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Voters approve Austin library measure, reject Oakland bond
On election day November 7, voters in Austin, Texas, approved a new 250,000-square-foot Central Library, while Oakland, California, residents rejected a measure to turn a vacant convention center into a new main library. The $90-million Austin library package, which won a 60% majority, was one of seven propositions before the city’s voters, all of which passed. The new facility will include more books, programming and exhibit space, and increased parking and accessibility....

Nonresident lawsuit reaches Michigan Supreme Court
One Michigan man’s legal pursuit of a nonresident library card is on its way to the state supreme court. George Goldstone sued the Bloomfield Township Public Library in 2005 after it refused to issue him a library card. Goldstone is a resident of neighboring Bloomfield Hills, a wealthy Detroit suburb that in 2003 ended a 39-year contract with the township library after rejecting its proposed $187,550 fee increase....

Senators request delay in EPA library closings
A group of 17 Democratic senators and one Independent senator wrote to the Senate Appropriations Committee November 3, asking that the Environmental Protection Agency be directed to halt the continuing closures of their libraries “while the Agency solicits and considers public input on its plan to drastically cut its library budget and services.” The letter, penned by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), reflects the growing wave of concern from lawmakers and public employees over recent EPA actions that include the closing of three regional libraries and the reduction of hours or staff at five other libraries....

Sacajawea library arson price tag skyrockets
The estimated damage from a September 8 arson fire that destroyed the media center at the Sacajawea Middle School in Spokane, Washington, rose to $1.3 million in early November. An earlier estimate had set the damage at only $300,000, the amount used in setting restitution payments by the three youths accused of setting the blaze....

Feature your new library in American Libraries
Every year, American Libraries’ April issue features photographs of new, expanded, and renovated library buildings. A showcase of exteriors and interiors of all kinds, this special issue spotlights some of the best in new library designs and successfully completed restorations. Submission forms for 2007 (PDF file) are online. The deadline is February 1, 2007....

Burger announces Emerging Leaders participants
ALA President Leslie Burger has announced the librarians who will take part in the Emerging Leaders 2007 (EL ’07) program. The effort was initiated by Burger and is intended to welcome and train new librarians to get a jump-start in leadership. The full list is available online....

Klein to deliver Arthur Curley lecture
Joe Klein, senior writer for Time magazine and author of several best-selling books, will discuss “Islam, Iraq, and the War on Terror” at the eighth annual Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture on Saturday, January 20, during the Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. As “Anonymous,” Klein wrote the bestseller Primary Colors, which was inspired by the 1992 presidential race. His latest book, The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, also was a New York Times bestseller....

ALA extends search for Endowment trustee candidates
In an effort to increase the pool of potential candidates for the upcoming opening among the Endowment trustees, the ALA Executive Board has reopened and extended the search for candidates. The deadline for receiving applications (PDF file) is now March 1, 2007. Nominations are now being accepted. The candidate will be selected by the ALA Executive Board at its spring meeting, to be held April 13–15 in Chicago....

ALA one year later: What it did right, where it needs improvement
Meredith Farkas writes: “It’s been almost a year since I wrote some posts about gripes I had with ALA and suggestions of how the ALA could do better. At the time, I was seriously considering letting my ALA membership lapse in the fall of 2006. Yet last week, I put $200 on my credit card to renew my membership in ALA, LITA, and NMRT, and to become a new member of ACRL (which I was a member of as a student a while back). What happened? Well . . . a lot.”...
Information Wants to be Free blog, Nov. 11

Making ALA/ACRL better
Steven Bell writes: “A few posts appeared in the last day or so ruminating on ALA 2.0 (as if we needed 2.0 anything else). Rather than giving you a long discourse on what needs to happen for ALA or ACRL to improve, I’m going to simplify it for ACRLog readers. There are three easy steps.”...
ACRLog, Nov. 12

Featured review: Media A Model for Matisse: The Story of the Vence Chapel. Nov. 2006. 67 min. First Run Features, DVD. In 1941, 21-year-old nursing student Monique Bourgeois answered an advertisement placed by artist Henri Matisse requesting the services of a “young and pretty” night nurse to help during his recuperation from surgery. Monique accepted the job, and the two became friends and confidants until the artist’s death in 1954. In this documentary, 82-year-old Monique Bourgeois (now a Dominican nun known as Sister Jacques-Marie) recalls Matisse and their collaborative efforts to build and design a chapel in Vence, situated 20 miles from Nice.... Evaluating children’s music CDs Ever aware of my 12th-grade English teacher, who impressed upon me the need to organize and outline, I set out to define what I focus on when I evaluate a new album. When this proved taxing, I did what any self-respecting librarian would do. I turned to the Web, which, surprisingly, yielded almost nothing. Everything I found was pretty dry and not really relevant to the question. In desperation, I decided to make my former teacher happy and create a topic sentence. Here it is....

FOLUSA’s gala author tea
Four authors will speak about their writings at this traditional FOLUSA event sponsored by ReferenceUSA, to be held January 22, from 2 to 4 p.m. Featured authors are Cherry Adair (right, Edge of Darkness), William Dietrich (Napoleon’s Pyramids), Zlata Filipovic (Stolen Voices), and Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants). The event will feature finger sandwiches, coffee and tea, and a variety of sweets....
Friends of Libraries USA

RMG Consultants’ 17th Annual Presidents’ Seminar
“Wow Technologies in Libraries: Source, Demand, Strategy” is the topic of the RMG Presidents’ Seminar at the ALA Midwinter Meeting on Friday, January 19, 2:00–5:00 p.m. Find out from panelists which “wow factor” add-ons to ILSs are mission critical to libraries, where the future of the OPAC lies, and what an ILS 2.0 should look like....
RMG Consultants, Inc.

AASL’s journal gets a dynamic new look
Knowledge Quest, the print journal of the American Association of School Librarians, has undergone a dramatic makeover with its September/October 2006 issue. Formerly printed primarily in black and white with limited graphic images, Knowledge Quest received a vibrant shot of color and moved to 4-color press production for its 35th volume. Its companion website KQWeb also underwent a redesign and reorganization under the leadership of AASL’s new web editor, Gayle Bogel....

Proposals wanted for LITA’s 10th National Forum
LITA is seeking proposals for high-quality concurrent sessions and poster sessions for the 10th annual LITA National Forum, “Technology with Altitude: 10 Years of the LITA National Forum,” to be held at the Denver Marriott City Center, October 4–7, 2007. The deadline is December 15....

Bill Harley helps launch ALSC Kids! campaign
When Grammy-nominated children’s singer/storyteller Bill Harley took to the stage November 12 at Boston Public Library to perform, it was no ordinary concert. His message was: “There’s so much to see, so much to do @ your library.” Harley helped kick off the ALSC Kids! @ your library campaign, a new national effort to raise awareness of all the free resources available for children and families....

Recovery of Louisiana documents collections (PDF file)
University of New Orleans Head of Government Documents Lora Amsberryaugier gave this presentation at ALA Annual Conference last summer at a Government Documents Round Table program. It features many photos of depository libraries damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and summarizes the building damage and human toll on the collections....

Kevin Starr receives National Humanities Medal
At a White House ceremony on November 9, President George W. Bush presented the National Humanities Medal to nine distinguished Americans and one institution for their contributions to the humanities. Included in the awardees was Kevin Starr, state librarian of California from 1994 to 2004 and an American historian best known for his multivolume series on the social and cultural history of California, collectively called America and the California Dream....
National Endowment for the Humanities, Nov. 8

Three libraries receive IMLS National Awards
The Frankfort (Ind.) Community Public Library, the Public Library of Charlotte (N.C.) and Mecklenburg County, and the San Antonio (Tex.) Public Library are three of the winners of the 2006 National Awards for Museum and Library Service. Each organization will receive $10,000 and will be honored at a special ceremony in Washington, D.C. The National Award for Museum and Library Service honors institutions for extraordinary civic, educational, economic, environmental, and social contributions....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Nov. 15

Sara Jaffarian establishes new award
The Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award will be given annually to a school library (K–8, public or private) that has conducted an exemplary program or program series in the humanities. Jaffarian, a retired school librarian and ALA member for 63 years, made a donation to ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund in order to establish the $4,000 award. The award guidelines and application are available online. Submissions are due by February 28, 2007....

Rebecca Miller wins Shera Dissertation Award
The ALA Library Research Round Table has named Rebecca Miller winner of the 2006 Jesse H. Shera Award for the Support of Dissertation Research for her paper, “The Diffusion of Professional Knowledge in Intercultural Exchanges: The American-Bulgarian Library Exchange Case Study.” Miller is a doctoral candidate in the School of Library and Information Management, Emporia (Kans.) State University....

Apply for PLA awards and honors
The Public Library Association’s awards are designed to highlight the best in public library service. Nominate your library or a colleague for an award through PLA’s new online awards application. The deadline for applications is December 1. All applications must be submitted online prior to the deadline in order to be considered....

Urban Libraries Council awards nominations sought
ULC’s three awards honor members’ achievements in addressing community needs, leadership, and urban development. The awards are presented annually at the group’s Leadership Breakfast, held in conjunction with the ALA Annual Conference. Nominees must be ULC members. The deadline is December 3....
Urban Libraries Council

Virginia joins the Google Books team
The University of Virginia in Charlottesville will join eight other research libraries in the Google Books Library Project, officials announced November 14. Google will digitize selected parts of the library’s collections in American history, literature, and humanities. University Librarian Karin Wittenborg said that with Google, “18th and 19th century works that are rarely found can be discovered by new audiences.”...
Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, Nov. 15

Canadian universities switch RefWorks servers to ensure privacy from the U.S.
Concerned about the U.S. government’s prying eyes, a number of Canadian universities are changing the way their professors and students conduct online research. Many university libraries subscribe to RefWorks, a popular U.S.-based internet tool that allows academics and students to create personal accounts and store research information. But the USA Patriot Act has prompted Canadian postsecondary institutions to abandon the American server for one housed at the University of Toronto....
Toronto Globe and Mail, Nov. 12

Nancy Pelosi was San Francisco Library Commissioner in 1975
It is now almost forgotten that U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was once a library commissioner. In those days Kevin Starr was the city librarian of San Francisco, Ed Callanan was the president of the Library Commission, and Joseph Alioto, the mayor at the time, appointed Pelosi to the remainder of an unfinished term....
California Chronicle, Nov. 13

Library cuts jeopardize state certification
Supporters of the Turner Free Library in Randolph, Massachusetts, have collected more than 1,500 signatures on a petition supporting increased library funding. The library has lost its state certification because it is only open 40 hours per week, not the required 63. “People had no idea this was happening,” Friends President Geraldine Quigley said. “If we lose the library, we lose a lot in this town.”...
Quincy (Mass.) Patriot-Ledger, Nov. 13

More graphic novels in libraries = more challenges
When Amy Crump took over as director of the Marshall Public Library in central Missouri two years ago, she decided to build up the library’s offerings for young adults by buying the literary world’s hot new thing—graphic novels. But libraries are increasingly facing complaints from some parents who are concerned that books with adult content could be read by children attracted to the comic book-like drawings....
Associated Press, Nov. 14

Minicards for your library
Stephen Abrams brainstormed about library-related uses for a new kind of photocard offered by a printing company called MOO that ties itself to Flickr: “You can use any of your Flickr images on your Minicards. You order them in batches as small as 100 and you get to choose which Flickr images you want and can have as many as there are cards in one batch.” Two excellent suggestions: “Have photos of your library club kids put on Flickr and make personalized business cards for them to promote the library” and “Make up a set for your trustees with their photos so they can promote the library.”...
Stephen’s Lighthouse blog, Nov. 15

Information ecosystem
Andrew Pace writes: “I got to thinking about the introduction of new technologies (e.g. Web 2.0), new content providers (e.g., Open Access), new content ‘snarfers’ (e.g., Microsoft Live and Google), and new business models for library automation. I was never very good at biology, but I gained a general understanding about how the introduction of new species into an ecosystem has an impact on the existing system.”...
Hectic Pace blog, Nov. 12

New Sony PRS-500 e-book reader
This year Sony tested the patience of e-book fans by twice delaying the release of its new PRS-500 reading device, originally promised for the spring. The company finally started taking orders over the Web in September, and the gadget can now be purchased at electronics stores and select Borders bookstores. The device holds hundreds of digital books and displays them on a unique “electronic paper” screen invented by MIT Media Lab researchers....
Technology Review, Nov. 8

Gear up your research guides with OPML codes
What if you could create a dynamic research guide that displays the latest headlines from selected blogs, feeds of new book and article titles from the library’s catalog and databases, and audio and video files—along with your traditional web links and bibliographies? Even better, what if this guide could be syndicated so that people were able to subscribe to it and automatically receive updated versions in their RSS aggregators? Kimberley Wilcox describes the emerging Outline Processor Mark­up Language (OPML), which promises these features and more, making it an excellent format for creating and sharing research and information guides....
Computers in Libraries 26, no. 10 (Nov./Dec. 2006)

Elsevier to expand books on ScienceDirect
Science publisher Elsevier plans to add some 4,000 scientific and technical reference works, handbooks, and technical books to its ScienceDirect database in 2007. Some of the new titles will include Principles of Tissue Engineering, Handbook of Forensic Psychology, and Marine Mammals....
Elsevier, Nov. 9

Disconnects between library culture and millennial generation values
Robert H. McDonald and Chuck Thomas say that “Despite a few encouraging exceptions, such as RLG’s RedLightGreen Catalog interface and OCLC’s Open WorldCat, most libraries have been reluctant to embrace or provide new capabilities for users. Features such as personalization and recombination of information resources are pervasive in the external software and systems world, but libraries generally have not demonstrated the desire or intent to adopt these capabilities for users.”...
Educause Quarterly 29, no. 4 (2006)

The changing medical library (PDF file)
Recent changes in technology have allowed academic medical center libraries to bring the world of biomedical information to the physician’s computer desktop. Because digital libraries have grown so rapidly and in so many ways, some clinicians may be uncertain about the services and resources that are available to them. This article by four Mount Sinai Medical Center (New York City) librarians explains how clinical faculty can best utilize their libraries to support their research and patient care....
Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine 73 (Oct. 2006): 857–863

Many college students fall short on ICT literacy skills
Despite the assumption that today’s college students are tech savvy and ICT literate, preliminary research (PDF file) released by the Educational Testing Service November 14 shows that many students lack the critical-thinking skills to perform the kinds of information management and research tasks necessary for academic success. ETS reached these conclusions after evaluating the responses of 6,300 students who took the company’s ICT (information and communication technology) Literacy Assessment this year....
Educational Testing Service, Nov. 14

Camp Darfur spotlights Sudan’s humanitarian crisis
An interactive awareness, education, and action event that will bring attention to the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan, Camp Darfur is traveling to U.S. communities, giving people the opportunity to experience life in a refugee camp and discover their own power to make a difference. It’s also one way the library profession might join in highlighting and explaining the Darfur genocide to its users, as the ALA Council has urged....
Camp Darfur

November is American Indian/ Alaska Native Heritage Month
The first American Indian Day was celebrated in May 1916 in New York. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed a joint congressional resolution designating November 1990 as “National American Indian Heritage Month.” Similar proclamations have been issued every year since 1994. Find out more facts from the Census Bureau....
U.S. Census Bureau, Sept. 20

Australian libraries have a Second Life presence
Kathryn Greenhill, an academic librarian in Perth, has created a building for Australian libraries to share in Second Life’s Cybrary City. Cybrary City is an island sponsored by Talis and administered by the Alliance Library System in East Peoria, Illinois. It provides free buildings for libraries for a year, in return for a couple of hours staffing per week. She has offered some suggestions on what to use the facility for, among them hosting Australian Library Week events and as a venue for virtual library meetings, Flickr exhibits, and a library search portal....
Librariesinteract.info blog, Nov. 14

TLA’s theatre resources
The Theatre Library Association offers a webliography of recommended sites of interest to theatre scholars and librarians. Included are theatre resource guides, electronic texts, electronic journals, professional organizations, and awards....
Theatre Library Association

Web resources for church librarians
Find help with selecting and purchasing materials, organizing and managing a church library, promotion and fundraising, book care and archiving, sources for supplies and furnishings, computers and library automation, and sources for librarian support and education....
National Church Library Association

The Florence flood of November 4, 1966
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the devastating 1966 flooding of the Arno River in Florence, Italy. In the days following the flood, Peter Waters (who became LC’s chief of conservation from 1971 to 1995) was heavily involved in recovery operations at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. The Restoration of Books, Florence, 1968, was shot by English filmmaker Roger Hill and includes rare footage of Waters covering a book in leather and British conservator Christopher Clarkson making a limp vellum binding. This 39-minute film is available for viewing free of charge through the University of Utah....
University of Utah, Marriott Library

Some Midwinter institutes and special events require additional registration. To register for one of these events, choose the event from the list on the online registration form, or enter the Event Code on your printed registration form.

In order recognize the changing role of school library media programs now and in the future, AASL is developing new learning standards for school library media programs. The division is accepting comments on its first draft through December 8.

The winner of the National Library Legislative Day 2007 Student Contest is Danny Chapman of Lake Forest, Illinois. For his winning entry— entitled “Check Out the Future”—Danny has won a free trip to the 33rd Annual National Library Legislative Day, which will be held in Washington, D.C., on May 1 and 2, 2007.

MASTER PLAN CONSULTANT. Renton (Wash.) Public Library is seeking a professional library consultant to facilitate the development of a Master Plan. The Plan is to be based on a highly participative process, should identify future needs for library services and facilities, and make specific recommendations for implementation strategies.... See JobLIST for more career opportunities.

The State Library of Ohio recently hosted PPO’s Alexander Hamilton traveling exhibition. It exceeded expectations to such an extent that State Librarian of Ohio Jo Budler was moved to write a testimonial letter (PDF file) describing its success.

Nov. 29–Dec. 1: South Carolina Library Association Annual Conference, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Hilton Head. Contact: Gabrielle Barnes, 803-252-1087. Feb. 22–25: Alaska Library Association Annual Conference, Centennial Hall, Juneau. “Libraries: The Umbrella of the Community.” Contact: Amelia Jenkins. Mar. 6–8: Louisiana Library Association Annual Conference, Holiday Inn Select, Baton Rouge. “Louisiana Libraries: Bridging Communities.” Contact: LLA. Mar. 14–16: New Mexico Library Association /Mountain Plains Library Association Joint Conference, Albuquerque Convention Center. “Libraries: Launching the Future.” Contact: Louise Hoffmann. Apr. 5–7: Kansas Library Association /Kansas Association of School Librarians /Kansas Association for Educational Communications and Technology Tri-Conference, Capitol Plaza and Kansas ExpoCentre, Topeka. Contact: Helen Rigdon, 620-251-1370. Apr. 18–20: Oregon Library Association Annual Conference, Oregon State University, Corvallis. “Finding Community: Civics, Cyberspace, and Change.” Contact: Lynne Mildenstein, 541-617-7061. Apr. 18–20: Tennessee Library Association Annual Conference, Chattanooga Convention Center and Marriott Hotel. “Info-Locomotion: Ticket to Ride.” Contact: Annelle Huggins. More Datebook items...

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