Jonathan

Anonymous Patron writes “This Article Says

Skip Rutherford, president of the nonprofit foundation that is building Clinton’s $160 million library-museum in Little Rock, said Bush appointee Allen Weinstein accepted an invitation to tour the site soon.”

Concerned M.L.S. writes “The Campbellsport (WI) Public Library is cutting hours against public wishes.

“To top it off, the library director was given a written warning by the board president and told that if she made any more mistakes that she is out. The warning was full of inaccurate information and mostly consisted of the opinions of the board president. This warning seems to have been given under illegal conditions.”

Concerned M.L.S. writes “The Campbellsport (WI) Public Library is cutting hours against public wishes.

“To top it off, the library director was given a written warning by the board president and told that if she made any more mistakes that she is out. The warning was full of inaccurate information and mostly consisted of the opinions of the board president. This warning seems to have been given under illegal conditions.”

Under Wisconsin state statutes s. 43.58 (4) provides that the library board has the authority to supervise the library director, and it is our opinion that this authority may not be delegated. As noted in Trustee Essential #3: “Library board bylaws should make clear that actions by board committees are advisory only. A library board committee cannot act on behalf of the full board-only actions by the full board have legal authority. Likewise, individual board members and board officers can perform official actions on behalf of the board only with specific authorization from the full board.” That is, a committee of the board or individual can not act with out the approval of the full board.

According to the director, two of the library board members didn’t even know that they had changed the hours or given the director a written warning.

Wisconsin’s misconduct in public office law (Wisconsin Statutes Section 946.12) applies to both library trustees and library staff. This law makes it a felony to intentionally take actions in excess of an official’s legal authority, or to intentionally make false records or statements. Intentional failure to perform a duty required by law is also prohibited. Moreover, it is a felony under this law to take actions inconsistent with the rights of others and performed with intent to obtain a dishonest advantage.

The initial story is at http://www.wisinfo.com/thereporter/news/archive/lo cal_15358665.shtml.

If anyone has been through a similar experience or can offer assistance please contact the director of the Campbellsport (WI) Public Library, http://www.campbellsportlibrary.org/.”

Ellen McCullough writes “xrefer, provider of online ready reference services to academic, public and corporate libraries, announced today that it is accepting proposals for a $1,000 grant to fund research focused on online reference usage in libraries. The award is open to librarians and to library students enrolled in ALA-accredited Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies in the United States and Canada.



“The purpose of the award is to encourage research on the use of online reference resources in libraries. The research topic is defined broadly and might include: differing patterns of usage of e-books versus Web-based resources; measures for successful integration of online reference resources; or usage of Web-based versus print resources.”

Ellen McCullough writes “xrefer, provider of online ready reference services to academic, public and corporate libraries, announced today that it is accepting proposals for a $1,000 grant to fund research focused on online reference usage in libraries. The award is open to librarians and to library students enrolled in ALA-accredited Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies in the United States and Canada.



“The purpose of the award is to encourage research on the use of online reference resources in libraries. The research topic is defined broadly and might include: differing patterns of usage of e-books versus Web-based resources; measures for successful integration of online reference resources; or usage of Web-based versus print resources.”“Abstracts should be submitted by May 15, 2004 to [email protected], and should not exceed 1,000 words in length.



“xrefer will select an award winner on June 15, 2004. Research should be completed by September 30, 2004, and xrefer will work with the chosen librarian or library student to publish or present the research findings in an appropriate venue in late 2004.

For more information contact Ellen McCullough at (617) 426-5710, by e-mail at [email protected], or by fax, (617) 426-3103.”

phoenix04 writes “Validation at last! This quote is from Google’s Chief Technology Officer: ‘…cataloging the Web is only the beginning. “My guess is about 300 years until computers are as good as, say, your local reference library in doing search,” says Craig Silverstein. “But we can make slow and steady progress, and maybe one day we’ll get there.” ‘

If you missed the tv show, here is the URL:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/25/sunday/m ain608672.shtml“

ResearchBuzz reports, “The good folks at Librarians Index to the Internet are offering Tax Time 2004, a theme collection on, um, tax collection. It’s available at http://lii.org/taxes/. Categories here include forms and instructions, audits, and the weirdly-named ‘Just for Fun’ which points to an ‘Individual Canine Income Tax Return.'”

According to an Associated Press article, Northeastern UP will close in 2005. A spokesperson for Northeastern said the school can no longer afford to subsidize the publishing operation, which costs up to $450,000 per year.

David Rothman writes in TeleRead of a new web venture called Project Gutenberg 2, offering access to ebooks in Adobe format on a paid membership basis. Some Gutenberg volunteers are concerned about the use of the PG name in such a context. “Over the weekend a Project Gutenberg volunteer list was buzzing with all kinds of questions for PG founder Michael Hart, who personally owns the Project Gutenberg trademark.” For Rothman and others, the news raises questions about PG’s ongoing commitment to the ideals of free distribution and nonproprietary formats.

Luis Acosta writes “Ken Light, whose 1971 photo of John Kerry was digitally doctored to make it appear that Kerry shared a stage with Jane Fonda and then distributed widely throughout cyberspace, should be applauded for maintaining a good archive of his analog photo negatives, which has enabled him to refute the hoax. He writes about the lessons for his Ethical Problems in Photography class in
today’s Washington Post
(free registration required).
At age 20 Light knew that “negatives are sacred, and that every roll of film must be carefully filed away for future use.” He notes “how easy and professional-looking these distortions of truth have become in the age of Photoshop.” Light says that this hit home for him when he found that “somebody had pulled my Kerry picture off my agency’s Web site, stuck Fonda at his side, and then used the massive, unedited reach of the Internet to distribute it all over the world.””

An Anonymous Patron writes “This Story Says

The British Library has added details of more than 2.55m books to the Amazon.co.uk books catalogue, with 1.7m of these dated before the 1970 introduction of ISBN.” One hopes the BL was richly remunerated.

Free graphics files are available for printing 4-color posters that read, “When your deadline is near and you need help finding something, ask a librarian–go to your library’s website.” Visit http://www.ask-a-librarian.org/press.cfm to download your choice of 3 posters. The Assn. of Southeastern Research Libraries created the posters to promote their own new v-Ref service.

Free graphics files are available for printing 4-color posters that read, “When your deadline is near and you need help finding something, ask a librarian–go to your library’s website.” Visit http://www.ask-a-librarian.org/press.cfm to download your choice of 3 posters. The Assn. of Southeastern Research Libraries created the posters to promote their own new v-Ref service.According to John Burger of ASERL, “We think the message is general enough to be useful to other libraries offering v-ref services and wanted to make them available to anyone who could use them. … If you do opt to use them I would appreciate it if you could drop me a line about how you used them just so I can know if this kind of thing is valuable for the future.”