ANNOUNCEMENTS:
2006 Public Libraries
and the Internet study, the 8th study in this series. The report
is now officially released and available at
http://www.ii.fsu.edu/plinternet/.
1) Cataloging Supplement Report Due
9/30/06:
Hearken back to the
fall of 2005: was your library among the many to participate in the Cataloging Supplement
Project? Over 300 libraries statewide signed on. Participants accepted a $400.00 mini-grant from
the State Library with which to purchase a high-end MARC record product.
Now
the “Cataloging
Supplement Report” is due—by Saturday September
30th actually. You’ll find the 2-page report here: http://www.statelibraryofiowa.org/ld/cataloging-supplement/report-form-cataloging-supplement.doc/view
It’s a simple re-telling of how you used the $400.00, which MARC product you
purchased, and the difference it’s made in your cataloging efforts. Mail or fax
the completed form to the State Library (fax 515-281-6191) Thanks for your
attention to this!
2) ILA Conference Registration
Deadline: The early
bird registration deadline for ILA’s annual conference is looming: it’s Friday
September 29. This year, the ILA Fall Conference makes its way to
Council
Bluffs, October 11-13,
at the Mid America Conference Center. While you can register on-site the day of
the conference, it’s best to register early and save some money in the
process—about $30.00 worth.
This
year’s theme is “Libraries, Literacy, and Learning in
the 21st Century.” Here’s a look at just some of
the conference sessions:
- A Quality School Library
- Bringing It All Back Home (lobbying and
advocacy)
- Library 2.0
- Leadership Literacy
- Weblogs in the Library
- Best of Iowa Libraries’ Public Relations
- Managing a Volunteer Program
- Transforming Reluctant Readers in to
Ravenous Readers
- All Libraries Serve Learners
- A Great City Deserves a Great Library
All
this and much more: 4 pre-conferences Wednesday daytime, “The Ghosts of Council
Bluffs” tour on Wednesday night, Thursday night’s banquet with Des Moines actor
Tom Milligan, and Friday’s luncheon with Marilynne Robison, author of the 2006
All Iowa Reads book Gilead.
If
you've missed the mailings, find all details on ILA’s website: http://www.iowalibraryassociation.org/
Click on the conference info in the middle of the screen to see a complete
listing of programs and a registration form. Don’t delay any longer.
Above 1 & 2 Stolen from the Eye Opener & then edited.
Harry
Potter books are the most challenged of the 21st century
In
honor of the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week (September 23–30), ALA has
compiled a list of the top 10 most challenged books from 2000 to 2005, with the
Harry Potter series of books leading the pack (although it escaped the top 10
list in 2005).
All but three of the books on this list also were in the top 10 of the most
challenged books of the 1990s....
Stuff:
For the fun of it. Take a few minutes.
Public
libraries are community technology hubs
A national report
released by Florida State University researchers September 26 reveals that 99%
of all U.S. public libraries provide free public access to computers wired to
the internet and that librarians overwhelmingly (71%) say that the most
important impact of this service is providing internet access to those who
otherwise would not have it. The report, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and ALA, also found that insufficient computer workstations and
internet bandwidth pose the biggest challenges for U.S. public libraries in
providing quality services....
Information Use Management and
Policy Institute, Florida State University
Featured
review: Reference
Ciment, James,
ed. Colonial America: An Encyclopedia of Social,
Political, Cultural, and Economic History. Sept. 2006. 1,324p. Sharpe. (0-7656-8065-3).
Colonial America presents a bird’s-eye view of life in the original
colonies, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Canada with entries “designed to
complement the high-school American history curriculum as well as undergraduate
survey courses.” Although their professors may relish the scholarship of the
topically arranged Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies (1994),
students will find it less frustrating to browse Colonial America’s
seven broad thematic essays (“Gender Issues,” “Race and Ethnicity,” etc.) and
more than 450 alphabetically arranged articles on topics such as alcohol, food
and diet, inns and taverns (public houses), and piracy....
Encyclopedia
update, 2006
In this year’s update, Barbara Bibel and Shauna Yusko review three print
encyclopedias: Encyclopedia Americana, The New Book of Knowledge, and The World Book
Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia publishers continue to take a “big umbrella”
approach, incorporating into one website an array of offerings. But they have
also taken more steps to target specific audiences....
Electronic
postcards from Baghdad
Keir Graff writes: “Here are links to a selection of eye-opening passages from
Riverbend’s Baghdad Burning II: More Girl Blog From Iraq (Feminist Press
at CUNY, 2006), as they were first published on her blog.
I’ve probably included too many, but I circled even more page numbers in the
book. So many entries contained information I hadn’t known, or a viewpoint I
hadn’t considered, or simply put it all together in a compelling way.”...
Likely Stories blog
Library
books draw complaints in West Brazos
Students at West Brazos
Junior High School in Brazoria, Texas, won’t be allowed to check books out of
the school’s library after two complaints about profanity and sexual content
were found in books borrowed by children. One September 19 complaint by a West
Columbia resident claimed the book Zero to Sixty: The Motorcycle Journey of a
Lifetime by Gary Paulsen, which was checked out from the school library by
his 12-year-old son, contained details of sexual acts and
profanity....
Brazosport (Tex.) Facts, Sept. 21
Most
challenged books in America
This week marks the 25th
anniversary of Banned Book Week, an effort by ALA to promote freedom of access
to “unorthodox or unpopular” written works as well as freedom of expression
within these books. “Throughout history, there always have been a few people who
don’t want information to be freely available. And this is still true,” said ALA
President Leslie Burger. “Banned Books Week reminds us that we must remain
vigilant.”...
PBS newsmagazine NOW, Sept.
22
Audit:
Reading First beset by favoritism
A September 22 internal
report (PDF
file) detailing the U.S. Department of Education’s handling of the
multibillion-dollar Reading First grant program criticizes Bush administration
officials for steering funding awards to certain educational publishers and for
illegally dictating to schools which solutions they must use. Yet another report
(PDF
file), from the independent Center on Education Policy, suggests the program
is having a significant impact on student achievement....
eSchool News online, Sept. 25
NCES
has not redesignated school librarians as instructors
In its August 1 report
on 2003–2004 expenditures for public elementary and secondary education, the
National Center for Educational Statistics has modified the way expenditures are
broken down, but it has not changed the underlying structure of financial
accounting for states and school districts. School library media specialists and
school library services continue to be classified as
“support-services-instruction,” stemming from a definition of library media
services that has not been changed since 1980....
ALA American
Association of School Librarians
Banned
in the U.S.A.: A quiz
In honor of Banned Books Week, Mental
Floss Research Editor Sandy Wood put together a 12-question
cultural-literacy test involving controversial titles. The first: True or False?
Two 1960s children’s books written by Dr. Seuss were later removed from print
(and stricken from his bibliography) for questionable moral
content....
Mental Floss, Sept.
25
Banned
books around the world (PDF file)
David
Shook has compiled a brief list of books banned recently in Iran, Albania,
Vietnam, China, and other countries....
World Literature
Today 80, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct.): 25
Help
solve the wire loop mystery
Over the last several
years, books with a small wire loop have been found in several libraries across
the United States. Initial inquiries found no satisfactory answer for their
presence. Speculation included some sort of security device to tie the book in
place, a method of attaching a bookmarker to the textblock, or a hook to attach
an information tag. Books identified with these devices to date have been
published in London by various firms between 1908 and 1933....
Michigan State University Libraries
University
of Chicago study notes surprising result
“The more today’s
Chicago students use electronic research materials, the more they do research
the old-fashioned way,” writes Andrew Abbott about a 2005 survey of campus
library usage conducted by the University of Chicago Provost’s Task Force. “The
more an individual uses books, the more he or she uses electronic-research
resources, and vice versa. At the very least, the survey data provides no
evidence that traditional research practices are being replaced by electronic
ones.”...
University of Chicago Magazine 99, no. 1 (Oct.)
Digital
access to archival works
Cornell University
Library Intellectual Property Officer Peter B. Hirtle takes a look at Section
108(b) of the copyright law and concludes that digital technologies could serve
as a means of providing access to unpublished research materials without having
to distribute physical copies to other repositories....
Stanford
University Libraries, Sept. 24
Royal
Society launches online journal archive
The complete archive of
the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific
papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically
until December in the Journals
Digital Archive. The archive contains seminal research papers including
accounts of Michael Faraday’s groundbreaking series of electrical experiments,
Isaac Newton’s invention of the reflecting telescope, and the first research
paper published by Stephen Hawking....
Royal Society, Sept.
14
Ten
reasons to use Ask.com instead of Google
Sarah Houghton writes:
“I think many librarians rely on Google as their sole search engine, forgetting
other search tools and the wealth of information that’s out there in the
invisible web. But there is one search engine that I’ve come to rely on in
addition to the big G: Ask.com. So, here are my 10 reasons that librarians
should use Ask.com instead of Google.”...
Librarian in Black,
Sept. 22
Best
practices for designing web services in the library
context
The National Information Standards Organization has
released a set of recommended practices (PDF
file) to use in support of interoperable digital library services. Included
are sections on HTTP caching, filtering of user input, reuse of output formats,
security, and throttling....
NISO, Sept. 19
The
future of the internet
A survey (PDF
file) of internet leaders, activists, and analysts shows that a majority
agree that by 2020, humans will remain in charge of technology; virtual reality
will spawn new addiction problems; people will wittingly and unwittingly
disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process even as
they lose some privacy; and English will be a universal language of global
communications....
Pew Internet & American Life Project,
Sept. 24
Bobby
Bitman promotes the public “libary”
Eugene Levy (as Bobby
Bitman) offers his take on kids and libraries in this sketch (1:43) that aired
on SCTV, November 26, 1982: “As a kid, I was pretty ignorant. Fortunately
for me, I ended up in show business.”...
YouTube
Renaissance
Library calendar, 2007
The Renaissance Library calendars have
been produced since 2001 by Information Strategy and Information Management, a
consulting and publishing firm based in Sollentuna, a suburb of Stockholm,
Sweden. Each month features a photo of a historic library, selected from
nominations submitted by librarians and information professionals in nearly 40
countries. The cover of the 2007 calendar shows the 1752 rococo-style library of
St. Peter’s Abbey in the Black Forest, Germany....
Renaissance
Library Collection
PLA announces new start dates for
e-learning courses
