I\’m sorry to lower the tone after today\’s important stories, but here\’s one I couldn\’t resist – an assistant librarian from Belfast Free Library (Maine) has been charged with assault for punching a patron. The patron had tried to use a floppy disk in a library computer and the two had to be pulled apart. The full story from the Bangor Daily News.
I particularly like the sentence \”Police said that use of floppy disks is not allowed\”, as though that explains everything!
Celine
Conan the Librarian
So, I know that it\’s a bit early for a Friday funny but you just have to look at Conan the Librarian and his hilarious true tales of life in a library.
It was sooooo hard to pick a single example but here\’s a little sample for you:
\”I am looking for a book with this call number, but I can\’t find it,\” a student tells Conan. \”Which call number?\” Conan asks. The student shows him a slip of paper with \”327 p. 22 cm.\” written on it. Conan, ever the diplomat, pauses for a moment and then says to the student, \”I\’m sure we can find the book, but do you happen to recall what the title is?\”
Mayor asks library officials to resign
The mayor of Warren (Macomb County, MI) has asked the library director and the Library Commission chairman to resign over their handling of a \”slush fund\”. This fund of $18,000 has been used by them to pay for trips to ALA but also more controversially, Kiwanis dues and political fund-raiser tickets. The mayor wants all spending to be approved by City Council and thinks, in times of big library budget deficits, it should go towards \”library-related items\” such as books. The two officials refuse to resign and defend their activities as representing and promoting the library within the community. Make up your own mind by reading this story from the Macomb Daily.
Strange behavior
This story from the San Jose Mercury News on how a court has issued a restraining order against a veteran San Jose police officer accused of making harrassing phone calls to the director of the County Law Library which recently dismissed him from a part-time security job.
Libraries will benefit from building sale
San Diego\’s First National Bank Building, the city\’s first high-rise office building built in 1909, will be sold to a private developer and all the proceeds will go to the branch libraries. The Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation, the philanthropic organization which last owned the building, donated it to the city with the proviso that any money made from its sale had to go to improving San Diego\’s libraries reports this little story from Sign On San Diego.
Preserving our 21st century digital heritage
This interesting feature from ABC News takes a detailed look at the issues surrounding the need to preserve the mass of information now being produced in digital form. It looks at efforts made by the Library of Congress and initiatives such as The Internet Archive to find ways of capturing this part of our cultural heritage and storing it for posterity. An excellent story with lots of useful links.
\”If somebody were to try to write a dissertation today about the Web in 1994, say, they would be hard-pressed to find the kind of archival primary materials that they\’d want.\”
It’s library week in Botswana
Today marks the beginning of Library Week, hosted by the Botswana National Library Service reports this story from the Botswana Press Agency. The theme is \”Libraries – Gateway to an informed and educated nation\”, to link in with Vision 2016, by which Botswana aims to be an informed and educated nation. It will be celebrated in public, special and education libraries and village reading-rooms.
Libraries forced to charge to make ends meet
This story from The Jerusalem Post tells how possibly 50% of Israel\’s public libraries have been reduced to charging patrons to borrow books, even though charging fees is illegal. This is the only way they can stay open because they are so short of money. Librarians and library supporters have been demonstrating in front of Jerusalem\’s main public library to try to get the extra funding needed.
Harry Potter artwork on sale
This story from Ananova reports that the original artwork from the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher\’s Stone, is to be auctioned at Sotheby\’s of London and is expected to fetch about 25,000 pounds sterling (just under $40,000). It is a 1977 watercolor by Thomas Taylor, though the editions I have seen of Harry Potter and the Sorceror\’s Stone (as it was called in the US) had a different cover, I think.
Sotheby\’s will also be auctioning a letter in which JRR Tolkien apparently accuses Walt Disney of being a business cheat.
New Internet Scout weblog
I have just found out that the excellent Internet Scout Report has a brand new weblog. It already has some interesting links including one to a digital exhibition by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on \”Early Las Vegas\” and a browser emulator which lets you look at web pages on the early 1.0 and 2.0 versions of browsers.
If you have never heard of the Scout Report, it is \”a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators\” and is well worth a look.
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