’s Book Club – The Shallows – Some additional thoughts

Hi readers, Bearkat here, I apologize for the almost two month delay in submitting any thoughts about The Shallows but here are some quotes and points that stood out to me.

111 – Clay Shriky, a digital media scholar at New York University, suggested in a 2008 blog post that we shouldn’t waste our time morning the death of deep reading – it was overated all along”

178 – Umberto Eco: our fear of new things replacing old.

181 – Don Tapscott memorization is a “waste of time”.

217 – James Evans: journal research study – less diverse citations in articles as journals have moved online.

218 – “The easy way may not always be the best way, but the easy way is the way our computers and search engines encourage us to take.” (when using Google, Netflix, Facebook, etc.) We are “following a script”

And some questions:

* Do you agree with Clay Shirky that we shouldn’t waste our time morning the death of deep reading (p. 111), and/or Don Tapscott’s opinion that with the storehouse of computer databases and the Web that memorization is a “waste of time” (p. 181)? What are we forsaking by relying too much on the Web as a memory tool? All of us probably use it as a memory aid but should we stop memorizing things altogether?

* In chapter 9 Carr seems to imply that Google is the main constructor of how we use the Web. Is this true? If so, what are the implications? If is true will be so in 5 years?

May 14, 2011 by Books EBooks Google Internet Librarians Libraries

GSU E-Reserves Trial To Begin Next Week

Despite a flurry of last-minute briefs, as of today the most significant copyright trial since the Kinko’s coursepack litigation, Cambridge University Press et al v. Patton et al, is still on track to begin on Monday, May 16. The case revolves around the practice known as electronic reserves at Georgia State University. And while initial reports have characterized publishers as facing a difficult road, a pre-trial memorandum filed by publishers’ attorneys on April 29 outlines a case that could be stronger than previously thought.

Full story at Publishers Weekly

May 13, 2011 by Uncategorized

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