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

Gates Foundation renews library initiative
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has renewed its financial commitment to help public libraries in low-income areas provide internet service and training to their users. The new five-year initiative, announced January 18, will involve grants for computer hardware upgrades, continued high-speed internet connections, technical and advocacy training for library staff, and research demonstrating the positive benefits of technology to library users....

Tasered library patron sues UCLA
A student of the University of California at Los Angeles involved in a library disturbance last year filed suit January 17 against the university and campus police. Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, alleges that his civil rights were violated on November 14, 2006, when a campus security officer repeatedly used a Taser on him during a library visit because the student refused to show his identification. The suit names as defendants the university, campus police, and six individual officers....

Harry Potter’s Georgia adventure to continue
A mother of four in suburban Atlanta is appealing the state board of education’s December 14 decision to allow books in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series to stay in Gwinnett County schools’ libraries and classrooms. Laura Mallory, who claims the books indoctrinate children in witchcraft, filed an appeal in county superior court January 9....

Lovely Bones to stay on shelf
The Coleytown Middle School library in Westport, Connecticut, will retain Alice Sebold’s coming-of-age novel The Lovely Bones, following a recommendation by the school system’s challenged materials committee. Westport Public Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon supported the committee’s decision in a January 5 letter that acknowledged the book—narrated from heaven by a 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered—is for “mature readers” but still appropriate for middle school students, “many of whom possess the maturity level to read this book.”...

Policy axed on library visit
Jefferson Parish (La.) Schools Superintendent Diane Roussel rescinded January 16 a five-year-old policy requiring students at the Riverdale Middle School to obtain written parental permission for each day they intend to visit the adjacent Rosedale branch of the Jefferson Parish Library System. The policy was enacted because of multiple complaints about unruly student behavior as youngsters gathered on library property. The school prohibits children from lingering on campus property after classes end....

Burst pipes close Provo library
Sub-zero temperatures burst water pipes at the Provo (Utah) City Library at Academy Square during the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, forcing the library to stay closed January 16 and causing about $1,500 worth of damage to new books....

Midwinter Meeting tops 12,100
More than 12,100 librarians and other library staff, publishers, and guests filled the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle for the ALA Midwinter Meeting, January 19–24. The conference kicked off with several day-long programs devoted to how libraries are engaging technology to meet the changing needs of teens, scholars, and families....

Seattle fish throwers inspire ALA Midwinter-goers
The rules of the FISH! Philosophy are: 1) Be there, 2) Play, 3) Make someone’s day, and 4) Choose your attitude. As delivered by motivational speaker and “FISH! Philosopher” Deena Ebbert, these simple suggestions resonated with Midwinter attendees, as Ebbert tossed them toy fish and played with a concept developed by the city’s famous Pike Place Market fishmongers....

ALA candidates espouse their views at Forum
Kathlene Hanson reports: “Candidates for ALA President and Treasurer gave brief statements and addressed questions from audience members January 20. Candidates for ALA President are Nancy A. Davenport and James R. Rettig. Candidates for Treasurer are Rodney Hersberger and Jo Ann Pinder.”...
ALA MemberBlog, Jan. 22

Klein on politics, pollsters, and civic responsibility
Joe Klein, senior writer for Time magazine and author of several bestselling books, discussed “Islam, Iraq, and the War on Terror” at the Eighth Annual Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture on January 20. He opened his presentation by thanking the librarians in attendance: “You are the custodians for the place where people like me go after we die, if we’re lucky,” he said. “The library was the place where the world opened to me.”...
ALA MemberBlog, Jan. 22

Resolution in Support of Immigrant Rights
Loida Garcia-Febo reports: “On January 20, Reforma: The Association to Promote Library Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking approved a Resolution in Support of immigrant Rights. It is expected to be taken before Council. I had the opportunity to present the resolution before the Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. These bodies gave their support to it.”...
Information New Wave blog, Jan. 23

The hottest place to be at Midwinter
The hottest place to be at the Midwinter Meeting is queued up for some Dance Dance Revolution at the American Libraries/ALA TechSource Booth. Here Michael Golrick and Jenny Levine cut the proverbial rug....
Tame the Web blog, Jan. 21

Finding balance, finding attention
Art Plotnik, editor of American Libraries from 1974 to 1989, reminisces about his tenure on AL’s new CentenniAL blog, which commemorates the magazine’s 100th anniversary. Writes Plotnik: “Some gambits worked, like an occasional dish of library farce—an April Fool’s issue, a comic-strip history of the Dewey Decimal Point. Some backfired; for example, a bit on library jargon illustrated by a newspaper cartoonist whose exaggerated drawings of women—we were too numb to realize—would get us in trouble with ALA’s burgeoning women’s movement and many a reader.”...
CentenniAL blog, Jan. 16

EPA gets an earful on library closures
A national controversy over cutbacks and outright closings of Environmental Protection Agency libraries came to Seattle over the weekend as librarians from around the country told EPA officials the agency is undercutting its own workers, its scientists, and the public. EPA scientists, university researchers, and others have scrambled to locate documents once easily found by librarians in the agency’s regional headquarters, said participants in the ALA Midwinter Meeting....
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 22

Angela Davis at ALA
Lauren writes: “This morning I attended the Alexander Street Press breakfast with Angela Davis. It was a great morning. Alexander Street Press has several databases dealing with women’s issues, so it’s always nice to know what they’re up to. Davis spoke of her work with the Black Panther Party and the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how women did a lot of the work, but men got all (or at least most) of the credit.”...
COSWL Cause, Jan. 21

Midwinter, Day One: Uphill
Andrew Pace writes: “The bulk of the day was spent at RMG’s annual ILS vendor panel. I know, you’re thinking, ‘How many of them are left?’ Truth be told, the panel in its 18th year is made up primarily of nontraditional system vendors, though they are still well represented.”...
Hectic Pace blog, Jan. 20

Google at Midwinter
The search engine company’s Library Partnerships Manager Ben Bunnell gave a talk on some advanced search tips that work from the Google search box, Google Book Search, Google Scholar, and Google Earth (especially some recently added layers like the ones that were added as part of last fall’s National Geography Awareness Week)....
Librarian Central (Google) blog, Jan. 21

LITA Town Meeting
Michelle Boule writes: “The LITA Town Meeting January 22 was action-packed even at 8 a.m. I know there were a couple of other people taking actual notes. These are just my thoughts. Mark Beatty had the packed room writing down on pieces of paper things that we liked about LITA or things that LITA could do.”...
LITA Blog, Jan. 23

Outstanding Books for the General Reader
The RUSA Notable Books Council has compiled its 2007 list of outstanding books for the general reader. These titles have been selected for their significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge and for the pleasure they can provide to adult readers....

Not your dad’s interface
Andrea Mercado writes: “Yesterday, Saturday, January 20, I attended the ‘Not Your Dad’s Interface: Next Generation OPACs and Search Engines’ Hot Topics session sponsored by the Machine Assisted Reference Section of RUSA. And the joint was standing room only, a fact that didn’t surprise me, but did surprise the moderator.”...
PLA Blog, Jan. 21

Building teen communities online
The YALSA Institute on Building Teen Communities Online, held January 19, saw an overflow crowd of enthusiastic attendees. The first speaker was Audra Caplan, director of the Harford County (Md.) Public Library. Audra began by describing the many barriers librarians cite when trying to implement technology services for young adults, from concerns about resources to basic discomfort in working with teenagers....
AASL Blog, Jan. 23

Gaming Discussion Group
Kelly Czarnecki reports: “The Gaming Discussion group meeting also took place in Second Life, where participants joined us via text chat in the Open Air Auditorium on InfoIsland. More than 40 attendees shared their library gaming stories, tips, questions, tie-ins for Teen Tech Week (hosting tournaments), and justification for gaming as a viable and core service in libraries to administration (publications such as Gaming and Libraries: Intersection of Services by Jenny Levine is helpful for this).”...
YALSA Blog, Jan. 22

GODORT update
James R. Jacobs reports on the Government Documents Round Table meeting at Midwinter: “On the agenda are Cheryl Nyberg, University of Washington law library, talking about the Washington State Digital Archives, Matt Brosius from OECD, and Judy Russell, soon-to-be-retiring GPO superintendent of documents.”...
Free Government Information blog, Jan. 20

Video Round Table picks Notable Videos for Adults
The Video Round Table Notable Videos Committee has compiled its 2007 list of Notable Videos for Adults, a list of 15 outstanding programs released on video within the past two years that are suitable for all libraries serving adults. The list’s purpose is to call attention to recent video releases that make a significant contribution to the world of video recordings....

Youth Media award winners
The writer of a novel about a 10-year-old girl named Lucky who lives in the California desert with her French guardian and the illustrator of a story about the images in a magical camera that washes up on a beach were named respective winners of the ALA John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott medals honoring children’s literature. The announcement came January 22 at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, Washington....

Newbery and Caldecott winners
Susan Patron, Los Angeles Public Library children’s librarian and author of The Higher Power of Lucky, and David Wiesner, illustrator of Flotsam, are the 2007 winners of the John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott medals, respectively. Considered the “Academy Awards” of children’s book publishing, the Newbery and Caldecott medals honor outstanding writing and illustration of works published in the United States during the previous year....

Draper, Nelson win Coretta Scott King Awards
Sharon Draper, author of Copper Sun, and Kadir Nelson, illustrator of Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, are the winners of the 2007 Coretta Scott King Awards honoring African-American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults....

Laura McGee Kvasnosky wins Geisel Award
Author-illustrator Laura McGee Kvasnosky is the 2007 winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Beginning Reader Award for her book Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways, published by Candlewick Press. The popular fox sisters return in this book with three adventures precipitated by their need to avoid the dreaded cucumber sandwiches dad is preparing....

Gene Luen Yang wins Printz Award
Gene Luen Yang has won the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award for his masterful graphic novel American Born Chinese, published by First Second. Expertly told in words and pictures, Yang’s story in three parts follows a Chinese-American teenager’s struggle to define himself against racial stereotypes....

Lois Lowry honored with Edwards Award
Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, is the recipient of the 2007 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring her outstanding lifetime contribution to writing for teens. One of the most frequently challenged books in 1990–2000, The Giver explores a future where differences have been erased and strict rules govern society. Lowry lives in Boston and continues to provide support to those fighting censorship attempts against this complex novel....

James Marshall wins Wilder Award
Author-illustrator James Marshall has been awarded the 2007 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. Marshall was the author and illustrator of the George and Martha books, the Fox easy reader series, The Cut-Ups, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears—a Caldecott honor winner in 1989. He also illustrated the Miss Nelson books and The Stupids series, written by Harry Allard. Marshall died in 1992....

Batchelder Award honors Delacorte Press
Delacorte Press is the winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a foreign language (and subsequently translated into English for publication in the U.S.) for The Pull of the Ocean. Originally published in France in 1999 as L’enfant océan, the book was written by Jean-Claude Mourlevat and translated by Y. Maudet....

Carnegie Medal goes to Knuffle Bunny
Author/illustrator Mo Willems and Weston Woods Studios, producers of Knuffle Bunny, are the 2007 recipients of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children’s Video. The DVD is based on Willems’s book Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale and is performed by Willems, his wife Cheryl, and their daughter Trixie. It is directed and animated by MaGiK Studio, with music by Scotty Huff and Robert Reynolds....

Thimmesh wins Sibert Informational Book Award
Catherine Thimmesh, author of Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon, is the winner of the 2007 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award for the most distinguished informational book for children published in 2006. With heart-stopping prose and stunning NASA photographs, Thimmesh celebrates the men and women who solved a series of unfolding crises that threatened the mission of Apollo 11....

2007 Alex Awards
YALSA has selected 10 adult books that will appeal to teen readers to receive the 2007 Alex Awards. The awards, sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust, were announced January 22 at the Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, and will appear with full annotations in the February 15 issue of Booklist....

Schneider Family Book Award winners
Winners of the Schneider Family Book Award, which honors an author or illustrator for the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences, were announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle: The Deaf Musicians by Pete Seeger and poet Paul DuBois Jacobs is the winner in the young children’s category; Rules by Cynthia Lord is the winner in the middle-school category; and Small Steps by Louis Sachar is the winner in the teen category....

John Cotton Dana Award winners
Seven libraries are winners of the John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award, which recognizes and honors outstanding achievement in library public relations. This award, jointly sponsored by the H.W. Wilson Company, the H.W. Wilson Foundation, and LAMA, has been awarded continuously since 1946. One of this year’s winners was the James B. Duke Library at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., where staff members (above) injected a humorous medical theme to ease stress during the construction phase....

David Macaulay to deliver 2008 Arbuthnot Lecture
David Macaulay, Caldecott Award medalist and renowned author/illustrator, will deliver the 2008 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. Each year, an individual of distinction in the field of children’s literature is chosen to write and deliver a lecture that will make a significant contribution to the world of children’s literature. The award is administered by ALSC....

Holleran, Bechdel win Stonewall Book awards
ALA’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table has announced the winners of the 2007 Stonewall Book Awards. Andrew Holleran, author of Grief (Hyperion), is the winner of the Barbara Gittings Book Award in Literature, and Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin), is the winner of the Israel Fishman Book Award for Nonfiction....

White House honors Alameda County literacy program
The literacy program at the Alameda County juvenile hall in San Leandro, California, hit the jackpot January 22. The eight-year effort to help incarcerated youths read and write won a $10,000 federal grant and plaudits at the White House from First Lady Laura Bush. Bush praised the Alameda County Library system for helping more than 4,000 troubled teens “heal the wounds of the past” by strengthening their reading skills....
Alameda (Calif.) Times-Star, Jan. 22

Wish for Lit on Amazon.com
Amazon Services announced January 19 a program aimed at giving more than $20,000 in Amazon.com products to three deserving libraries in the United States. The Wish for Lit program is designed to give libraries an opportunity to create wish lists on Amazon.com to receive the books and supplies that they need the most. Libraries interested in participating must submit an online entry form and create their Library Wish List. Applications will be accepted until February 16....
Seattle dBusiness News, Jan. 19

Appeals court upholds copyright law on orphan works
An appeals court has rejected a bid by internet activists to roll back federal laws that extended copyright protection over orphan works—books and other media that are no longer in print. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower-court decision to dismiss Kahle v. Gonzales, which argued that legal changes made in the 1990s had vastly extended copyright protections at the expense of free speech rights. Brewster Kahle explains his position...
Reuters, Jan. 22; Internet Archive, Jan. 22

Tech giants push for web free speech
Technology companies Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Vodafone are in talks with human rights and press freedom groups to draw up an internet code of conduct to protect the free speech and privacy of web users. The parties said in a January 19 statement they aim to produce a code by the end of this year that would counter such trends as the increased jailing of internet journalists, monitoring of legitimate online activity, and censorship....
Reuters, Jan. 19

Librarian’s lessons in the power of persistence
The 75-year-old, silver-haired Kennetta Russ has been the go-to person in the Loudoun County (Va.) High School library for 17 years. Her leadership abilities were recently affirmed when Russ learned she had achieved National Board Certification, the highest certificate available to educators. She is one of only 12 teachers and librarians in Loudoun County and 55,000 in the nation to have qualified for such a distinction....
Washington Post, Jan. 21

The 10 most expensive books of 2006
Auction houses and collectors did a brisk business in rare books in 2006, setting records in several categories. A 15th-century edition of maps by the second-century Greek mathematician Ptolemy brought in $4 million, the highest price ever paid for an atlas. An 1873 signed edition of Une saison en enfer (A Season in Hell) by poet Arthur Rimbaud brought in a record price for a work of French literature, $644,000....
Forbes, Jan. 16

Fight back against infomania
Here’s a quick test: Can you make it through this story—or this sentence—without being interrupted by email, or feeling the urge to check your in box? If not, there’s a group of technology specialists very interested in your problem. And yes, they say, it’s definitely a problem....
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 23

Preserving printed and digital heritage
Internet law professor Michael Geist discusses how governments can start building libraries that preserve both printed and digital publications....
BBC News, Jan. 22

Program gets Indian youth reading for fun
Loriene Roy, project director for “If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything,” started this reading club to encourage Native American kids to read for fun. At the same time, her organization promotes library use at Indian schools and helps improve school library collections with books that can empower indigenous youth....
Missoula (Mont.) Missoulian, Jan. 19

Topeka gets a Second Life
The Topeka and Shawnee County (Kans.) Public Library no longer has just one branch. The organization has opened up a new location at the coordinates 24, 157, 24 in Cybrary City, a growing community for libraries in Second Life, an online virtual world....
Topeka Capital-Journal, Jan. 16

Books are a hard sell
Thomas Washington writes: “I’m a librarian in an independent Washington-area school. We’re doing all the right things. Our class sizes are small. Most graduating seniors gain admission to their college of choice. The facilities are first-rate. Yet from my vantage point at the reference desk, something is amiss. The books in the library stacks are gathering dust.”...
Washington Post, Jan. 21

Tech Profile: Sabrina Pacifici (PDF file)
Sabrina Pacifici has a passion for publishing content-rich material on the Web. She’s the creator of, and prolific contributor to, LLRX.com, one of the most highly touted legal research sites. Combine that with the fact that she is the creator of the beSpacific blog, which provides daily law and technology news, and her achievements are even more impressive. Here is her story....
Law Practice Technology, Dec.

Some bling for your blog
Pastor Bob Hyatt acknowledges that his widget fixation may be getting a little out of control. On his weblog, Hyatt, the leader of the Evergreen Community in Portland, Oregon, has woven in widgets, or miniapplications, that show a selection of book covers from his personal library, present the most recent posts from some of his favorite blogs, and serve up random quotes from the television show Arrested Development....
New York Times, Jan. 18

Becoming a wiki warrior
Connie Crosby writes: “Like you, I’d been reading about wikis, referring to Wikipedia, and even daring to edit the odd wiki page when something caught my eye and really needed changing. Then one day back in November I woke up and felt compelled to set up all my collaborative projects as wikis. A wiki warrior was born!”...
The Tao of Law Librarianship, LLRX, Jan. 15

Library Predict-o-Matic 3000
Dave Pattern writes: “Were you caught on the hop by the merger of Sirsi and Dynix? Did the Ex Libris acquisition of Endeavor take you by surprise? Were you amazed by the breaking news that LibraryThing is going to buy out Talis? If the answer to any of the above is yes, then you need the Library Predict-o-Matic 3000.”...
Self Plagiarism Is Style blog, Jan. 20

Searching scholarly tables, figures, and graphs
CSA Illustrata is a new resource from CSA that provides deep indexing to the tabular and other graphic information published within scholarly articles. Running on the CSA Illumina platform, CSA Illustrata allows researchers to explicitly search for information presented in tables, charts, graphs, maps, photographs, and other figures. Users can view the full object (including all caption and label text), save marked results, and import the illustrations into presentations, lectures, or research....
Information Today, Jan. 22

Google plots e-books coup
The internet search giant is working on a system that would allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a Blackberry. With 380 million people using Google each month, the move would give a significant boost to the development of e-books and have a big impact on the publishing industry and book retailers....
London Times, Jan. 21

Ann Arbor District Library goes social
John Blyberg writes: “It only took a year, but I finally got permission to go ahead with implementing what I’ve dubbed ‘The SOPAC’ here at Ann Arbor (Mich.) District Library. That would be cute-speak for Social OPAC. It’s basically a set of social networking tools integrated into the AADL catalog. It gives users the ability to rate, review, comment on, and tag items.”...
Blyberg.net, Jan. 21

Designer bookends
The perfect site to visit when you need something more than the standard gunmetal-gray bookends—for that special exhibit, photo-shoot, gift, employee award, or desk-enhancement project. This company has everything from elephants and monkey palms to armillary spheres and fire engines....
JustBookends.com

ARL launches website redesign
On January 18, the Association of Research Libraries launched a newly designed website. The updated, streamlined design was developed to improve navigation within the site. New features include a consistent navigation bar across the top of each page and RSS news feeds that enable the user to subscribe to some or all of the site’s new postings....
Association of Research Libraries, Jan. 22

Chicago Public Library’s new seal
The 79-branch Chicago Public Library system, with the help of San Francisco–based Landor Associates, now boasts a revitalized visual identity and house style. The visual identity revitalization is the latest effort rooted in Chicago Public Library 2010: A Vision For Our Future, a strategic plan that identifies the library’s goals and opportunities for the next several years....
Landor Associates, Jan. 11

RDA: Cataloging rules for the 20th century
Many individuals and organizations in the library world do not support the work taking place to develop a next generation of library cataloging rules. Karen Coyle and Diane Hillmann describe the tensions existing between those advocating an incremental change to the cataloging process and others who desire a bolder library entry into the digital era....
D-Lib Magazine 13, no. 1/2 (Jan./Feb.)

LC on global warming
The Library of Congress Science Tracer Bullet on global warming and climate change is intended for those who are looking for a review of the literature and vetted online resources on these topics. Materials cited are available in the collections of the Library of Congress or on the internet....
Science Tracer Bullets Online

The Adventures of Super Librarian
Faster than free internet! More powerful than a stack of reference books! Protector of knowledge and free entertainment! Another amusing promotional video from the McCracken County (Ky.) Public Library....
YouTube