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Vancouver library staff serve as they strike
Five weeks into a strike over pay equity issues that city officials say could continue for months, Vancouver (B.C.) Public Library staff are keeping busy on the picket line with music, lectures, and public service. “It’s very difficult to take the library out of the library worker,” union President Alex Youngberg said. Staffer Todd Wong has entertained fellow members of CUPE Local 391 by performing on his accordian, and he has organized performances or readings by poets, choirs, and authors. A new video by James Gemmill, Walking the Line, is available concerning the strike....

Tax rollback strains Broward’s joint-use model
In implementing a 9% property-tax rollback triggered by the Florida legislature this spring, Broward County commissioners have run into a significant roadblock: the county’s six-year-old joint-use agreement with Nova Southeastern University to share the collections and services of the NSU Davie campus’s Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center. Instead of agreeing to BCL Director Robert Cannon’s request that the county’s $5.5-million annual support of Sherman be reduced by $575,000, NSU has asked for $940,000 more per year because library records indicate that more than 50% of its patrons are not affiliated with the university....

New Jersey borough sues its library for patrons’ names
The borough of Bloomingdale, New Jersey, filed a lawsuit August 3 in state Superior Court over its public library’s refusal to provide the names and addresses of all its users. The borough council wanted demographic information on patrons so that it could close the library and negotiate a less expensive contract with neighboring Riverdale to provide library services. However, Bloomingdale Free Public Library Director Theresa J. Rubin declined to provide the names without a court order, citing the state law on confidentiality of library records....

Senate hearing: Librarian laments lack of rural broadband in Arkansas
David Burdick, director of the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County (Ark.) Library System, testified August 28 on the insufficiency of broadband in Arkansas libraries before a field hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The hearing, “The State of Broadband in Arkansas,” was organized by Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and held at the downtown branch of the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock. Burdick testified to the difficulties in library connectivity at his local branches....

Salary survey results available
Analysis of data from more than 800 public and academic libraries showed the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited master’s degrees increased 2.8% from 2006, up $1,550 to $57,809. Salaries ranged from $22,048 to $225,000, with the median at $53,000. Results from the 2007 ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian—Public and Academic and ALA-APA Salary Survey: Non-MLS—Public and Academic are available by subscription or through the ALA Store....

Last call for Council nominees
The Nominating Committee has extended the deadline through September 21 for nominees to run for councilor-at-large in the Spring 2008 ALA election. After that date, anyone seeking to run may file by petition. The committee will select no fewer than 53 candidates for the 35 at-large Council seats to be filled....

Young Adult Literature Symposium: Proposals wanted
YALSA will hold its first biennial Young Adult Literature Symposium at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, November 7–9, 2008. Proposals for programs and unpublished scholarly papers will be accepted through October 1. The symposium theme, “How We Read Now,” will investigate what, how, and why the burgeoning teen population reads....

Exploratorium to showcase best practices
MetaMetrics Inc., developer of the Lexile Framework for Reading, will sponsor the Exploratorium at the AASL 13th National Conference and Exhibition in Reno, Nevada, October 25, from 1 to 3 p.m. This educational session consists of more than 50 individual learning stations and demonstrates best practices from the school library media community....

AASL e-Academy offers five fall courses
Starting October 1, AASL e-Academy will offer five online CE programs in partnership with the University of North Texas LE@D project. The offerings include creating websites, children’s literature, copyright, multicultural literature, and reluctant readers. Registration is available September 7–25....

YALSA has four fall courses
YALSA will offer four online courses in October: booktalks, new technologies and literacies, gaming, and YALSA competencies. Registration opened August 27 and runs to September 17....

Two new YALSA discussion lists
YALSA has created two new electronic discussion lists: teachyal, which offers resources and discussion for those currently teaching children’s and young adult literature; and yalsa-lockdown, which discusses issues unique to librarians serving incarcerated youth. To subscribe, visit the YALSA website....

Second Life hype vs. human needs
John Gehner writes: “Last year, 85% of Illinois counties experienced an increase in poverty. I haven’t yet looked at how the other 49 states compare. But it’s disappointing at times to think that some of the best and brightest information professionals are devoting their substantial talents to the denizens of Second Life, a virtual world founded on leisure time, rather than a real world with millions of people struggling for a Better Life every day.”...
SRRT Hunger, Homelessness, and Poverty Task Force, Aug. 3

Kate DiCamillo wins 2007 Zarrow Award
Newbery Medal–winning author Kate DiCamillo packed in the crowds two days in a row as she visited the Tulsa (Okla.) City-County Library August 24–25 to receive the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2007 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature. DiCamillo, author of Because of Winn-Dixie, also presented awards to winners of the library’s 2007 Young People’s Creative Writing Contest and gave tips on how to write creatively to the crowd of more than 500 children and adults....
Tulsa (Okla.) World, Aug. 25; Tulsa City-County Library, Aug. 28

Cormac McCarthy takes James Tait Black prize
The American author Cormac McCarthy, long revered for the hardbitten poetry of his novels, has won the UK’s oldest and most literary of book awards. McCarthy was awarded the James Tait Black memorial prize, worth £10,000, for his bleak vision of a post-apocalyptic America, The Road. The book won a Pulitzer earlier this year, was chosen as an Oprah book, and is being widely noised as a strong Nobel contender....
The Guardian (U.K.), Aug. 28

SLA recognizes its military librarians
During its Annual Conference in Denver in June, the Special Libraries Association honored the professionals who work tirelessly to ensure that the armed forces have the information resources they need both abroad and at home. The 300-plus members of the SLA Military Librarians Division were awarded the 2007 SLA Professional Award, which recognizes a special event, major achievement, or specific significant contribution to the field of librarianship or information science....
Special Libraries Association, Aug. 23

Gail Borden systems are “go” for September 5 space talk
For the first time ever on September 5, kids in a library will talk directly to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, youth from the Gail Borden Public Library District in Elgin, Illinois, will get approximately 10 minutes to speak directly to NASA astronaut Clay Anderson (right) as he glides overhead—horizon to horizon—on the space station orbiting 200 miles above the earth. Thanks to the library’s “Space: Dare to Dream” exhibit and some local help, the library was granted a rare Amateur Radio on the International Space Station contact....
Gail Borden Public Library District, Aug. 27

Victoria workers poised to strike
The union representing Greater Victoria, British Columbia, library workers says a strike is “highly likely” after mediator Grant McArthur stepped out of negotiations between the two sides August 28. “It would take a miracle to prevent a strike,” said Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, which represents 220 library workers. He couldn’t say when the strike would begin....
Victoria (B.C.) Times Colonist, Aug. 29

Sen. Leahy donates Batman movie earnings to Montpelier library
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) landed a speaking part in The Dark Knight, the latest in the Batman movie series, and has donated his $2,000 appearance fee to the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vermont. Leahy attributes his predilection for Batman and other comic-book heroes with summertime childhood reading both at home and in the library. “I had my first library card there when I was about four years old,” Leahy said. “Jean Holbrook, who was the librarian then, would always pick out books for me to read.”...
Barre-Montpelier (Vt.) Times Argus, Aug. 11

Ohio libraries closed due to flood damage
The Findlay-Hancock County (Ohio) Public Library closed indefinitely after six feet of water flooded the lower level and parking garage August 21, causing extensive interior damage, according to Library Director Sybil Galer. Furniture, office supplies, and drywall in the lower level will have to be replaced. Materials in the Book Cellar, a used-book area operated by the Friends, were a total loss. All mechanical and electrical systems were on the lower level, and service can’t resume until these are restored. The Putnam County District Library in nearby Ottawa and all its branches are also closed due to flood damage....
Findlay (Ohio) Courier, Aug. 24; FHCPL blog, Aug. 27

Schwarzenegger budget a major disappointment for libraries
Shortly after noon on August 24, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the 2007–08 state budget, 52 days late. Suffering significant cuts in an attempt to achieve a “zero deficit” budget were two major library programs: the Public Library Foundation and the Transaction Based Reimbursement Program, both reduced by $7 million. Many libraries will feel the pinch; in Marin County, about $114,000 will be missing from the library system’s $13-million budget, said Carol Starr, director of county library services....
California Library Association, Aug. 24; Marin (Calif.) Independent Journal, Aug. 27

Bedford rejects outsourcing
The city of Bedford, Texas, will continue to manage its library, the City Council decided August 28, ending a yearlong debate over whether operations should be outsourced to a private company. The council was evenly divided on whether to approve an outsourcing proposal from Library Systems and Services of Germantown, Maryland, which manages 47 public libraries across the country. Mayor Jim Story cast the deciding vote....
Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram, Aug. 29

No prison for Ann Arbor ex–finance director
The former finance director for the Ann Arbor (Mich.) District Library again escaped a prison sentence August 28 after turning over money he posted for a jail bond and agreeing to have his wages garnished. Donald G. Dely, 61, was convicted in 2000 of embezzling $119,387 from the library from 1997 to 2000. Since then, he has been accused of repeatedly violating the terms of his probation by failing to repay the money. He still owes the library $91,827....
Ann Arbor News, Aug. 29

Tango tops book-challenge list
Not all penguin stories are equal in the public’s mind. And Tango Makes Three, an award-winning children’s book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and based on a true story about two male penguins who raised a baby penguin, topped the ALA annual list of works that attracted the most complaints from parents, library patrons, and others. Overall, the number of challenged books in 2006 jumped to 546, more than 30% higher than the previous year....
Associated Press, Aug. 28

Spanish National Library director resigns after map loss
The director of Spain’s national library, 74-year-old prize-winning author Rosa Regás, resigned from her post August 27, saying she did not have the confidence of the nation’s new culture minister, César Antonio Molina. Her resignation comes two days after the national library announced the theft of two maps from the Greek geographer Ptolemy’s Cosmographia printed in 1482, but Regás said her decision to quit had nothing to do with the disappearance of the maps. Her left-wing opinions have won her criticism from Spain’s conservative opposition....
Agence France Press, Aug. 28; El Pais (Madrid), Aug. 28

Amsterdam Public Library robbed
The recently opened main branch of the Amsterdam Public Library was robbed the night of August 26 by several masked men who overpowered three security guards at gunpoint. Library Director Hans van Velzen said the men bound and blindfolded the guards, destroyed surveillance cameras, and set off the library sprinklers, causing some water damage. The guards were locked up for several hours, but managed ultimately to free themselves and call police. It is still unclear what the thieves were after....
Expatica News, Aug. 27; De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), Aug. 27

New Orleans Public Libraries update
Two years after Katrina, the New Orleans library system remains in disrepair, but a new leadership team is in place, an aggressive fundraising campaign is underway, and the long, hard, and occasionally sensitive process of planning and prioritizing repairs is finally moving forward. Tulane University Dean of Libraries Lance Query had stepped in as interim director, but he will relinquish the post on September 10 to Huntsville, Alabama, librarian Donna Schremser, who will be the key player in the recovery process....
New Orleans Times-Picayune, Aug. 26

90-year-old honored for library work
American Libraries went in search of a 100-year-old librarian this year to help celebrate its centenary (Aug., p. 34). Instead, it found Frieda Greene, part-time staffer at the Boynton Beach (Fla.) City Library. “I’m not a librarian!” she tells you straight off. She’s not a centenarian, either; Greene is a mere 90 years old. “She’s sharp as a tack,” says Joe Green, the library’s head of public services. “You can’t get anything by her and she’s got a great sense of humor.”...
Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, Aug. 27

16-year-old cracks $84-million Australian porn filter in half an hour
A Melbourne schoolboy has cracked the Australian government’s new $84-million internet porn filter in minutes. Tom Wood, 16, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the filter, released on August 21. His technique ensures the software’s toolbar icon is not deleted, leaving parents with the impression the filter is still working. A former cyberbullying victim, Wood feared a computer-savvy child could work out the bypass and put it online for others to use....
Melbourne (Vict.) Herald Sun, Aug. 26

Alabama gets rare Proust material
Thanks to decades of collecting and recent donations by University of Alabama at Birmingham professor and world-renowned Proust scholar William C. Carter, UAB’s Mervyn H. Sterne Library now has what is believed to be the third-largest collection of Proust-related items in the world. Last week, Carter donated a treasure trove of rare books, photos, and memorabilia related to Proust, plus an extensive collection of items Carter amassed during a friendship and correspondence with Mississippi-born historian and novelist Shelby Foote, who was a great admirer of Proust....
Birmingham (Ala.) News, Aug. 27

Johns Hopkins doubles H. L. Mencken holdings
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has acquired what is believed to be the largest privately held collection of items associated with writer and journalist H. L. Mencken—nearly 6,000 books, articles, letters, photographs, and other items amassed over 44 years by an Ohio accountant with a passion for the Sage of Baltimore. The collection, which more than doubles the university’s Mencken-related holdings, will be housed at the George Peabody Library, which already has a significant research collection on Mencken....
Johns Hopkins University, Aug. 28

Library recalls potentially toxic dinosaur toys
The Greenwood (Ind.) Public Library issued a notice August 27 informing the public that one of the incentive prizes used for its Summer Reading 2007 program contains unacceptable amounts of lead. The Johnson County Health Department alerted the library after testing showed the Bendable Dino toy has 374 milliliters of lead, while the acceptable amount is 200 milliliters. The toys were distributed by Kipp Brothers, a Carmel-based company, which purchased them from a manufacturer in China....
Indianapolis Star, Aug. 27; WISH-TV, Aug. 28

D.C. sues contractor over library fire
Washington is seeking more than $13 million in damages from the Hyattsville, Maryland, contractor that was heading renovation of the Georgetown branch of the District of Columbia Public Library when a fire broke out there in late April. Officials allege negligence on the part of Dynamic Corp., which was handling exterior improvements at the historic branch....
Washington Post, Aug. 22

Lost Constable sketch found in British Library
A sketch of a churchyard by the English Romantic painter John Constable has been found more than a century after it was last heard of in a book that has been sitting on the shelves of the British Library for years. The undated pencil drawing was found by curator Felicity Myrone inside a 13-volume set of scrapbooks donated to the library by a businessman in 1919....
The Telegraph (U.K.), Aug. 24

ICE is nice
Andrew Pace writes: “Bowker Syndetics now has an interesting catalog-enhancement product called ICE (Indexed Content Enrichment). What if you could have all the enrichment and index it with your MARC data? New catalogs, such as AquaBrowser, Endeca, Primo, and Encore, will certainly help this idea along, but we need more research. Indexing first chapters, reviews, tables of contents, flyleafs, and annotations, and turning media awards and fiction files into faceted navigation elements does not necessarily improve relevance ranking. It can provide recall where there was none before, but relevance is something different. And how will any of this compare with full-text (especially book-length text) relevance ranking?”...
Hectic Pace blog, Aug. 29

Take the automation trend survey
Libraries are invited to participate in a survey that Marshall Breeding, director for innovative technologies and research at Vanderbilt University Libraries, is conducting on library automation products and companies. The survey consists of 11 questions about your satisfaction with the library automation system currently in place in your library, your opinion regarding the company that provides these products, and any general ideas that you may have for your next library automation system....
Library Technology Guides

It’s time to stand up to your email
Andrea Coombes writes: “Thanks to the avalanche of messages they receive every day, many professionals and office workers say they suffer from email overload. It doesn’t have to be that way.” One way to deal is the two-minute rule: “Anything you can finish in two minutes you should do right then.” Others: “Push emails out of your in-box and onto a tasks list,” and “turn off ‘you have mail’ alerts that interrupt you as you work.”...
Wall Street Journal, Aug. 26

Finding DRM-free music online
Mark Hendrickson writes: “Over the past half year we have seen arguably the most significant change in the online music industry since Apple launched their iTunes store in 2003. Following Steve Jobs’s open letter clarifying Apple’s position on digital rights management in Februrary, major record companies have begun providing their music online free of piracy protection mechanisms. Try out the DRM-free online music retailers here to get better-quality music that plays on virtually any handheld music device, on any computer, and with any music program.”...
TechCrunch blog, Aug. 24

Top 100 undiscovered websites
OK, some of you undoubtedly know about many of these, but this is what PC Magazine editors have chosen as fun, new sites that grabbed their attention this year. You’ll see a large collection of web applications and tech sites, blogs, offbeat social networks, and a handful of addictive Flash games for those slow days at work. Some of these sites are completely under the radar and get very little traffic; others are hugely popular within a specific demographic. Arranged by broad categories....
PC Magazine, Aug. 27

Survey of the Biblioblogosphere 2007
Meredith Farkas offers some findings from her recent survey of library bloggers: “33.6% of all library bloggers work in academic libraries and 29.3% are public librarians”; and “Want to be happy? Well, you may want to become a school librarian, work in a law library, or work for a consortium or library system, because those three got the highest scores for job satisfaction.”...
Information Wants To Be Free blog, Aug. 25

Nonfiction Connection grant
The Making the Nonfiction Connection Grant from Heinemann-Raintree offers U.S. schools the opportunity to apply for up to $5,000 worth of Heinemann Library or Raintree preK–secondary books. The purpose of the grant is to recognize and reward extraordinary educational programs that promote the use of series nonfiction and enhance nonfiction literacy. Applications must be received by October 1....
Heinemann-Raintree

Scratch-and-sniff e-books
In a Zogby poll of 600 college students, 43% identified smell—either new-book smell or old—as the thing they most love about books as physical objects. So beginning in September, CaféScribe, a company that sells e-textbooks, will send every purchaser a scratch-and-sniff sticker with a certifiably musty “old book” smell....
CaféScribe, Aug. 23

Calisthenics for the older mind
Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars on brain-building digital toys like Baby Einstein for preschoolers, so it was only a matter of time before a parade of “Grandpa Einsteins” followed suit. In the past year, some half-dozen programs, with names like Brain Fitness Program 2.0, MindFit, and Brain Age2, have aimed at aging consumers eager to keep their mental edge....
New York Times, Aug. 26

In Google they trust
An eye-tracking experiment at Cornell University revealed that college students have a substantial trust in Google’s ability to rank results by true relevance to the query. When participants selected a link to follow from Google’s result pages, their decisions were strongly biased towards links higher in position, even if the abstracts themselves were less relevant. While the participants reacted to artificially reduced retrieval quality by greater scrutiny, they failed to achieve the same success rate....
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12, no. 3 (2007)

Changes at Google Scholar
Barbara Quint writes: “In its own quiet way, Google Scholar has become a major force in scholarly communication. For many researchers, faculty, and students, it is the first search tool used, challenging the popularity and utility of veteran databases licensed—often at considerable cost—by academic and corporate libraries. Yet announcements about changes in the constantly evolving service seem to occur rarely and with little ballyhoo. For example, did you know that Google Scholar has launched its own digitization project, separate from the high-profile Google Book Search mass digitization?”...
Information Today NewsBreaks, Aug. 27

Evan Farber’s writings collected
Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, has published College Libraries and the Teaching/Learning Process, a 272-page collection of the writings of Evan Ira Farber, library director at Earlham from 1962 to 1994. Farber’s many writings and talks have helped shape the thinking about academic library service over the past 40 years. This volume, edited by David Gansz, includes his articles on the role of the college library, the importance of bibliographic instruction, and the necessity for collaboration between the library and the teaching faculty....
Earlham College, Aug. 24

Public library blogs
Former AL columnist Walt Crawford has written a book called Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples, a Cites & Insights book. He writes: “I’m hoping this book will help librarians see whether blogs might work for their library by offering a range of examples that speak more directly to their situation. I’m also hoping that showing the diversity of specialized public library blogs will be useful to those considering such blogs.”...
Walt at Random blog, Aug. 27

Local and county histories to go online
Thousands of published family histories, city and county histories, historic city directories, and related records are coming to the internet. The Allen County (Ind.) Public Library, Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library, and FamilySearch’s Family History Library in Salt Lake City announced the joint project August 15. When complete, it will be the most comprehensive free collection of city and county histories on the Web....
FamilySearch, Aug. 15

Harvard tops the student list of favorite academic libraries (registration required)
Some 120,000 students voted for the top 20 universities in 62 different categories in 2008. Princeton Review’s The Best 366 Colleges gives the top 20 libraries in the survey (and Princeton is in second place). Harvard and Princeton also made the top two spots in the U.S. News & World Report survey for 2008, which unfortunately did not ask about libraries....
Princeton Review; U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 17

“Tree of Books” desktop wallpaper
Vladstudio is a design company run by graphics enthusiast and digital artist Vlad Gerasimov of Irkutsk, Russia. In his spare time he creates free computer desktop wallpaper, such as this “Tree of Books,” which has a certain appeal for booklovers. He also has “Google Library” and a clever inverse water-for-land map that might appeal to map librarians....
Vladstudio

10,000 lists on WorldCat since June
More than 10,000 personalized lists have been created within WorldCat.org since its social networking feature was introduced in June. You can build as many lists as you like on any subject—lists like Genealogy: What’s New in 2007 or Oddly Titled Government Documents. All you need is an email address to create a free WorldCat account....
OCLC

Old librarians don’t die . . .
This collection of clever aphorisms (MP3 file) on how various types of librarians don’t die was written and performed by law librarians at the University of Minnesota. As they say, “Law librarians don’t die, their statute of limitations just runs out.”...
Law Librarian Blog, Aug. 17

Disco dancing for peace in the biblioblogosphere
Libraryman Michael Porter took JibJab’s “Starring You” disco video and pasted his and Michael Gorman’s faces on the freestyling duo. He writes: “Think of the promos libraries could do with a carefully planned marketing program using something like this (perhaps letting patrons stick themselves in a famous book setting, etc?). I must confess that upon seeing the results I couldn’t help but wonder ‘should I have just read a chapter or two in a book instead of making this?’ Naaaah, who am I kidding, this was time well spent!”...
Libraryman blog, Aug. 20

Another Library Man answers questions in Modesto
Brad Barker, librarian at Mark Twain Junior High School in Modesto, California, has a new (potentially recurring) column in the Modesto Bee where he provides answers, some flippant, others informative, to such questions as: “Q: If the famous royal library at Alexandria hadn’t been burned in ancient times, wouldn’t human civilization be advanced hundreds of years ahead of where we are today? A: Yes, we’d all have flying cars like the Jetsons, and we’d never have invaded Iraq.”...
Modesto (Calif.) Bee, Aug. 29

Bundling bargains! This year ALA is offering a special bundled price on the Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference if you register for both during the month of September. This way you can save 20% over the advance registration price you would pay if you bought them separately. The link to register for this bundled price will be available here on September 1, beginning at 9:00 a.m. Central Time.

The National Coalition Against Censorship offers Book Censorship in Schools: A Toolkit, a collection of resources for the use of students, educators, and parents.

The mission of OneWebDay, September 22, is to create, maintain, and promote a global day to celebrate online life. If you’re interested in being part of a project to celebrate the net on OneWebday, go to the ProjectWiki. Sample projects for you to consider: record oral histories on how the Web changes lives, explain how you work online, teach your boss how to IM, or run a website-building workshop.

Share your story with ALA’s Public Information Office about how your library is promoting Library Card Sign-up Month in September. Select stories will be used in ALA’s media relations efforts.

The 2007 LITA National Forum is in Denver, October 4–7. Consult the complete schedule of talks, from global warming to library gaming.