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New Orleans Update
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Appeals court: Patriot Act’s gag provision probably unlawful
A federal appeals judge has criticized the FBI’s permanent ban on speech in terrorism investigations—the gag provision allowed by National Security Letters (NSLs) authorized by the USA Patriot Act—as probably unconstitutional in the light of recent congressional amendments to the law....

Gov. Jeb Bush vetoes Florida library appropriations
As part of an unprecedented $448.7-million line-item veto of state funding, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush slashed a total of $5.8 million in grants to public libraries, pilot projects for library homework help and web-based high-school texts, and funding for a joint-use library in Tampa. Bush, whose term runs out in January 2007, said as he signed the $73.9-billion state budget May 25 that he was pleased to leave the state with a $6.4-billion reserve cushion against hard times....

Net neutrality bill passes House committee
The House Judiciary Committee sent to the full House May 25 a bill that would forbid internet service providers from charging higher fees to providers of bandwidth-intensive data files for access to high-speed connections. The Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006, introduced May 18 by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), passed out of committee by a vote of 20–13....

Sprinklers were recommended for University of New Mexico in 2002
A consultant recommended fire-suppression systems four years ago for the University of New Mexico’s Zimmerman Library, which suffered serious damage from an April 30 blaze. Sprinklers were among many recommendations in the 97-page UNM General Library Preservation Assessment, which was completed in 2002 by University of Utah Preservation Librarian Randy Silverman....

Leslie Burger attends ACLU press conference
ALA President-Elect Leslie Burger attended the May 30 ACLU press conference at which four Connecticut librarians spoke publicly for the first time about their experience as recipients of a National Security Letter (NSL) demanding library records. She officially thanked Library Connection on behalf of America’s library users for their “bravery and patriotism” in fighting the government’s order and expressed regret that Library Connection was barred from speaking to Congress about the USA Patriot Act before the law was renewed earlier this year....

Mississippi State Library and SOLINET to cosponsor ALA Advocacy Institute
The Mississippi State Library and SOLINET have joined the growing list of cosponsors for the ALA Advocacy Institute, scheduled for Friday, June 23, during Annual Conference in New Orleans....

Small business start-ups begin @ your library
Every year, more than 500,000 entrepreneurs start new businesses in the United States. But how and where, with little money beyond what they can borrow on credit cards or from family and friends, do they do the market research, licensing, and all the rest of what it takes to succeed? The answer is @ your library....

A deluge of errors sank New Orleans
As hurricanes come, New Orleans always is going to be a special case. Nature makes it vulnerable. Human error and fecklessness, though, were what turned the hurricane of ’05 into The Great Deluge. That’s the title historian Douglas Brinkley chose for his book about the first week of Katrina. The book was written on the run. The author evacuated with the foresighted and the lucky before the storm hit....
Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, May 28

New Orleans to remain “second city” for some time
By even the most optimistic estimates, it will be a decade before New Orleans is again a city of 455,000. The grim population outlook all but assures Louisiana will lose another seat in Congress, thereby reducing its clout and influence in Washington. While no one is sure how many people are back in New Orleans, the best guess is around 200,000....
Shreveport (La.) Times, May 28

Sweeping downtown revitalization plan unveiled
In a sweeping downtown revitalization plan being unveiled May 30, the Hyatt Regency New Orleans Hotel and the New Orleans Shopping Center will be turned into a modern 20-acre multi-use National Jazz Center and park buttressed by public office buildings....
New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 30

City on a shoestring
New Orleans does not have enough money to provide basic city services to residents. It was true before Hurricane Katrina and it is even more true now. Garbage is collected once a week now, rather than twice as it was pre-Katrina. Many city traffic lights are dead and others blink like Christmas lights....
New Orleans City Business, May 29

Post-Katrina New Orleans
This FAQ answers many questions about current transportation and facilities in New Orleans....
New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau

Airport shuttle service
Shuttle service is available to and from downtown New Orleans hotels, the French Quarter, and the Convention Center for $13 per person one way or $26 per person round trip....
Airport Shuttle New Orleans

ACRL announces speakers for its Baltimore Conference
Luz Mangurian (right), Tracy Mitrano, David Silver, and Sanford Ungar are among the speakers invited to present papers at ACRL’s 13th National Conference, to be held in Baltimore, March 29–April 1, 2007. Mangurian, former professor of biology at Towson University, will discuss her research on learning and the neurosciences and how it can be applied in higher education....

ALCTS issues statement on the LC series authority record decision
The board of directors of ALCTS issued a statement last week in response to LC’s announcement April 20 that it would cease performing series authority work for the bibliographic records it creates. The statement, drafted by the Cataloging and Classification Section with input from the Serials Section, was forwarded to the Library of Congress....

ALCTS Annual Conference forums in New Orleans
ALCTS recently inaugurated a forum series, held at various times during each ALA conference, to provide its members the opportunity to hear experts discuss important topics of current concern to the ALCTS and library community. Upcoming forums in New Orleans include such topics as digital preservation and serials standards....

AASL’s “Get out the Vote” campaign generated increased turnout
As a result of AASL’s “Get Out the Vote” campaign launched in early spring, voting by its members in the 2006 ALA election increased by 39% from last year: 2,178 AASL members voted in 2006, compared to only 1,571 in 2005, 1,590 in 2004, 1,228 in 2003, and 1,321 in 2002....

Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty TF adds new sections to its website
The SRRT Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty Task Force has made two important additions to its website—a new resources section and a new organizations section....

Winners of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature named
Aloft, Kira Kira, and Firekeeper’s Son are the winners in three categories of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. The awards honor and recognize individual works published in 2004 and 2005 about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritages based on literary and artistic merit....

Four librarians break silence in records case
Four Connecticut librarians who had been barred from revealing that they had received a request for patrons’ records from the federal government spoke out May 30, expressing frustration about the sweeping powers given to law enforcement authorities by the USA Patriot Act....
New York Times, May 31

French National Library sues Brooklyn dealer over manuscript
France’s national library has filed suit against a Brooklyn artifact dealer, demanding the return of a centuries-old book that was stolen before he purchased it at a New York auction, a library official said....
Associated Press, May 29

Lott thanks Maryland Library Association for restoring hope
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) sent a letter to John Taube, director of the Allegany County (Md.) Library System, that read in part: “It was hard to find hope among the despair following Aug. 29, 2005, but when John Taube, Judy Castleman, and Jan Carder drove to Pearlington [PDF file], hope came with them. Words cannot express our gratitude for the bookmobile and your generous donation....”
Cumberland (Md.) Times-News, May 27

Justices set limits on public employees’ speech rights
The Supreme Court declared May 30, in a ruling affecting millions of government employees, that the Constitution does not always protect their free-speech rights for what they say on the job. In a 5–4 decision, the court held that public employees’ free-speech rights are protected when they speak out as citizens on matters of public concern, but not when they speak out in the course of their official duties....
New York Times, May 30

The library: Next best thing to an MBA
Across the country, public libraries are giving would-be entrepreneurs a helping hand with resources and expert guidance. The sheer volume of library resources available is staggering. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that many could rival an MBA program in terms of the tools they offer for instruction and information—available for little or no cost...
Business Week, May 25

The Pandora’s box of social networking
MySpace claimed almost 5 million registered users in 2005, and that number has grown to exceed 70 million today. Though currently the most popular, MySpace is only one of a number of social networking sites online, and their attractiveness to teens and pre-teens has spawned worry over a growing internet menace....
TechNewsWorld, May 31

Scholarly squeeze
Allowing undergraduates into the British Library’s reading rooms has led to exclusion, not inclusion. The library last year decided to let the undergraduate masses into the reading rooms. On the face of it, a good idea. But the studied calm of the reading room has given way to a hum of mobile phone ringtones, chit-chat, and pubescent histrionics....
The Guardian, May 29

Amnesty International targets net repression
Amnesty International is celebrating 45 years of activism by highlighting governments’ use of the internet to suppress dissent. The campaign will push for the release of those jailed for speaking out online and name high-tech firms aiding governments that limit online protests....
BBC News, May 28

Chicago’s summer reading program
The Chicago Public Library is teaming up with the Field Museum to get kids “Wrapped Up in Reading” this summer. Children will celebrate Ancient Egypt (and the King Tut exhibit at the Field) with an eight-week Summer Reading Program, June 12–August 5. Chicago-area readers of all ages are encouraged to participate by reading a book and reporting on it at any of the 79 CPL locations....
Chicago Public Library

Summer reading vodcast
Charlotte, North Carolina, area teens at ImaginOn created this video to promote their summer reading program. The video, which shows how teens can get inspired about a 30-hour reading program, is available for viewing at YouTube, where it will start playing when you visit the site....
Alternative Teen Services, May 19

Chicago Public Library: A new strategic plan
CPL has come up with a new strategic plan (PDF file) for the city’s libraries. Developed as a collaborative effort with the Chicago Public Library Foundation and with generous pro bono consultation from the Boston Consulting Group, CPL 2010 identifies 20 goals in four key Areas of Strength upon which the institution will build, and 10 goals in three Areas of New Strategic Opportunity....
Chicago Public Library Foundation

Thinking about libraries and access
Walt Crawford’s “Perspective” offers some thoughts on how trends in access affect libraries’ ability to maintain strong collections, provide long-term access, and provide access to resources in all disciplines (not all disciplines at equal collection levels in all libraries, of course). Think of this essay as an extended answer to the question, “Why do I write about library access at all—and why don’t I stick to open access?”...
Cites & Insights, June

LC captures the Web
The Library of Congress has launched a website devoted to information about its program to capture and preserve historically important websites so that they can be accessed by future generations of users....
Library of Congress, May 25

CLA moves conference location due to strike (PDF file)
The Canadian Library Association has changed the location of most of its annual conference due to the ongoing strike at the Ottawa Congress Centre. Conference activities are being moved to other venues, with the biggest changes taking place June 15–16....
Canadian Library Association, May 25

Public broadcasters, museums, and libraries will hold second videoconference
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Institute for Museum and Library Services announced that the Partnership for a Nation of Learners will sponsor a second national/local Community Collaboration Videoconference on June 19, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., Eastern Time. It will be produced at WETA in Washington, D.C., and will once again feature Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, as the national host....
Institute for Museum and Library Services, May 25

OCLC publishes survey on college students’ perceptions of the library
College Students’ Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources examines the information-seeking habits and preferences of international college students. With all-new graphs and additional analysis of how college student data compare to that of total respondents, this report is a subset of OCLC’s original 2005 Perceptions report and provides findings from the online survey in an effort to learn more about library use, library electronic resources, and internet search engines....
OCLC, May

What education schools aren’t teaching about reading (PDF file)
From a representative sample of 72 education schools, NCTQ reviewed 222 required reading courses, including evaluations of syllabi as well as 226 required reading texts. Schools were scored on how well their courses presented the core components of the science of reading. The findings are alarming. Only 15% of the education schools provide future teachers with minimal exposure to the science. Moreover, course syllabi reveal a tendency to dismiss the scientific research in reading, continuing to espouse approaches to reading that will not serve up to 40% of all children....
National Council on Teacher Quality, May

How OPACs suck, part 3: The big picture
Karen Schneider continues her critique of library catalogs: “The fundamental problem with today’s library catalog is that it suffers from severe literalism. Even with a few bells and whistles, today’s OPAC is a doggedly faithful replica of the card catalog of yore.”...
ALA TechSource blog, May 20

Annual Conference
in New Orleans,
June 22–28.

Take advantage of ALA’s Conference Placement Service in New Orleans. Job seekers, employers, and recruitment vendors can register at the HRDR website.

Check out Best of the Best Business Web Sites, RUSA’s recommended business web resources.

The Dollar General fund will provide grants to public schools whose school library program has been affected by a disaster. Grants are to replace or supplement books, media, or library equipment in the school library setting. Apply by June 1 to receive the earliest consideration.

ALA’s International Relations Office has created a database that allows you to search the international activities of librarians. To create a profile or search the database, visit the Global Reach website.

The website LibraryCareers.org includes basic information on what it takes to become a librarian or library worker as well as information on education, financial assistance, and possible career paths.