AndyW

New York Times: William Styron may have been one of the leading literary lions of recent decades, but his books are not selling much these days. Now his family has a plan to lure digital-age readers with e-book versions of titles like “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and Mr. Styron’s memoir of depression, “Darkness Visible.”

But the question of exactly who owns the electronic rights to such older titles is in dispute, making it a rising source of conflict in one of the publishing industry’s last remaining areas of growth.

Full story at the New York Times

Foreign migrants caught while in Mexico illegally can now at least fight boredom while mourning their bad fortune.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute says it has installed a library with 1,000 pieces of reading material at its holding station in eastern Mexico City. It’s named “Looking South,” even if many of the migrants caught were looking north, hoping to cross Mexico to reach the United States.

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An area woman wants the Pataskala Public Library to toss out a book she considers obscene.

The book in question is Eric Marlowe Garrison’s “Mastering Multiple Position Sex,” billed on its back cover as a lovemaking guide.

Pataskala resident Marti Shrigley said she saw the book on display while visiting the library and found it offensive. The cover contains seminude pictures of adults, and there are instructive illustrations inside.

“This, to me, is porn, under the guise of a learning manual,” Shrigley said.

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BBC: Radical modernisation is required for English libraries if they are to remain relevant, Culture Minister Margaret Hodge has said.

Ms Hodge said free access to books was still the cornerstone of the library.

But library customers were looking for something more than previous generations were, she said in a consultation paper.

“Sweeping advances in technology… mean they must move with the times to stay part of the times,” she said.

“Sleepwalking into the era of the iPhone, the eBook and the Xbox, without a strategy, runs the risk of turning the library service into a curiosity of history like telex machines or typewriters,” she added.

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Philadelphia Inquirer: In Darby Borough, where the number of families living below the poverty line is twice the national average, a few dollars mean a lot.

Yet Darby officials, facing the possible closing of the historic library founded in 1743, say they are committed to keeping it open, even if taxes go up.

“The residents said that if we had to raise taxes, they would appreciate that we do,” Mayor Helen Thomas said. “Everybody wants to save the library.”

Still, in a community where industry crumbled long ago, officials aren’t sure how they’ll find the money. Library director Susan Borders said she hoped the township would fund the library with $50,000, about $5 per person, almost double the $2.70 per person it receives now through a dedicated real estate tax.

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After an incident two weeks ago at its Fountain City branch, the Knox County Public Library system has posted signs prohibiting handguns and any weapon at its branches.

Such a sign has been posted for decades at the Lawson McGhee Library in downtown Knoxville, but not at the 17 branch libraries, said Larry Frank, director of the library system.

Frank said he wrote a memo to Knox County Law Director Bill Lockett about the handgun policy in libraries after a man came into the Fountain City library with a “visibly holstered handgun.”

Full story at the Knoxnews.com

Now available at the LJ site.

School board members in Miami have won their battle to remove a children’s book from the shelves of Miami-Dade school libraries because they said the book presented an inaccurate picture of life in Cuba.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court declined to take up the case of “Vamos a Cuba” – the little book that sparked a big controversy over alleged censorship in Miami.

The action lets stand a 2-1 ruling by the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals that the school board’s decision to remove the book was not censorship in violation of the First Amendment. Instead, the Atlanta-based appeals court said the school board was seeking to remove the book because it contained substantial factual inaccuracies.

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A controversial book about the Petit murders will stay on the library shelves.

The Library Board sided with Director Ramona Harten and her staff in their decision to order two copies of “In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood” by New York author Brian McDonald.

The book tells the story of the 2007 home invasion and triple murder from the perspective of Joshua Komisarjevsky, one of two men accused in the murders. McDonald interviewed Komisarjevsky in prison and exchanged several letters with him, material which he used for the book.

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Paul McCartney is to be awarded the Gershwin Prize For Popular Music in Washington in spring 2010.

The former Beatle will be the third musician – and the first non-American – to receive the prize, which is awarded by the US Library Of Congress. Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon were the previous recipients, with the former’s award being presented to him by US President Barack Obama in February 2009.

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