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Library Connection’s “John Doe” court records released
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ordered August 2 the full disclosure of court records related to Doe v. Gonzales—the challenge to the FBI’s 2005 demand that Connecticut’s Library Connection consortium turn over records of patrons’ computer use. The next day, the American Civil Liberties Union posted the documents....

University of California joins Google Books Library Project
The University of California joined five other research libraries August 9 in Google’s efforts to digitize books and provide access to their contents through its search engine. The deal covers more than 100 libraries on the university’s 10 campuses, with collections totaling more than 34 million volumes....

Londonistan flap explodes in Brooklyn
Brooklyn (N.Y.) Public Library has been accused by Encounter Books publisher Roger Kimball of a left-wing selection bias because it declined to acquire the publishing house’s controversial title Londonistan by Melanie Phillips until the adult books’ selector had consulted reviews from reliable professional sources....

Smiley suspected in additional map thefts
Massachusetts map dealer E. Forbes Smiley III, who admitted in June to stealing more than 100 antique maps from six major libraries in the United States and England, is suspected in additional map thefts from the same libraries....

AASL board approves dues increase
During its annual meeting in June, the AASL board of directors voted to approve a dues increase to take effect on September 1. Based on the recommendation from the Executive Committee, the board voted to raise dues from $40 to $50 for regular members, from $15 to $20 for student members, and from $20 to $25 for retired members. Dues for AASL sections will remain $5....

YALSA compiles resources on online social networking
YALSA has created several resources for librarians to use in educating their community members about online social networking technologies and the possibility that federal legislation may require schools and libraries to block websites that offer these types of communication tools. They can be found on the Teen Tech Week wiki....

AASL publishes Instructional Classification Toolkit
AASL is now offering a new web toolkit to help school library media specialists advocate for their role as educators. AASL’s Task Force on Instructional Classification, chaired by Ann Dutton Ewbank, has developed an advocacy toolkit that addresses the issue of the categorization of school library media specialists as currently “noninstructional.”...

Guidelines for Cooperative Reference Resources revised
RUSA has approved a revision of the 1998 Guidelines for Cooperative Reference Services to incorporate changes in the field. The guidelines cover the purpose of the service, its administration, the delivery of services, and evaluation....

Poverty miscellanea from here and there
SRRT’s Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty Task Force has rounded up some news items on homelessness from around the country....
Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty Task Force, Aug. 2

Libraries’ toy rewards recalled
A toy given to kids as a reward for reading books in the Madison (Wis.) Public Library’s summer reading program could possibly contain high amounts of lead, so library officials are asking holders of the toys to return them for disposal. The reading program, “Paws, Claws, Scales, and Tales,” is a national summer reading program that was used in as many as 41 states, with the potentially toxic toy given out as a reward across the country....
Madison (Wis.) Capital Times, Aug. 8

Pennsylvania minimum wage hike concerns library board
When the state minimum wage rate reaches $7.15 per hour in July 2007, the Clarion (Pa.) Free Public Library is expecting an increased cost of $8,923 in the budget. “That’s a substantial impact,” said Library Director Barbara Thompson....
Clarion (Pa.) News, Aug. 3

Film sees end to traditional libraries
A speculative, cinematic discourse on the future of libraries, Specflic 2.0 utilizes the walls and courtyard of San Jose’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library, multiple projection systems, live sound mixing, radio and internet feeds, and a cast of five, including Allison Janney, who plays a book searcher in an InfoSphere, where “book objects” are accessed telepathically. The August 9 event is part of ZeroOne, the city’s inaugural high-tech arts festival. As passersby or those seated in the library courtyard view the unfolding drama, they are encouraged to watch in new ways, using cell phones, laptops, radio, and other media....
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, Aug. 9

Carvers Bay: Gaming the way to literacy
Although the brand-new Carvers Bay branch of the Georgetown County (S.C.) Library System has its demographic challenges, it also has some visionary leadership, strong community support, and a bit of prodding from its primary funders. Not only is the building designed to be “a reader’s haven” full of books, natural light, and comfortable chairs, it is a gamer’s heaven with 10 Xbox 360s, eight dedicated Dell Dimension 9150 gaming PCs, and an auditorium with a 120" screen and surround sound....
WebJunction, Aug. 1

Salinas libraries celebrate poetry
César Chávez Library in Salinas, California, was animated the afternoon of August 2 by poet Lawson Inada, chairman of the National Steinbeck Center and Oregon’s poet laureate. Inada was in town to promote the center’s 10,000 poems project, which aims to collect that many poems in a year....
Monterey County (Calif.) Herald, Aug. 3

Salt Lake City library has a world-class Braille collection
The largest Braille library in the world sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, down the road from a Motel 6, in a city with only an average number of blind people. The city’s crossroads-of-the-West location is perfect for a 20-state lending library. But the distinction is also fitting, because in 1931 Utah Sen. Reed Smoot cosponsored legislation that provided annual federal funding for the books. The Utah State Library for the Blind and Disabled celebrated that diamond anniversary on Monday, August 7....
Salt Lake City Deseret Morning News, Aug. 3

Queens Library joins medical network
The Queens (N.Y.) Library announced that it has become the first public library to join the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. The network has been around for 35 years, but has primarily included university medical school libraries. Queens will participate as a resource library for the mid-Atlantic region....
Flushing (N.Y.) Times-Ledger, Aug. 4

San Francisco opens new Mission Bay branch
More than 3,500 librarygoers and community members streamed through the doors of San Francisco Public Library’s new Mission Bay branch during its grand opening on July 8. Located on the city’s waterfront, the new 7,500-square-foot branch boasts a diverse collection of 34,000 books, CDs, and DVDs. With its opening, the Mission Bay branch became SFPL’s 27th branch and the first to open in 40 years....
San Francisco Sentinel, July 9

11th-century Domesday Book goes online
The Middle Ages met the Internet Age August 4 when the Domesday Book—a survey of England conducted in 1085—went online. The book, a record of the people and lands ruled by William the Conqueror, is the oldest record held by Britain’s National Archives and one of the country’s most valuable documents....
Associated Press, Aug. 4

Get a healthy body and a healthy mind
Liverpool’s Central Library became the first in the UK to install exercise equipment as part of a healthy living campaign. Squat machines and shoulder presses were installed August 3 in the second-floor computer area as a pilot project for the rest of the city libraries....
Liverpool Daily Post, Aug. 3

Prague plans a new National Library
More than 720 firms from six continents are submitting designs to the Czech National Library for what could turn out to be the largest public building project in Prague in decades—a 538,000-square-foot building costing nearly $80.7 million. Its collection of more than 6 million volumes has long been too much for the library’s current location in the Klementinum (a former monastery) to handle....
Prague Post, Aug. 2

Librarians’ salaries in public schools up by 1.3% (subscription required)
The National Survey of Salaries and Wages in Public Schools (PDF file) for 2005–2006 has been released to Education Week by Educational Research Service as part of a research partnership. On average, assistant principals, teachers, counselors, and librarians earn the highest salaries in mid-sized districts serving between 2,500 and 25,000 students....
Education Week, July 26

Youth exposed to more online porn but fewer predators
A new national survey by the Crimes Against Children Research Center shows a 9% increase in internet users ages 10–17 who are exposed to unwanted pornography and a 3% increase in online harassment and cyber-bullying, compared to five years earlier. At the same time, however, the study found that unwanted online sexual solicitations declined by 6%....
University of New Hampshire, Aug. 9

Six steps to save your library from DOPA
YALSA offers these suggestions for opposing the Deleting Online Predators Act:
1. Contact your Senator before September 5;
2. Sign the online petition;
3. Host an information session;
4. Tell YALSA how you are using social networking;
5. Invite your Senator to your library;
6. Send a letter to the newspaper editor....
YALSA Blog, Aug. 3

Personalize your messages to Congress
A recent survey by the Congressional Management Foundation found that over half of congressional staffers polled said they believe the form e-mails they receive from constituents are sent without the constituents’ knowledge. The ALA Washington Office encourages all library advocates to personalize communications with Congress. For tips on how to tell the story of your library to Congress, visit the ALA website....
ALA Washington Office, Aug. 3

Survey results on state government digitization efforts
The University of Albany Center for Technology in Government has released two new reports, Preserving State Government Digital Information: A Baseline Report and State Government Digital Preservation Profiles. These complementary resources are based on results generated from a survey administered in January 2006 to state/territorial librarians, archivists, and records managers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories, and was designed to create a state government digital information preservation baseline....
Center for Technology in Government, July 24

Five nominees appointed to National Museum and Library Services Board
The U.S. Senate confirmed California State Librarian Emeritus Kevin Starr and four other presidential nominees to serve as members of the National Museum and Library Services Board on August 3. The board advises the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent federal agency that is the primary source of federal funds for the nation’s museums and libraries....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Aug. 4

University support for Public Access Act expands (PDF file)
Just one week after more than two dozen leading universities declared their strong support for the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (S. 2695), provosts from an additional 23 universities added their backing in a letter issued by the Greater Western Library Alliance and in individual correspondence. This brings the total to at least 48 universities that have gone on record as favoring the measure....
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, Aug. 3

California Rare Book School opens
UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies launched on July 31 the California Rare Book School, a continuing-education program that provides training for students and professionals in the field of rare books and manuscripts. The school offers five week-long courses on the history of books and printing, rare book librarianship, descriptive bibliography, illustration, cataloging, and the history of the book in the American West....
University of California at Los Angeles, Aug. 4

The university library: The center of a university education?
Patricia A. Frade and Allyson Washburn summarize a study conducted in 2001 at Brigham Young University to determine the value of the library to the university community. Two years after the study, the authors wondered if the conclusions of the study were still valid....
portal: Libraries in the Academy 6, no. 3 (2006)

Topsy turvy summer
This summer has seen no shortage of interesting announcements in the library automation world. At first glance, things seem upside-down in a library world where the Library of Congress can be accused of abandoning the profession, and internet behemoth Amazon.com announces that it will supply MARC records....
Hectic Pace, Aug. 7

New Orleans seeks equity, not charity
The Friends of New Orleans, a nonprofit organization formed to build legislative and national support for the rebuilding and restoration of areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, needs help in its efforts to ensure that this historical and strategically important part of the nation not be forgotten. The group supports a long-term plan for major hurricane protection that includes the restoration of coastal wetlands, improved levees, and storm surge barriers....
Loyola University of New Orleans, July 28

Lester Asheim in cyberspace
June Pinnell-Stephens writes: “For over 50 years, ‘Not Censorship But Selection’ (Wilson Library Bulletin, Sept. 1953) by Lester Asheim (1914–1997) has remained the definitive statement on the distinction between these two aspects of library collection development. This distinction pertains to the internet and electronic resources no less than to books.”...
American Libraries, Oct. 2002, p. 70, 72

2006 copyright agenda (PDF file)
ALA supports efforts to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and to urge the courts to restore the balance in copyright law, ensure fair use, and protect and extend the public domain. This table by ALA Legislative Counsel Miriam Nesbit summarizes recent copyright legislation and case law....
ALA Office of Government Relations

The next ALA Midwinter Meeting is in Seattle, January 19–24, 2007, but do you know where it will be in 2010? Consult the Conference Planning Calendar and find out the location, as well as how conference sites are chosen.

METADATA LIBRARIAN, University of California, Santa Barbara. Performs MARC cataloging of a variety of materials including print, electronic, and media, some in foreign languages. Creates NACO records or local authority records; revises NAF authorities, and may submit records to SACO.... See JobLIST for more career opportunities.

Boys and Girls Clubs Day for Kids is a day set aside each year to celebrate and honor America’s children by spending meaningful time with them. It’s about celebrating kids—children, grandchildren, or any child in need of mentoring. This year the date is set for September 16.

Brenda Dingley reports on the state of U.S. periodical prices in 2005 for ALCTS. She writes, “The rate of price increase has been very similar over the past three years with 7.5% and 8.2% posted in 2003 and 2004, respectively, and 6.5% in 2005.” See the full report as a PDF file.

PLA’s online learning program,
e-Learning@PLA,
is designed to help users learn more efficiently and to facilitate collaboration between colleagues and instructors.

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