July 2012

from NPR:

Talk show host Stephen Colbert’s foray into children’s books has landed him alongside some exalted literary company.

A playful new exhibit at Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum & Library pairs priceless material by James Joyce and Maurice Sendak with, um, perhaps less valuable items used by Colbert to write “I Am A Pole (And So Can You!).”

Colbert’s pens, beer bottles and lunch remnants are certainly not the usual fare for the Rosenbach, the Philadelphia institution that houses the only complete manuscript of Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

But museum officials say the display reinforces their mission to engage and inspire visitors with collections that include papers from Lewis Carroll, Bram Stoker and Miguel de Cervantes.

“If I can do that by having Stephen Colbert make a joke about ‘Ulysses,’ why not?” said Rosenbach director Derick Dreher.

Blog post at Scientific American about libraries and ebooks.

Story out of Pontiac, IL:

Eric E. Colclasure, 44, of Pontiac, the former director of the Pontiac and Odell libraries, was sentenced to six years in prison Thursday afternoon on felony charges alleging he stole from his employers.
In addition to the prison term, Colclasure was ordered by Ford County Circuit Judge Stephen Pacey to pay restitution to Odell Public Library in the amount of $30,118.65 within 24 months of his release. He will also be given credit for three days time served and will spend two years immediately after his prison release in supervisory release.

Amazon made a profit of 7 million on revenues of 12 billion.
Article in the NYT: Amazon Delivers on Revenue but Not on Profit

In other news Jeff Bezos donated 2.5 million in support of same sex marriage. Article in the NYT: Amazon’s Founder Pledges $2.5 Million in Support of Same-Sex Marriage

How Google Organizes the World: Q&A With the Manager of Knowledge Graph
In May, Google launched a major overhaul of its search results. The Knowledge Graph on the right-hand side of the page displays facts and images about the subject of your query alongside the usual Web results. Google is moving away from basic keyword matching and toward recognizing real-world things and their relationships. We sat down with Emily Moxley, Google’s lead product manager for the Knowledge Graph, to learn how Google is tackling this challenge.

Landmark publication Weekly Reader to shut down
Weekly Reader, a staple in American classrooms for a century, has some hard news for its young readers: it’s shutting down.

Chief rival Scholastic, which bought the school newspaper earlier this year, is folding it into Scholastic News and axing all but five of Weekly Reader’s 60 employees in White Plains, NY, The Post has learned.

From Brian Herzog, Swiss Army Librarian:

Earlier this summer, my coworker Tommy got the idea for a library art project: mail a letter to 200+ libraries across the country, asking them to send him one of their library cards.

He enclosed a return envelope, and most of them responded! For the next few weeks, Tommy’s envelopes, with new library cards enclosed, poured into the library from all over the country. It was fun to see the variety and creativity of library cards.

Tommy’s project was dependent on how many library cards he received. In the end, the number he got fit more or less perfectly on one of the coffee tables in the library, so he got permission to arrange them on a table and cover them with a protective epoxy. It looks great in the library, and the plan is to leave it in the library permanently. Tom also put up a sign on the table explaining what he did – the table is very eye-catching, and has already proved popular with staff and patrons.

Bookstore owner finds business a page turner
Kim Krug took a big step in June 2009: she opened the Monkey See, Monkey Do children’s bookstore in Clarence, NY with her mother, Kathleen Skoog, as her business partner. Starting a small business at any time can be challenging, but Krug did so amid an economic downturn, and in an industry under pressure from online booksellers and e-books.

For five weeks each summer Rare Book School brings some 300 librarians, conservators, scholars, dealers, collectors and random book-mad civilians together for weeklong intensive courses in an atmosphere that combines the intensity of the seminar room, the nerdiness of a “Star Trek” convention and the camaraderie of a summer camp where people come back year after year.

Full article in the NYT