Steve

Read this Story from the Macon Telegraph.




Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough spent more than an hour Monday night singing the praise of libraries.

Read this Story from the Macon Telegraph.




Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough spent more than an hour Monday night singing the praise of libraries.

\”People have some very unfortunate misconceptions about public libraries,\” he told a crowd of several hundred gathered at Mercer University\’s Willingham Auditorium. As one who has used the nation\’s library system extensively in
writing and researching, McCullough said it is among the greatest blessings available to humans.




\”It transcends both time and space,\” he said. \”With books, who needs wings?\”




McCullough also said he was proud there still are more public libraries in the country than McDonald\’s restaurants. There are libraries dedicated to nearly every profession or speciality, he said, noting libraries for students of plywood and old music.

Read this Press Release from Dialog.com.




The Dialog Corporation (LSE: DLG, NASDAQ:DIAL), a leading provider of Internet-based information, technology and e-commerce solutions, today announced the proposed refinancing and restructuring of the Group through the sale of its Information Services Division (ISD) to The Thomson Corporation [TSE: TOC] which will enable the repayment of all the Group\’s outstanding senior and high yield debt. Separately, Dialog reported financial results for the year ended December 31, 1999.




The overall effect of these proposals is to reposition the Group – which will be renamed Bright Station plc (http://www.brightstation.com) – to focus on its eCommerce and Web Solutions businesses, with an additional £27.9 ($44) million of new equity investment. These divisions can now be developed to their full potential. The Board is also proposing the creation of an investment business that will focus on developing promising Internet and eCommerce start-ups, leveraging the Company\’s leading edge technologies, management experience and new capital.

Owed an estimated $160,700 in books and fines, this library intends to collect. Read this story from the Greensboro News & Record.




The well-worn library copy of \”War and Peace\” shoved underneath the bed with the dust bunnies could cost you some percentage points on your next loan.




Nearly one year after the High Point Public Library turned its truant members over to a professional collection agency, more than 2,200 people have faced paying the fines or putting a seven-year blemish on their credit reports, according to the library\’s latest report released at its monthly Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday.

Owed an estimated $160,700 in books and fines, this library intends to collect. Read this story from the Greensboro News & Record.




The well-worn library copy of \”War and Peace\” shoved underneath the bed with the dust bunnies could cost you some percentage points on your next loan.




Nearly one year after the High Point Public Library turned its truant members over to a professional collection agency, more than 2,200 people have faced paying the fines or putting a seven-year blemish on their credit reports, according to the library\’s latest report released at its monthly Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday.

As of February, the library has received more than $16,360 in fines and nearly $26,000 worth of returned materials. They have paid Unique Management Services, the collection agency, about $15,400 since hiring the agency in April 1999. Library director Kem Ellis said although the agency is costing nearly as much money as it brings in so far, he\’s still fairly pleased with the results.




\”It\’s the value of the books and materials we get back, that\’s something we don\’t have to go out and buy again,\” Ellis told members of the library board on Wednesday.

Read this story from the Greenville News.




A Greenville County Library board with six new members aboard opened the possibility of filtering the Internet Wednesday by sending the controversial issue for a committee revamp.




\”I think site-oriented filtering might be the answer,\” said operations committee chairman Doug Churdar, a new member who said he will try to craft an Internet policy for board consideration within two months. Site filtering is a method of policing in which a filter blocks entire Web sites based on content rather than certain key words.

Read this story from the Greenville News.




A Greenville County Library board with six new members aboard opened the possibility of filtering the Internet Wednesday by sending the controversial issue for a committee revamp.




\”I think site-oriented filtering might be the answer,\” said operations committee chairman Doug Churdar, a new member who said he will try to craft an Internet policy for board consideration within two months. Site filtering is a method of policing in which a filter blocks entire Web sites based on content rather than certain key words. Simultaneously, board chairman David Suddeth also expressed a desire to getpornography out of the library.




Although any change in moving from the library\’s wide-open Internet policy to a filtered system will inevitably be seen as a result of County Council\’s recent housecleaning that sent four incumbents packing, Suddeth said it\’s more
complicated than that.




His old board, he said, only learned in January about 32 Internet-related incidents ranging from a violation of sign-up procedures to a patron who allegedly touched girls inappropriately. Suddeth blamed the delay on a \”lack of
communication between the board and senior management.\”

Read this story from the Gazzette Online.




A Hiawatha couple is asking the Cedar Rapids school district to withdraw the popular Harry Potter books from school libraries.




Brad and Brenda Birdnow will present their request to remove \”Harry Potter and the Sorcerer\’s Stone\” to the district\’s PTA Reconsideration Committee at 4:15 p.m. today at the Educational Service Center, 346 Second Ave. SW.




Brad Birdnow said he and his wife object to the way the book romantically portrays witches, warlocks, wizards, goblins and evil sorcerers.

Read this article from Excite News about this unique form of protest . It would be interesting to get some responses to this article. Does this protest infringe on the right to access information? How about its impact on library staff?




Each day University students, faculty and staff check out about 300 books from the Shapiro Undergraduate Library. But Thursday a group of graduate students borrowed nearly 3,000 books in less than three hours.




The 50 students checked out the books to protest how the University administration handled the conflict between the Students of Color Coalition and the senior honor society
Michigamua.

Read this article from Excite News about this unique form of protest . It would be interesting to get some responses to this article. Does this protest infringe on the right to access information? How about its impact on library staff?




Each day University students, faculty and staff check out about 300 books from the Shapiro Undergraduate Library. But Thursday a group of graduate students borrowed nearly 3,000 books in less than three hours.




The 50 students checked out the books to protest how the University administration handled the conflict between the Students of Color Coalition and the senior honor society
Michigamua.

University spokesman Joel Seguine said the administration does not plan to release an official response to the protest.




Hashimoto said the group wants the administration to address issues beyond Michigamua such as drops in minority enrollment and the quantity of minority faculty.




Members of Graduate Action Alliance checked out 3,000 books and took about 2,500 more from the library\’s stacks between about 9 a.m. and 11:40 a.m, Shapiro Undergraduate Library Head Linda TerHaar said.




After Graduate Action Alliance members checked out the books, they packed them into shopping carts and moved them into a U-Haul truck.




Library employees scanned the books using three computers and any \”person borrowing books for studying\” was given priority in line, TerHaar said.

You think you\’re having a bad day.
\”The computerized catalog system at the New York Public Library has been down since Monday, forcing users in all 85 branches to search the stacks visually and librarians to check out books by hand.\”




This story appears in the New York Times, so registration is required.

The Universal Studios Research Library has shut down. Read this story from the Record Online.




It\’s the place where Gregory Peck got the idea for his ordinary-Joe hairdo in \”To Kill a Mockingbird,\” where Alfred Hitchcock got the lowdown on flight patterns for \”The Birds,\” where George Roy Hill first glimpsed the bookie joints he wanted to depict in \”The Sting,\” and where Steven Spielberg learned about shark behavior for \”Jaws.\”




For 84 years, its voluminous clipping files — organized by topic and crammed with photographs — were used to design the look and feel of thousands of movies and television shows, from the cop shop in the 1950s TV series \”Dragnet\” and the rocket control panels in 1995\’s \”Apollo 13\” to the
restaurants in this year\’s Jacqueline Susann biopic, \”Isn\’t She Great.\”

The Universal Studios Research Library has shut down. Read this story from the Record Online.




It\’s the place where Gregory Peck got the idea for his ordinary-Joe hairdo in \”To Kill a Mockingbird,\” where Alfred Hitchcock got the lowdown on flight patterns for \”The Birds,\” where George Roy Hill first glimpsed the bookie joints he wanted to depict in \”The Sting,\” and where Steven Spielberg learned about shark behavior for \”Jaws.\”




For 84 years, its voluminous clipping files — organized by topic and crammed with photographs — were used to design the look and feel of thousands of movies and television shows, from the cop shop in the 1950s TV series \”Dragnet\” and the rocket control panels in 1995\’s \”Apollo 13\” to the
restaurants in this year\’s Jacqueline Susann biopic, \”Isn\’t She Great.\”Until six weeks ago, the Universal Studios Research Library was the oldest and largest remaining collection of its sort in town — a vital resource for screenwriters, producers, art directors, and set designers who relied on its books, magazines, and indexed images to give their projects factual and atmospheric credibility. Want to see the purses Tiffany\’s made in 1970? San Quentin\’s gas chamber in 1930? Or American railroad station interiors before 1900? The library\’s files offered all that and more.




Then suddenly, to save money, Universal shut its library down. The closure — which came as a surprise to many on the Universal lot — has prompted an outcry from Hollywood\’s creative community, many of whom worry about the fate of the library\’s more than 50,000 books and magazines and 5 million
clippings.

Publisher after publisher has introduced a line of historical fiction featuring admirable heroines. Read this story from the Record Online.




To the delight of publishers, girls are showing a voracious appetite for learning about their predecessors — a pursuit that has propelled historical fiction into an unexpected big-bucks commodity.




Historical novels and biographies were once the preoccupation of a devoted but small band of readers. Now they\’re flying off bookshelves, particularly those books aimed at 7- to 14-year-old girls.

Publisher after publisher has introduced a line of historical fiction featuring admirable heroines. Read this story from the Record Online.




To the delight of publishers, girls are showing a voracious appetite for learning about their predecessors — a pursuit that has propelled historical fiction into an unexpected big-bucks commodity.




Historical novels and biographies were once the preoccupation of a devoted but small band of readers. Now they\’re flying off bookshelves, particularly those books aimed at 7- to 14-year-old girls.The trend has nourished a new appreciation for history among young readers, and offered a potential antidote to the flagging self-image to which so many adolescent girls succumb. It also signals a cultural shift: The chronicles of
history are no longer ignoring women.




Publisher after publisher has introduced a line of historical fiction featuring admirable heroines, artfully marketed not only to young females, but to their parents, teachers, and librarians.




\”It\’s become a really flourishing market, especially in the last five years,\” said Cindi Di Marzo, associate children\’s book editor at Publishers Weekly. \”There didn\’t used to be nearly as much history-based fiction, and what was available was never this accessible. These new books make history much
more memorable and exciting for kids.\”

Read this story from the BBC News.




Scotland will be home to Britain\’s first \”cyber school\” which is to be in operation by August.




Up to 60 pupils at a time will get connected at the wired academy when it opens its doors for the first time in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, as children go back to school.

Read this story from the BBC News.




Scotland will be home to Britain\’s first \”cyber school\” which is to be in operation by August.




Up to 60 pupils at a time will get connected at the wired academy when it opens its doors for the first time in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, as children go back to school. Pupils at the electronic school will be able to log on to lessons at the start of the new term, using the internet and multimedia presentations to learn about history, geography and science.




Initially, it will take pupils from primary and secondary schools in the area for half-day electronic teaching
sessions.




But within a year, education chiefs plan to make its resources available to adults and children at home, and in libraries throughout the area, meaning sick children could log on at home to avoid missing lessons.