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Senators question Justice Department on Anderson probe
At a June 6 hearing examining the FBI’s attempt to gain access to the papers of the late investigative journalist Jack Anderson, the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the recalcitrance of a Justice Department official testifying on the efforts....

House passes telecom bill without net-neutrality amendment
The House of Representatives passed legislation June 8 that would allow telephone companies to offer competitive, bundled packages of telecommunications services in new markets, but it rejected an amendment to ensure equal access to online content to all customers—the so-called network neutrality provision....

California voters reject library construction measure
Proposition 81, which would have allowed California to borrow $600 million in bonds for public library construction and renovation to accommodate the state’s increased population, only won 47% of the vote in the June 6 election. The measure, reportedly the largest library construction bond proposition in state history, was placed on the ballot after a 2004 compromise by the legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to replenish the Library Bond Act of 2000....

Berkeley PL director resigns amid controversy
Jackie Griffin, director of Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library for five years, has resigned, following a controversial decision to install RFID devices and ongoing staff complaints about her management style, according to the June 9 Oakland Tribune. The library agreed to pay her $34,451, approximately three months’ salary, and six months of health benefits in exchange for her resignation....

Gwinnett County board fires library director
A group of Georgians stepped up its criticism of the management of Gwinnett County Public Library June 5 by launching the GCPL Watch website, which describes more than a decade of opposition by some residents to library policy decisions made during Director Jo Ann Pinder’s 15-year tenure there. Matters came to a boil June 12 when trustees fired Pinder at a tumultuous public meeting....

Sotheby’s to auction Martin Luther King Jr. archives
After years of failed attempts to sell Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s private papers to the Library of Congress or a university, King’s family has agreed to allow New York auction house Sotheby’s to put the collection up for sale June 30....

Donald Hall named poet laureate of the United States
Librarian of Congress James Billington announced June 14 that Donald Hall has been named the next poet laureate of the United States. The author of 15 books of poetry, Hall will be the Library of Congress’s 14th poet laureate consultant in poetry, a 70-year-old post administered by LC’s Poetry and Literature Center....

Statement on network neutrality
ALA President Michael Gorman and Association of Research Libraries President Brian Schottlaender issued a joint statement June 9 on the House’s failure to support the Markey Amendment on net neutrality....

Statement on broadband wiretap decision
ALA President-Elect Leslie Burger issued a statement on the June 9 federal appeals court decision that upheld the government’s authority to force high-speed internet service providers to allow the police and FBI access for wiretapping internet phone calls....

House lawmakers recommend $10.3-million LSTA increase
ALA extended thanks June 7 on behalf of America’s library patrons to members of the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee for its recommendation of a $10.3-million funding increase for the Library Services and Technology Act....

Library Advocacy Now! training in New Orleans
“Funding? The USA PATRIOT Act? Fair Use? Google?: Library Advocacy Now,” a two-hour advocacy training program offered at Annual Conference, will focus on current technology issues. The training is scheduled for Saturday, June 24, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m....

Library and archives groups file amicus brief on copyright infringement case
ALA, together with the American Association of Law Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Medical Library Association, Society of American Archivists, and Special Libraries Association, filed a friend of the court brief June 7 in support of the National Geographic Society’s right to republish works in a digital format without seeking permission of authors or other contributors....

Hollywood Librarian documentary to preview at conference
ALA will offer a sneak peek at a new documentary in the making, The Hollywood Librarian: Librarians in Cinema and Society. Footage from the film, still in post-production, will be shown at the Morial Convention Center Auditorium, Sunday, June 25, at 9 p.m....

Libraries to host jazz film-discussion series
National Video Resources, in partnership with the ALA Public Programs Office, has named 43 public and academic libraries nationwide as pilot sites for the six-week documentary film viewing and discussion series “Looking At: Jazz, America’s Art Form.”...

Library Card Sign-up Month promotes the “Smartest Card”
Promotional tools in Spanish and English are available online to promote “The Smartest Card. Get It. Use It. @ your library” theme for Library Card Sign-up Month, which begins September 1. New this year are radio public service announcements featuring actor-comedian George Lopez, as well as a summary of best practices from public libraries nationwide using the Smartest Card theme....

Newsmaker: Straight answers from Michael White
For every resident of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina changed everything. But for clarinetist Michael White, the floods destroyed 30 years of collecting when they swept over his personal library of materials related to the city’s musical and cultural heritage. The water reduced photographs, documents, recordings, and musical instruments to piles of rot and mold....

Katrina Journal: New Orleans now
University of New Orleans History Professor Günter Bischof summarizes the state of the city: “Every day there are signs of comeback. The French Quarter and Uptown of course present themselves as if nothing happened last fall.... Yet in spite of such progress the lag in the overall recovery effort is still palpable. Nine months after Katrina large parts of the city are still vacant, with only halting signs of repopulation.”...
George Mason University’s History News Network, June 12

Brennan’s is back
Looking for fresh signs of the city’s recovery, New Orleans food lovers have been watching the locked front door of Brennan’s Restaurant. Executive Chef Lazone Randolph made a lot of people happy June 8, when the storm-damaged restaurant reopened with refurbished dining rooms, new ceilings, a modern sprinkler system—and the same menu that has drawn loyal patrons for decades....
New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 2

An un-conventional year for New Orleans visitors
Police and health officials assured Michael Gorman that New Orleans was safe, and he confirmed in person that its restaurants and night life were back. Yet visions of disaster trouble Gorman, dean of library services at California State University at Fresno and president of the American Library Association....
Los Angeles Times, June 12

Severe weather alerts by text messaging
ALA has set up an opt-in text messaging service to provide messaging directly to the cell phones of thousands of attendees, vendors, and staff spread over hundreds of locations around New Orleans....

Food service reopens at Convention Center
Aramark Corporation said it plans to open two restaurants, a food court, and the kitchen at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on June 20. The company has worked closely with the New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority to clean or replace kitchen equipment, utensils, banquet fixtures, flooring, seating, and serving equipment. About 80% of the dining facilities have been restored....
Philadelphia Business Journal, June 13

Southwest adds more flights
Southwest Airlines has added six daily non-stop flights from New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong International Airport, reclaiming the spot as the largest carrier operating from the area. The new flights bring Southwest’s total to 24. While that’s more than other carriers, it still amounts to only 43% of the airline’s pre-Katrina service....
USA Today, June 13

Post-Katrina tourist souvenirs
As the city faces a new hurricane season, T-shirts making light of the storm that put 80% of New Orleans under water nine months ago have proliferated in the French Quarter. Vendors say they are outselling the typical tourist shirts, made for the New Orleans of another time, by a wide margin....
Reuters, June 11

Interactive online ALA Exhibits map
Find Annual Conference vendors alphabetically, by booth number, or by clicking on booth locations on this searchable, zoomable floor map...

Planning to blog the conference?
Add your blog and web address to the list on ALA’s conference wiki...

Diana Shonrock is new RUSA president
Diana D. Shonrock, science and technology librarian at Iowa State University, will assume office as RUSA president in July. An active ALA member, Shonrock has served as chair of the Management and Operation of User Services Section and was instrumental in the section’s reconfiguration into the Reference Services Section....

AASL launches blog
AASL has established a permanent weblog—AASLblog—to provide a focused and flexible format for information about programs, conferences, projects, resources, and activities of interest to AASL members and others in the K–12 library media community....

PLA blog gets a new look
The makeover, courtesy of Andrea Mercado, is a result of migrating from Blogger to WordPress 2.0.3....

YALSA blog manager selected
Linda Braun, educational technology consultant for LEO: Librarians and Educators Online, has been selected as manager of the YALSA Blog. Braun will be responsible for the content and look of the blog and will work closely to recruit and oversee designated bloggers....

ACRL hires Kathryn Deiss as new content strategist
Kathryn Deiss has been appointed ACRL content strategist, effective July 17. Deiss will seek out important and innovative practices, approaches, and projects to bring them to the attention of the larger academic and research library community through a variety of formats including books, workshops, articles, podcasts, and virtual learning events....

LAMA announces President’s Program panel
José-Marie Griffiths, James G. Neal, and Raymond Santiago will serve on the LAMA President’s Program panel, “Leadership Excellence for Transition: Lessons for Librarians in Every Generation,” at ALA Annual Conference, Sunday, June 25, 1:30–3:30 p.m....

SRRT holds workshops on emergency preparedness and recovery
The Task Force on the Environment (one of seven task forces comprising ALA’s Social Responsibilities Round Table) is sponsoring two workshops—“Preparedness Matters” and “Recovery Matters”—to address the roles librarians and libraries may play in helping the communities they serve in developing community disaster and emergency preparedness programs....

LITA/Endeavor Student Writing Award winner
Yi Shen, a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison SLIS, is the winner of the 2006 LITA/Endeavor Student Writing Award for her paper entitled “Social Scientists’ Information Behavior in Scientific Research Practice.”...

What if they gagged Gutenberg?
Imagine if the leaders of 16th-century Germany, feeling threatened by the democratizing forces of the printing press, had taken Gutenberg’s invention and limited its use to those they agreed with politically—or if Luther had to pay licensing fees for nailing up his 95 Theses on every church door in Germany. That’s what Big Telecom is trying to do. By creating two internet tiers—one that is fast and charges fees to website owners, and a second-class Web that is cheaper and slower and could limit access to independently run sites....
San Francisco Chronicle, June 11

Save the King County library system
An editorial calls the King County (Wash.) Library System a “bibliophile’s heaven” and urges the city of Seattle to support it equitably, even as trustees face a major crisis....
Seattle Times, June 11

The amateur sleuth who gave the National Archives a red face
The scandal over missing documents that rocked the National Archives this spring came to light not because of the digging of an investigative reporter or a timely leak by a concerned federal insider. Instead it was Matthew M. Aid, an amateur researcher and historian, who figured out that for at least six years the CIA and the Air Force had been withdrawing thousands of records from the public shelves....
Washington Post, June 8

Newberry Library explores the architecture of knowledge
“The architecture of knowledge”—what an intriguing concept, we thought when we heard that Chicago’s Newberry Library was holding a panel discussion on the subject, in connection with “Closed/Open,” an art installation by Antonia Contro that opened May 17 at the library....
Chicago Tribune, June 8

Scientists to reassemble Maimonides’ works
Scientists at the University of Manchester hope to use digital technology in reassembling some 300,000 tiny fragments of an 800-year-old Jewish philosopher’s oeuvre....
Washington Post, June 14

Is James Joyce’s grandson suppressing scholarship?
Scholars must ask grandson Stephen Joyce’s permission to quote sizable passages or to reproduce manuscript pages from those works of Joyce’s that remain under copyright—including Ulysses and Finnegans Wake—as well as from more than 3,000 letters and several dozen unpublished manuscript fragments. He has also destroyed potentially valuable correspondence, blocked or discouraged countless public readings of Ulysses, and once tried unsuccessfully to halt a webcast of the book....
New Yorker, June 19

Libraries of gracious reading, for members only
Susan Kelly is an avid reader of detective novels, but the public library doesn’t always have what she wants and she draws the line at buying books in hardcover. So Ms. Kelly joined a membership library, where she has, among many other privileges, the run of more than 15,000 new and classic mysteries....
New York Times, June 11

Report: Americans say libraries are essential
A study (PDF file) sponsored by the Americans for Libraries Council shows that libraries are poised to lead the way to solutions to today’s pressing community problems. According to Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public and Leadership Attitudes about Libraries in the 21st Century, 78% of Americans say that if their library shut down because of lack of funding they would feel “that something essential and important has been lost, affecting the whole community.”...
Americans for Libraries Council, June 13

RLG membership approves move to combine with OCLC
RLG member institutions have approved a proposal to combine operations with OCLC, clearing the way for two of the world’s largest membership-based information organizations to become one, effective July 1. The agreement was approved by the required two-thirds of voting RLG member institutions....
RLG, June 9

JFK Library to create comprehensive digital Kennedy archive
Senator Edward M. Kennedy announced June 9 a major and unprecedented effort by the National Archives and Records Administration to build a new library—a digital one consisting of the entire collection of papers, documents, photographs, and audio recordings of President John F. Kennedy, eventually making them accessible to citizens throughout the world via the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s website....
JFK Library Foundation, June 9

Towards a more holistic tenure process
Steven Bell writes, “What do we gain by putting our young or new professionals through a process that leaves them feeling drained and uninspired, believing that what you really have to communicate—and how you choose to communicate it—isn’t as important as where you write or speak it?”...
ACRLog, June 14

Special Libraries Association conference blog
Catch up on the activities of SLA colleagues, as summarized in the official blog for the SLA Annual Conference, June 11–14. Information Today also blogged the conference....
SLA; Information Today

Libraries honored with Webby Awards
The 10th Annual Webby Awards Gala took place June 12 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. Among the institutions honored for their websites were the Library of Congress, which garnered a People’s Voice award in the Cultural Institutions category. Official honorees (the top 20% of all sites entered in the competition) included the Tacoma (Wash.) Public Library, the Jefferson County (Colo.) Public Library, the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum, and homeworkNYC.org (designed by the New York, Brooklyn, and Queens public libraries)....
Webby Awards, June 12

“Librarians”: Parody of “COPS” TV show
This sketch was performed sometime in the 1990s by the Seattle-based KING-TV show “Almost Live!”—a comedy show broadcast from 1984 to 1999 that did frequent parodies. As you might suspect from context, the performers were regulars on the show and not staff members of the Seattle Public Library....
YouTube; KING-TV

Ten reasons why blog posting frequency doesn’t matter any more
“Thou shalt post every day” is the most fundamental and most well-known principle of blogging. You cannot be successful if you do not go by the rule, right? Wrong. Daily posts are a legacy of a Web 1.0 mindset and early Web 2.0 days (meaning 12 months ago!)....
Marketing Profs: Daily Fix, June 6

Reference librarians use electronic resources six times more than print sources (PDF file)
Lorie Kloda’s review of a May 2005 article in the Journal of Academic Librarianship indicates more research in this area is warranted....
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, vol. 1, no. 2

MLA rates top 10 most useful health websites
The Medical Library Association’s Consumer and Patient Health Information Section evaluates websites based on credibility, sponsorship/authorship, content, audience, currency, disclosure, purpose, links, design, interactivity, and disclaimers....
Medical Library Association

How MySpace works
Fifty-four million people have profiles on MySpace as of February 2006, and 180,000 more register to use the site every day. By all accounts, it’s a phenomenon. Some people call it dumb luck, some call it brilliant, and a few call it a sexual predator’s dream come true. In this article, we’ll find out what MySpace really is, what it can do for you, how it blew past the competition, and why Rupert Murdoch thought it was worth $580 million....
How Stuff Works

A history of typographical bleeping
Mark Liberman looks at the origins of typographical bleeping, in which asterisks or hyphens or underscores are substituted for certain letters in order to avoid violating lexical taboos. A reader provided an example from 1869, and this caused him to do a small search that pushed it back to 1680....
Language Log, June 10

Annual Conference
in New Orleans,
June 22–28.

Cognotes is the daily newspaper of the ALA Annual Conference. It is published Saturday through Tuesday during the Conference, and a Highlights Issue is mailed to all ALA members after the Conference. Issues are also posted online.

Read Brenda Bailey-Hainer’s note on the State of Colorado’s government portal in the Summer issue of Interface, ASCLA’s online newsletter.

Urgent action needed in contacting Senators about the Communications Reform bill, S. 2686.

CATALOG LIBRARIAN, Long Island University, Brooklyn campus. Performs copy/original cataloging of print and non-print materials in an OCLC/Horizon environment, including retrospective conversion. Position available Sept. 1 and will remain open until filled.... See American Libraries HOT JOBS ONLINE for more career opportunities.

ALA has 57 chapters, each having affiliate relationships with state library associations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and regional library associations in the Mountain Plains, New England, Pacific Northwest, and Southeast regions.

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