Contents
U.S. & World News
ALA News
Booklist Online
D.C. Update
Division News
Round Table News
Awards
Seen Online
Tech Talk
Actions & Answers
Poll
Calendar

LIBRARIAN Act of 2007 introduced
On National Library Workers Day, April 17, the Librarian Incentive to Boost Recruitment and Retention in Areas of Need (LIBRARIAN) Act of 2007 was introduced in both the U.S. Senate (S. 1121) and the House of Representatives (H.R. 1877). The bipartisan bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), along with Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Vern Ehlers (R-Mich.), and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), and in the Senate by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). The bill provides for Perkins student loan forgiveness, which will encourage individuals to become and remain librarians in low-income schools and public libraries....

Former “John Doe” warns of Patriot Act abuse
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution heard testimony April 11 from George Christian, one of four former plaintiffs in the John Doe v. Gonzales lawsuit that contested the constitutionality of the FBI’s use of National Security Letters (NSLs). Christian, the executive director of the Connecticut nonprofit library consortium Library Connection, submitted his testimony on behalf of the American Library Association....

Military libraries face closure
In what could prefigure a distressing trend among military libraries, the Fort Huachuca Library, located on an Army installation in southeastern Arizona, closed recently after officials determined that the library did not meet community and Army standards. Meanwhile, in Falls Church, Virginia, the Army Surgeon General’s Armed Forces Medical Library, founded in 1836, is battling to avoid shutdown in the wake of budget cuts. The staff is currently gathering information to make a case for their institution’s survival.....

Rochester residents weigh in on filtering
Some 100 people attended the first of three public forums April 12 on whether staff at the Rochester and Monroe County (N.Y.) Library System should continue their policy of allowing adult users to view blocked websites on request. Trustees scheduled the hearings as part of a policy review in response to a threat from County Executive Maggie Brooks to withhold $6.6 million in funding if the library does not crack down on access to internet pornography....

Exhibit complainant defends free speech in Mesa County
A retired attorney who voiced an objection in February to an anti-gay exhibit at the Mesa County (Colo.) Public Library District has convinced trustees not to add any restrictions or prior approval requirements to the library’s display policy. “Let the display go up,” Bill Hugenberg told trustees at a special April 5 meeting....

New data on U.S. libraries show almost 2 billion served
Ten years after some experts predicted the demise of the nation’s system of libraries as a result of the internet explosion, the most current national data on library use shows that the exact opposite has happened. Data released April 16 by ALA indicates that the number of visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61% between 1994 and 2004. According to the 2007 State of America’s Libraries report, there were nearly two billion visits to U.S. libraries in fiscal year 2004....

Fort Worth Public Library branch to get makeover
The Riverside branch of the Fort Worth (Tex.) Public Library is receiving a makeover during National Library Week, thanks to a Reading Renovation Volunteer Project cosponsored by Idearc Media and ALA. Over the course of three days, Idearc Media volunteers are moving collections, landscaping, installing colorful furniture, and painting walls—highlighted by the creation of new murals. The branch will reopen April 20....

ALA joins Informed Meetings Exchange
ALA is the latest subscriber to the Informed Meetings Exchange. INMEX closely researches and analyzes the hotel industry, and will provide information to ALA that will support the Association’s efforts to share meeting and convention dollars with hotels that respect their workers and their collective bargaining rights....

OIF podcast features Chris Crutcher
Enjoy the Office for Intellectual Freedom podcast (mp3 file, 53:13) of teacher, family therapist, and award-winning author Chris Crutcher recounting stories related to his popular novels at the Seattle Public Library. Crutcher was the featured speaker at a fundraiser for the Freedom to Read Foundation on January 21, in conjunction with the 2007 ALA Midwinter Meeting....
Office for Intellectual Freedom, Apr. 13

Washington’s distillery a new tourist spot
After a nearly 200-year hiatus, George Washington’s still is bubbling again, churning out the same sort of rye whiskey that made the Founding Father the nation’s most successful whiskey producer in the years after his presidency. The Mount Vernon estate on March 30 officially opened a $2.1-million reconstruction of Washington’s original distillery on the exact site where it was located in 1799, a few miles down the road from his famous mansion overlooking the Potomac River....
CNN, Apr. 11

ACRL’s 13th National Conference: The movie
American Libraries editors George Eberhart and Daniel Kraus filmed and edited this 7-minute video memento of the ACRL Conference in Baltimore, March 29–April 1. No frogs or fish were harmed in any way during production. Featuring filmmaker John Waters, educator Michael Eric Dyson, ACRL President Pamela Snelson, a few poster session presenters, and other unsuspecting attendees. (Another copy of the video is on YouTube.)...
BlipTV, Apr. 18; YouTube, Apr. 17

AASL seeks School Library Media Research editor
AASL is looking for an editor for its online research journal. The School Library Media Research editor, a stipend position, is responsible for setting the scope and tone of the journal, coordinating the refereeing process, and developing and maintaining positive relationships with authors and potential authors. The editor also coordinates all steps of the publication process and serves as an ex-officio member of the AASL Publications Committee....

ALCTS President’s Program to feature Peter Morville
Peter Morville, author of Ambient Findability and president of Semantic Studios, will speak at the 2007 ALCTS President’s Program, “Ambient Findability: Librarians, Libraries, and the Internet of Things,” June 25, 10:30 a.m., during ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C....

Preconference to focus on users with disabilities
ALSC and ASCLA will host an all-day preconference on “The Underserved 20 Percent: Children, Teens, and Adults with Disabilities,” June 22, during ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Harriet McBryde Johnson, a leading disabilities-rights activist, lawyer, and author of Too Late to Die Young and Accidents of Nature, will be the keynote speaker....

AASL to offer advocacy institute
AASL will offer an advocacy preconference workshop entitled “Advocacy Begins with Strategic Planning,” June 22, during ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Organizational consultant Maureen Sullivan will lead this interactive workshop, teaching strategic planning skills for the school library setting....

ASCLA annual dinner to benefit Century Scholarship
The ASCLA Libraries Serving Special Populations Section will host its annual dinner on June 24 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at La Tasca Spanish Tapas Bar and Restaurant during the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. A portion of the proceeds raised from the event will be used to benefit the Century Scholarship Fund....

Fighting government disinformation is a librarian’s mandate
Kathleen de la Peña McCook writes: “I began my work as a librarian during the time of the Pentagon Papers. That early experience convinced me that a central value of librarianship is the public’s right to know. At the very center of the lies that undergird the Bush administration has been a calculated pattern of disinformation. Fighting disinformation is embodied in the work of the ALA Government Documents Round Table.”...
Librarian blog, Apr. 15

Nine winners of the AIA/ALA Library Building Awards
The American Institute of Architects has announced the nine recipients of the 2007 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards. Biennially, representatives from the AIA and ALA gather to celebrate the finest examples of library design by architects licensed in the United States. The 2007 awards (administered by LAMA) honor nine separate projects, ranging in size from a public elementary school library (Robin Hood Foundation Library for P.S. 192 in New York City, above) to a presidential library (William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock)....

Alliance System is 2007 Library of the Future
Kitty Pope, executive director of the Alliance Library System in East Peoria, Illinois, and the international collaborative group of librarians working on Alliance Second Life Library, are the 2007 recipients of the $1,500 ALA/Information Today Library of the Future Award. Pope and the Alliance Second Life Library librarians are recognized for their ground-breaking work in the development of a 3D virtual-world library, for forging new partnerships within the virtual world, and for providing programs, services, and materials to the more than 1.3 million residents who inhabit Second Life....

Winston Tabb receives Lippincott Award
Winston Tabb, dean of university libraries and Sheridan director at Johns Hopkins University, is this year’s recipient of ALA’s Joseph W. Lippincott Award. The award, founded in 1938, is given annually to an individual for distinguished service to the profession of librarianship and consists of a gold-framed citation and $1,000 donated by the award founder’s grandson, Joseph W. Lippincott, III....

Dresang wins Scholastic Library Publishing Award
Eliza T. Dresang is the winner of the 2007 Scholastic Library Publishing Award, to be be presented June 26, during ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The award is bestowed on a librarian whose extraordinary contributions to promoting access to books and encouraging a love of reading for lifelong learning exemplifies outstanding achievement in the profession. Dresang will receive a citation and $1,000 prize, donated by Scholastic Library Publishing....

LITA names Kilgour Award winner
Richard Pearce-Moses is the winner of the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology for 2007. The award is sponsored by OCLC Online Computer Library Center and LITA. Among Pearce-Moses’ achievements is the Arizona Model for preservation and access of web documents....

Awards for serving the blind and physically handicapped
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped at the Library of Congress presented network library awards April 17 to the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and to the Washtenaw County Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled of Ann Arbor, Michigan....
Library of Congress, Apr. 17

Billington receives inaugural Lafayette Prize
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington is the recipient of the inaugural Lafayette Prize, given by the French-American Cultural Foundation for contributions to the development of relations between the United States and France. The new annual award was created to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general who served heroically in the American Revolution....
Library of Congress, Apr. 17

IFLA International Marketing Awards
The IFLA Section on Management and Marketing, in collaboration with SirsiDynix, has announced the winners of the 5th IFLA International Marketing Award for 2007. First place was awarded to Olga Einasto (right), representing the University of Tartu Library, Estonia, for “The Night Library and the Mom-Student Library Project.” Second place went to the Zadar (Croatia) Public Library, and third place to the Miraflores Public Library in Lima, Peru....
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

Ruling freezes library surveillance video
The Neenah (Wis.) Public Library possesses a surveillance video of a man who reportedly was masturbating earlier this month among the nonfiction book aisles on the library’s second floor. Library Director Stephen Proces said he wants the suspect caught. He has shown the video to library employees and directed them to call police if they see the man enter the library again. But he can’t legally share the video with police without a court order....
Appleton (Wis.) Post-Crescent, Apr. 17

Pascagoula library holds grand reopening
“There’s no place like home” was the theme of the grand reopening of the Pascagoula (Miss.) Public Library, which was attended April 16 by nearly 100 people. Most books damaged by Hurricane Katrina were saved, but carpeting, sheet rock, and rusty shelving had to be replaced. Now the Pascagoula branch, the Jackson–George Regional Library System’s largest, has a new circulation desk, tables and chairs, larger public reading areas, and 20 public computers....
Pascagoula Mississippi Press, Apr. 17

Codex Gigas returns to Prague for exhibition
The Codex Gigas, which Swedish troops took away from Bohemia in 1648 during the Thirty Years’ War, will return temporarily to Prague this year for display in the National Library. Stockholm’s Royal Library experts told Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek that the bible is one of the most valuable medieval manuscripts. The Swedes are digitizing the bible as a gift to the Czech Republic....
Czech News Agency, Apr. 17

Terrorism books face ban in Australia
Books and DVDs that glorify terrorism will face much tougher censorship tests under new laws, federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said. Ruddock and state attorneys-general struck an agreement April 13 to allow materials that “advocate” terrorism to be pulled from bookstore shelves and stopped at Australia’s border. The state attorneys-general will report back to Canberra on the feasibility of the proposed laws by July. ...
Wodonga (Vic.) Border Mail, Apr. 14

Condemning books has no end
A Joplin Globe reader was so outraged that the Joplin (Mo.) Public Library was offering certain books to teenagers that she wrote a letter to the editor condemning them. In her letter she used phrases like “moral decay,” “societal anarchy,” and “twisted priorities” to make her point. Two of the books she referenced were The Sex Book by Jane Pavanel and The Whole Truth about Contraception by Beverly Winikoff and Suzanne Wymelenberg. Guest columnist Ron Hutchison writes, tongue-in-cheek, “The less high-school students know about the consequences of sex and contraception, the better off they’ll be, especially if there is an unwanted pregnancy involved.”...
Joplin (Mo.) Globe, Apr. 14

Professor and librarian lauded for health literacy study
A Central Michigan University professor and librarian are being honored for their study that found that some rely on the internet for medical information in a way that’s bad for their health. Lana Ivanitskaya, associate professor of health sciences, and Anne Casey (right), associate dean of libraries, began their study six years ago on the effective use of electronic documents, including those available through the internet....
Midland (Mich.) Daily News, Apr. 15

Traffic Safety reading room could disappear
Alarm bells went off last year when researchers learned that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration might archive, discard, or otherwise send off-site a trove of materials in preparation for a move to a new building with less space. The agency has maintained a public document room since it opened in 1970, but in 2006 no space was allocated for a NHTSA reading room in a new building that will house most of the Transportation Department....
Washington Post, Apr. 17

Sacramento retains unfiltered adult access
The Sacramento (Calif.) Public Library Authority rejected March 22 by a 5–4 vote a proposal to prohibit adults from requesting unfiltered internet access. During an open hearing, ACLU member and Sacramento attorney Allen Asch argued that enforced filters would be unconstitutional, prompting city councilwoman and library board member Bonnie Pannell to respond, “excuse my language, but screw folks’ constitutional rights,” which Asch has incorporated into a YouTube video....
California Catholic Daily, Apr. 9; YouTube, Mar. 29

The 2007 “Who Reads What” list
A skateboarding pro and a former Pentagon security analyst are among the latest readers to detail their favorite books in the “Who Reads What?” list, which for two decades has surveyed the top picks of presidents, movie stars, and athletes. “Some of these books are pretty heavy, but it really correlates with what the times are,” said Glenna Nowell, a retired librarian for Gardiner, Maine, who compiles the annual list as a way to inspire people to read more....
Associated Press, Apr. 14

Library honors nonagenarian’s reading
Pensioner Ruth Ogden, 94, has one of the longest-running library memberships in the Borough of Wirral, England, and staff at Wallasey Central Library helped to honor her 87 years of reading with a party celebrating her borrowing of nearly 19,000 books. Ruth spends seven days a week choosing her next book and usually heads straight for the horror section....
Wirral (U.K.) Globe, Apr. 16

Intellidating at the library
The hot spot du jour of Manhattan nightlife looms large over Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, where crowds of stylish YoCos—young cosmopolitans—were jostling inside one evening last week for the right to pay the $15 cover. Rather than crossing the velvet ropes for a rave, house party, or disco, the hip patrons here were packing into a controversial lecture at the New York Public Library on the modern meaning of feminism....
Washington Post, Apr. 16

UK library protesters in mass Read Out
More than 200 people congregated in downtown Winchester to show their support for Hampshire’s library service. Unison, the trade union organizing the demonstration, invited supporters to bring along their favorite book for a mass “Read Out” at the Buttercross on April 16. Some 4,000 residents have already signed a petition protesting against plans to axe 27 out of 60 professional librarians and downgrade a further 17 to “library officers” with pay cuts of up to £6,700....
Hampshire Chronicle, Apr. 16

A newbie’s guide to Flickr
Josh Lowensohn writes: “Flickr is a popular photo-sharing and hosting service with advanced and powerful features. It supports an active and engaged community where people share and explore each other's photos. You can share and host hundreds of your own pictures on Flickr without paying a dime. There’s also a pro service that gets you unlimited storage and sharing for about $2 a month, making it one of the cheapest hosting sites around.”...
Webware, Mar. 30

Create your own search engine
Create your own customized search engine that searches just a portion of one of the big search engines. Several options are available with various services and limitations. To compare these search builders, Greg Notess tried creating a search engine to search the sites of State Libraries using each tool. See the Search State Libraries page for the resulting search engines, notes, and a list of sites included....
Search Engine Showdown, Apr. 13

Online converters
Online converters always come in handy. Once you need to perform some operation with your files, they can save you time achieving the same results online without installing some specific software. In fact, there are many online tools that convert formats, files, and code snippets for free. This overview for users and developers links to many different tools that generate pdf documents out of images, images out of texts, or RSS feeds out of websites....
Smashing Magazine, Apr. 10

Teens as content creators in times of tragedy
Kelly Czarnecki writes: “As I watch the news about the tragedy at Virginia Tech, there was a reporter from CNN that said this was the first time she remembers the volume of photos and video coverage being sent to them from the public about a particular incident. The global news coverage will affect teens everywhere and the librarians that work with them through such portals as Teen Second Life. Since creating media and ‘putting themselves out there’ is an important part of adolescent development, why not create opportunities in the library for teens to respond?”...
YALSA blog, Apr. 17

New Britannica student encyclopedia
Students in grades 3–6 have a lively new way to do research with an all-new Britannica Student Encyclopedia. Containing 2,300 articles, 3,300 photos and images, and 1,000 maps and flags, the 16-volume set gives students what they need for homework and projects while making special efforts to introduce them to the craft of research....
Encyclopaedia Britannica

Thomson Gale holds National Library Week video contest
In honor of National Library Week 2007, Thomson Gale is launching librareo, an online community for libraries and the people who love them. To make certain librareo gets off to a great start, from now until the end of June, the company will host an “I Love my Library” video contest. Both librarians and library users can upload their library-loving videos to the YouTube librareo group by May 25 to be eligible for a $10,000 prize....
PR Newswire, Apr. 16

A Queens-sized centennial cake
Director Thomas W. Galante (center) and a host of government and community well-wishers joined to cut Queens’ Biggest Anniversary Cake in honor of Queens Library’s 100th anniversary of incorporation. The event was held at Antun’s in Queens Village. The anniversary cake measured 16 feet by 20 feet, and it used 1,200 pounds of cake batter, 500 pounds of fudge filling, and 500 pounds of frosting. The total calorie count defied description....
Queens (N.Y.) Gazette, Apr. 18; Queens Library, Apr. 17

Scholastic sends 7 million books to Middle East
Publisher and distributor Scholastic and the U.S. Department of State have sent more than 7 million children’s books—translated into Arabic and adapted to the culture—into classrooms and libraries across the Middle East and North Africa as part of a program called My Arabic Library. Scholastic estimates it will have reached more than 2.5 million students in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and Morocco by December....
Scholastic, Apr. 17

OCLC pilots WorldCat Local
OCLC is piloting a new service that will allow libraries to combine the cooperative power of OCLC member libraries worldwide with the ability to customize WorldCat.org as a solution for local discovery and delivery services. Through a locally branded interface, the service will provide libraries the ability to search the entire WorldCat database and present results beginning with items most accessible to the patron. These might include collections from the home library, collections shared in a consortium, and open access collections....
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Apr. 11

Six ways to market on Facebook
Marketing on social networks is not always that successful, but there are sly ways to garner some success. Facebook has an interesting feature—the news feed. While some Facebook denizens loathe this feature, it enables people to find out what their friends are up to. Here are some tips on how to harness the news feed for peddling a product, person, or cause that will coax people to do things that are visible to others....
The Bivings Report, Apr. 9

I want to be a librarian
A music video (4:10) by New Zealand band HauntedLove, which performs ghostly pop tunes about werewolves, haunted museums, vengeful librarians, love inside computers, and ponies that just won’t go. Filmed on location at the Dunedin Public Library. Camera work by Claudia Babirat, direction and editing/effects by Don Ferns. Starring Haunted Love (Rainy McMaster and Geva Downey) and Henri Davidson....
YouTube, Apr. 9

SMU faculty comments on Bush Library and Institute
Sixty-five Southern Methodist University faculty members offered their anonymous opinions on whether the university should agree to host the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and its associated public policy institute. There is discord and dispute, with views ranging from an enthusiastic endorsement of the package and condemnation of opponents, through outright opposition, to considered positions somewhere between. The preponderance of opinion seems to be cautiously optimistic and supportive of the library and museum, but highly suspicious of the institute....
Bush Library Blog, Apr. 15

Top 25 requested CIA documents in March
This collection of 25 previously released documents represents those most frequently requested during the previous month. Topping the list are Volume 1 of the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004) and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief for March 21, 2003....
Central Intelligence Agency, Electronic Reading Room

Change—arrghhhhh!
Stephen Abram writes: “As the old wag noted, the dinosaurs didn’t go extinct because the climate changed—not at all. They went extinct because they couldn’t adapt to the changes happening around them. Anyway, shift happens. So I found myself spending the first part of 2007 shifting gears. Some things have become very clear that we predicted in our strategic planning exercises years ago. Some parts of our crystal ball are cloudy. It does seem that change in library land is happening more quickly.”...
SirsiDynix One Source, Apr.

NYPL to present new musical on bibliomania
The new musical The Rosenbach Company will be presented for one night only at the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, April 20 at 7 p.m. (It’s already sold out.) The musical, written by the graphic novelist Ben Katchor and composer Mark Mulcahy, is a “multi-media ‘chamber rock opera’ about the pleasures and perils of bibliomania.” It chronicles the life of the brothers Abe and Philip Rosenbach, who were the famed dealers of rare books and antique artifacts....
Playbill, Apr. 15

Earliest printed books in selected languages, 1501–1879
George Eberhart continues his list of earliest books in various languages, from Slavonic (1508) and Polish (1510) to Cherokee (1829) and Afrikaans (1861)....
Britannica Blog, Apr. 12

Display for dummies
The Lansing (Ill.) Public Library borrowed a mannequin from the Lansing Historical Society and put together this distinctive display of “For Dummies” books. Wiley, the publisher, is holding a contest for the best display in a library. Winners will be announced in late June. Check out last year’s winners here....
Lansing (Ill.) Public Library, Apr. 10