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U.S. & World News
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Booklist Online
New Orleans Update
Division News
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Datebook
AL Direct FAQ

Maine seeks to opt out of
GATS library agreement
Maine Gov. John E. Baldacci has asked the Bush administration to exclude the state from General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treaty obligations specifically related to libraries, archives, and museums. The World Trade Organization began renewed negotiations on specifics of the treaty in Geneva in late March....

Canadian study links school libraries
and student achievement
A study funded by the Ontario Library Association offers the first Canadian finding that shows a positive correlation between student achievement and library resources and staff. Released April 6, School Libraries and Student Achievement in Ontario includes assessment data from more than 50,000 students and over 800 of the province’s publicly funded elementary schools....

Miami school reconsiders
A Visit to Cuba
In response to a parent’s objection to a book cover depicting Cuban children wearing the uniform of the island nation’s Communist youth group, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Elementary School in Miami has formed a materials review committee to reconsider Alta Schreier’s Vamos a Cuba (A Visit to Cuba) on April 19....

Filmmakers slam Smithsonian deal
with Showtime
Ken Burns and other prominent documentary filmmakers are blasting a deal between the Smithsonian Institution and the Showtime Networks cable channels to create television programming, saying it could cut off their access to the museum’s collections and curators....

Illinois cooperative recognized as outstanding
The Illinois State Library’s Talking Book and Braille Service (TBBS) in Springfield was named Network Library of the Year by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped at an April 4 ceremony at the Library of Congress....

Fired Michigan director will file lawsuit
An attorney retained by fired Bay County (Mich.) Library Director Frederick J. Paffhausen announced April 4 that he will file a breach of contract lawsuit against the system....

Libraries bridge cultures during El dia de los niños
April 30 marks the 10th anniversary of national El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), and libraries across the country will host Día celebrations with family programs, including bilingual story hours, book giveaways, and other literacy events....

Advocacy Institute welcomes
three new cosponsors
Three new cosponsors—the Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas Library Associations—have signed on to participate in the ALA Advocacy Institute, Friday, June 23, 12–5 p.m., at Annual Conference in New Orleans. The institute teaches participants legislative issues and skills for advocating library services....

Shelf life: Public libraries
and the recovery process
Local libraries face many challenges: While most of the remediation issues have been or eventually will be dealt with, many libraries are beyond repair. Instead of helping readers, librarians are dealing with Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork, compiling damage estimates. Staff reductions have curtailed library services; librarians, like the rest of us, have been displaced....
New Orleans Times-Picayune, Apr. 2

More money urged for Louisiana libraries
Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu asked a House panel on April 10 to restore nearly $1 million that Gov. Kathleen Blanco proposed cutting from the State Library of Louisiana. Landrieu and others said public libraries have played an especially vital role to Louisiana residents since hurricanes Katrina and Rita....
Baton Rouge Advocate, Apr. 11

New Orleans’ black social networks hurting
Most people they know want to rebuild, eventually. But no one can quite imagine the day when their houses will be livable again, and now the glue of their lives is gone—their neighbors, local businesses, social clubs. Just about every black institution in town is struggling or has disappeared....
Associated Press, Apr. 8

Corps chief admits levee design failure
In the closest thing yet to a mea culpa, the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged April 5 that a “design failure” led to the breach of the 17th Street Canal levee that flooded much of the city during Hurricane Katrina....
New Orleans Times-Picayune, Apr. 6

First Lady finds “feeling of hope” in city
On her tenth trip to the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina, First Lady Laura Bush on Monday touted a federal program to help young people find work and said her foundation will help damaged schools get new books and rebuild their libraries....
Associated Press, Apr. 10

A different place without the displaced
It does not matter how many photos you’ve seen, how riveting the videotapes have been as they splashed across the television screens, with desperate voices crying out in the background, or listening to the emotional Congressional testimony of displaced residents of New Orleans. None of those experiences—or even all of them combined—can prepare you for the experience of entering the city’s lower Ninth Ward....
Louisiana Weekly, Apr. 10; Minneapolis City Pages, Apr. 3–7

Survey: Most employers stood up to Katrina
A “Survey of Compensation Practices in Areas Affected by Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma” found that more than 90% of employers maintained staff and benefits and 33% provided living assistance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina....
New Orleans City Business, Apr. 10

StoryCorps mobile booth to visit in May
One of the two StoryCorps oral-history project Mobile Booths touring the country (see American Libraries, Dec. 2005, p. 42–45) will stop in New Orleans, May 4–28. Reservations to record an oral history can be placed beginning April 18 at 10 a.m. local time....
StoryCorps

ACRL pledges its support
to the ALA Cultural Communities Fund
ACRL has pledged to support the ALA Cultural Communities Fund with a gift of $20,000. The Cultural Communities Fund is an endowment created to help libraries across the country bring communities together through cultural programming....

Books for young adults who enjoy the Gossip Girls series
YALSA has announced a list of books to recommend to teens, both avid and reluctant readers, who are looking for books similar to those in the Gossip Girls series. “The books on this list are perfect for when your readers have finished with every Gossip Girls title in your library and are clamoring for another book like the Gossip Girls,” said YALSA President Pam Spencer Holley....

Orange County Public Library gets D&B minority business award from RUSA
The 2006 Dun and Bradstreet Award for outstanding service to minority business communities goes to the Orange County (Calif.) Public Library. is the 2006 recipient of the 2006 Dun and Bradstreet Award for Outstanding Service to Minority Business Communities. The award is presented by RUSA's Business Reference and Services Section....  

Zines in the library catalog? Of course
Jenna Freedman at Barnard College has started one of the country’s few scholarly online catalogs of zines. The collection of 500 zines includes primary sources documenting activism during the 2004 Republican National Convention and Critical Mass protests in New York. Titles include Brooklyn Diary, Junk/Food, Race Riot, and Satan’s Panties....
New York Times, Apr. 11

Museum puts freedom first
The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, which opened to the public April 11 on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, is designed to make visitors confront some uncomfortable topics. It employs an array of audiovisual and interactive technology to examine incidents in which First Amendment freedoms have been challenged....
Chicago Tribune, Apr. 5

Librarians included in
proposed Texas 65% rule (PDF file)
School librarians will be included when calculating instructional costs under proposed revisions to the state’s school financial rating system, which is designed to provide the public with a clear look at the spending practices of each school district....
Texas Education Agency, Apr. 6

Mississippi girl rides
for storm-damaged libraries
11-year-old Kelsie Buckley raised more than $9,000 in pledges for Gulfport’s library by riding her horse halfway across the state of Mississippi. Kelsie’s goal is to raise $10,000 for every Mississippi library destroyed by Katrina. There were seven....
CBS News, Mar. 31; WLOX-TV, Biloxi, Mar. 12

Collection agencies and overdue books
Claire Leavy, director of the Lee County (Ga.) Public Library, recently turned to Unique Management Services of Jeffersonville, Mo., a collection agency that serves 750 public library systems across the United States and Canada. Unique tries to persuade patrons to return overdue items and pay their late fees....
Los Angeles Times, Apr. 7

LC chooses 50 items for
National Recording Registry
Calvin Coolidge’s 1925 inaugural address, Fats Domino singing “Blueberry Hill” in 1956, Don Azpiazu’s 1930 rumba hit “El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor),” and Sonic Youth’s 1988 album Daydream Nation were among the recordings the Library of Congress selected for preservation in its National Recording Registry April 11....
Library of Congress, Apr. 11

International appeal for the preservation of the world’s audiovisual heritage
200 million hours of audio and video records are endangered, particularly in developing countries. This call (originally launched in 2004, but still active) is intended to draw attention to the perilous situation of these archives, to get the support of the United Nations, and to demonstrate the solidarity of archivists and users all around the globe....
International Federation of Television Archives

How OPACs suck, part 2:
The checklist of shame
Karen Schneider reviews key features common to most search engines (even the least expensive) but that are often missing in online catalogs....
ALA Tech Source blog, Apr. 3

The future of the library catalog:
Two perspectives
A February 21 report, written by Cornell University Technical Services Librarian Karen Calhoun and commissioned by the Library of Congress, offers some suggestions on revitalizing OPACs in the face of declining use, as well as a 10-step blueprint for implementing changes. Reference Librarian Thomas Mann offers a critical review of aspects of the Calhoun report....
DSpace Open Access; and AFSCME 2910

LIS outlook for 2006
If 2005 data is any indication, 2006 should be a good year for most ALA-accredited programs. Data submitted for the 2005 ALISE Statistical Report and Database show that enrollment increased for a majority of ALA-accredited programs, additional full-time faculty members were added, and total income was up from 2004....
ALA Office for Accreditation, Prism, Spring issue

LIS instruction in the new century:
A podcast/Flash interview
University of Washington iSchool Dean Emeritus Mike Eisenberg speaks passionately on the future of library education in “Tradition vs. Technology: What’s all the fuss?”...
InfoSpeak, vol. 2, no. 2

Libraries tap into the video game culture
Take a digital game world, throw it in a blender, add some information and research skills, sift out the word “educational” and maybe, just maybe, we have a new and effective way to teach our students bibliographic instruction. Christy Branson, liaison librarian at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, assesses the learning value of games in the library....
ASIS&T Bulletin, Apr./May

NASA Kid’s Club website
offers K-4 interactive games
The NASA Kid’s Club site serves a dual purpose. Children can play games at home for entertainment, and educators can use it as a fun way to reach students in the classroom, the library, during after-school programs, or anywhere children and computers are together....
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Apr. 6

National Rock & Roll Library concert tour, featuring The High Strung
Last year the quirky, carefree, energetic music of Detroit’s The High Strung electrified Michigan’s teen patrons with their sunny three-part harmonies and witty, lyrical bravado. This year the furious guitars and squonking organ that accompany the band’s catchy sing-along choruses are roaming the country, headed for a library in your direction. Recommended by the Alternative Teen Services blog....
The High Strung

National Poetry Month
suggestions from RIF
April is National Poetry Month, and Reading Is Fundamental offers some tips on rhyming and reading in the library....
Reading Is Fundamental

Annual Conference
in New Orleans,
June 22–28. Take advantage of advance registration rates by May 19.

Show us your best READ Poster! Send in READ posters you have created using the READ CD 2 and you could win a $100 gift certificate from ALA Graphics and be featured in American Libraries. Submissions are due by May 31.

As of 3:45 p.m. Central time, April 11:
11,136 members have cast their votes in the ALA election (9,515 electronic, 1,621 paper).

Become an ACRL
Dr. E. J. Josey Spectrum Scholar mentor or mentee. Application deadline is April 21.

FAQ on the Certified Public Library Administrator program.