People N Patrons

News From San Jose's new library where six marathon readers were carving out their niche in the Guinness Book of World Records.

They ended Saturday afternoon, with Johnson's recitation of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, at 74 hours, 49 minutes and 37 seconds. The listed Guinness record is 53 hours and two minutes, set last December by a team from Italy, but a group of Germans is awaiting approval of its 61-hour mark.

The read-a-thon was meant to promote literacy and the reopening of the library.

The Houston Chronicle Reports on Charles Arbore who binds books at the Houston Public Library's Julia Ideson Building. For 10 years, he has volunteered to revive and rehabilitate the precious and rare old books in the library's Texas Collection. M.B. Synge's Book of Discovery: The History of the World's Explorations, from the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole was one of the latest to undergo Arbore's reconstructive surgery.

"I had a bit of a revelation," Arbore said. "I couldn't afford the $75 a book Williams was going to charge for fixing my books, but I could afford to pay to learn to bind books myself. I ended up spending a heck of a lot more than $75, but I got a skill that is a hobby I'm passionate about."

A library assistant who was arrested for sexually abusing students at a suburban Chicago high school last year, spoke to a reporter from her jail cell about her case. While accepting responsibility for her actions, the woman feels like she's been in jail long enough and wants to be reunited with her own six children. Laurie Augustine has been jailed for 10 months, in lieu of $150,000 bail, while awaiting trial. More here from ABC7 TV.

Among the personal property that convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski is seeking in court to have returned are a whole bunch of books. In addition to volumes about which plants are safe/unsafe to eat, the list includes history, ancient classics, Shakespeare, Dickens, Steinbeck ... Oh, and Psychology of Women.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has learned that the U.S. Supreme Court denied Jesus Castillo’s petition for writ of certiorari, bringing his three-year quest for justice to a close. Castillo is presently serving a period of unsupervised probation.

Jesus Castillo was found guilty of selling an adult comic, from the adult section of the store, to an adult police officer, and convicted because the DA convinced the jury that all comics are really intended for children.

"I can't imagine a world in which the same argument would have worked for books or for films... says Neil Gaiman.

"A quote from Jeffrey Archer's new memoir about his life in prison:

"I'm greeted by a lady in civilian clothes who wears the inevitable badge--in her case, Librarian. 'Good afternoon,' I say as I rise from my place and smile. She looks surprised."

"'If a prisoner asks you to sign a book, could you in future say no,' she says without bothering to introduce herself. I look puzzled; after all, I've been asked to sign books for the last twenty-five years. 'It's just that they are all library books,' she continues, 'and they're being stolen. They've now become like tobacco and phonecards, a trading item for drugs, and are worth double with your signature.'" (from The Chicago Sun Times)

Cortez writes "With the eroding financial support from government entities, the folks in Boston's Papercut: http://www.baamboston.org/papercut/ might be on to something: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/ this_just_in/documents/04701066.asp
"It’s Tuesday afternoon, three days after the Papercut ’Zine Library opened, and Mothra, the bullet-belted punk-rock librarian on duty, is sitting in a comfy chair explaining what inspired the venture: a pile of ’zines collecting dust on her best friend’s floor. "I was like, ‘Isn’t there some way to let other people use these?""