AndyW

SuburbanChicagoNews: ELGIN — Kate Burlette calls the $1-a-day fines charged by Gail Borden Public Library for overdue video games the “extended use fees.”

That, said the director of circulation services, is when a teenager hangs on to a video game much longer than the three-week checkout period “because he wants to beat the Xbox game.”

But for $1 day, that same teenager might find he doesn’t have the cash to pay off his overdue fines. And with outstanding fines, he can’t rent the next game.

However, from now until Saturday, Nov. 14, if that teen brings in food for the library’s annual Food for Fines promotion, he can pay down those fines.

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All but one member of Highwood’s (IL) library board were greeted at their doors by police officers with dismissal notices last week. The one remaining trustee and treasurer, William Koch, was asked to stay on, but resigned on Sunday.

Highwood Mayor Charlie Pecaro said he is assembling a new board to bring a more modern tone to the library, but released trustees see the mass dismissal as the city’s backlash for their prior complaints.

In a city council meeting scheduled for Oct. 27, the council will have determined whether to veto the nearly full-board dismissal or appoint a new board.

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TheInquirer.net: The Chinese Communist Party’s main newspaper has accused Google of keeping searchers away from its website after it reported on a copyright dispute.

The People’s Daily had reported on a Chinese group’s complaint that Google’s planned online library of digitised books might violate Chinese authors’ copyrights.

For three days Google searches for the report, in the books section of the website, warned users the site might contain harmful software. The paper argues that the Chinese search engine Baidu did not return a similar warning.

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Meiji University in Tokyo has announced plans to open a library devoted to the art of manga, the Japanese graphic novel genre.

Full blurb at the NYT

SAN DIEGO — By shelving a new downtown library, the city could save as much as $63 million over the next five years, according to a fiscal analysis by San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio.

DeMaio, who is opposed to the project, issued a memo yesterday to his council colleagues and Mayor Jerry Sanders that outlines how much the city would save if it abandons the project.

The goal of the memo was to refute assertions made by library supporters that the project won’t take funds from the city’s $1.1?billion general fund, which pays for daily operations such as fire, police and parks.

DeMaio said the city should redirect redevelopment funds set aside for the library to cover the annual costs of the city’s debt service on Petco Park and the Convention Center. That would free money in the general fund to help solve the city’s projected budget deficit of $179 million for next year, he said. —C.G.

Original article

NEWTOWN, Pa. — George School alumna Barbara Dodd Anderson credits her close family friend, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, as the inspiration for her charitable giving, including the $5 million lead donation that helped build the school’s new library, which officially opened with a dedication ceremony yesterday.

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CNN:The European Union has launched a digital library that offers documents dating to nearly 60 years ago, in 23 languages.

All documents ever edited on behalf of European Union institutions, agencies and other bodies will be available in the library, the organization said in a news release.

“The digital library frees the memory of the European Union tied to paper since its beginning,” said Leonard Orban, the union’s commissioner for multilingualism.

The electronic library is free to individuals, companies and libraries worldwide, which can download documents as PDF (Portable Document Format) files, Orban said. About 12 million pages — roughly 110,000 EU publications — are available for download, according to officials.

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SFGate.com City Brights Blog: In 49 BC, parts of the priceless Library of Alexandria burned, when Julius Caesar set a fire to the Egyptian fleet in the harbor and the fire spread. Portions more burned or were destroyed by barbarians over the next few centuries as Alexandria fell from grace as the world’s leading center of knowledge and learning. Today, the destruction of the Library is considered one of the worst tragedies of ancient times.

Well, the barbarians are back.

One of the most remarkable library treasures of the University of California system is the Water Resources Center Archives, a unique and irreplaceable collection of current and historical scientific, political, educational, and personal materials on California, western US, and global water history, science, and policy.

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Gloucester Daily Times: The world of fantasy gaming will be explored by author Ethan Gilsdorf Wednesday night at 7 in the library’s Brenner Friends Room.

Gilsdorf wrote “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.”

Library assistant Camilla Ayers described the work as “an enthralling blend of travelogue, pop culture analysis, and memoir. He traveled around the world asking gaming and fantasy geeks how they balance their escapist urges with real world adulthood.”

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Google is poised to launch its “buy anywhere, read anywhere” digital books programme Google Editions simultaneously in the US, UK and Europe within the first half of next year.

Speaking at the Tools of Change conference in Frankfurt, Amanda Edmonds, Google’s director of strategic partnerships, said the programme would be rolled out by June. Edmonds said one of the strengths of Google’s offering was that once bought, the e-book would exist in a “cloud library”, which could be accessed from potentially any device, including laptops, “smart phones” or e-readers. “As long as you can get onto the library, you can access it,” Edmonds said. “All books will live in the same library, so it doesn’t matter where you buy it or where you read it.”

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