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

12 CIC universities join Google Library Project
The 12 universities that make up the Committee on Institutional Cooperation announced June 6 that they would join the Google Books Library Project, making up to 10 million volumes from their collections available for digitization and access through Google’s search engine....

Miami appeals court hears Vamos case
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments June 6 in a lawsuit against the Miami–Dade County School Board for ordering the removal of the children’s book Vamos a Cuba and its English-language counterpart A Visit to Cuba from elementary school libraries. The board’s attorney, Richard Ovelmen, told the judges that “The books are rife with factual omissions, misrepresentations, and inaccuracies that render them educationally unsuitable,” adding that they fail to mention that Cuba is a dictatorship....

Occult concerns jinx teen read program
Pickens County (S.C.) Library System officials have withdrawn the library’s participation in a nationwide teen reading program (right) within days of its scheduled June 7 launch due to 11th-hour threats against the library, PCLS Director Marguerite Keenan told American Libraries. “My understanding is that it was announced at a church service that we were promoting witchcraft and teaching other religions in our young adult program,” Keenan explained....

Laura Bush opens American collection at German library
First Lady Laura Bush presented 100 books in English and spoke to around 60 children as part of the June 6 launch of the “America @ your library” program at the Schwerin City Library in Schwerin, Germany. The program, introduced to the country by the U.S. embassy in 2005, is available in 18 public libraries, 12 of which were once part of communist East Germany....

Arkansas court rules against 2005 library appropriations
The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled June 7 that money approved by the state legislature in 2005 for two library projects was appropriated unconstitutionally. Lawmakers had allocated $190,000 for a new facility for the Jacksonville branch of the Central Arkansas Library System and $50,000 for the Cleburne County Library in Heber Springs directly from the General Improvement Fund, rather than making the funds available to the Arkansas State Library to disburse....

Hill Reference Library closes railroad magnate’s archive
After more than 30 years of owning the personal papers of railroad magnate James J. Hill (1838–1916), the James J. Hill Reference Library is looking for a new home for them. The private business reference library in Saint Paul, Minnesota, closed the archive June 1 after announcing that it no longer matched the library’s mission of providing practical information to the global business community....

British publishers, universities donate 300 textbooks to Iraq
A delivery of some 300 academic textbooks donated by 21 British academic libraries and publishers was delivered to the Iraq National Library and Archives in Baghdad this week. Worth an estimated $30,000, the books are the gift of the British Library’s Higher Education section, working with the Society of College, National, and University Libraries, which launched an appeal in February for undergraduate and postgraduate English texts in the social sciences....

President’s Program features Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will join ALA President Leslie Burger for a discussion on the important role of our nation’s Environmental Protection Agency libraries. The program, titled “A Contract With Our Future,” will be held June 24 from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. during ALA Annual Conference. Kennedy and Burger will discuss what steps need to be taken in order to ensure that future generations have access to environmental information, and live in an environment that is safe, clean, and beautiful....

Julie Andrews to sign books for 100 lucky buyers
In the prefunction area outside Ballroom C immediately following her June 25 program, stage and screen legend Julie Andrews will sign books for 100 lucky holders of a voucher available with purchase of an Andrews title from the ALA Store, where her latest books will be on sale—The Great American Mousical and Thanks to You: Wisdom from Mother and Child....

President-Elect Roy honored with Native American dance
On Friday, June 22, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., hundreds will gather at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian at Fourth Street and Independence Ave., S.W., in Washington, D.C., to recognize ALA President-Elect Loriene Roy with an honor dance and drum music. The event recognizes Roy’s accomplishment as the first American Indian to serve as ALA president....

Vartan Gregorian to speak at Opening Session
Vartan Gregorian, president of the philanthropic Carnegie Corporation of New York, will speak at the ALA Annual Conference Opening General Session, sharing the stage with former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley. The program is scheduled for June 23, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Hall D of the Washington Convention Center, and will begin with a screening of 100 Years of American Libraries in Three Minutes, a rapid-fire video history of the magazine on the occasion of its centennial....

Many Voices, One Nation
ALA will showcase the diverse voices of our world at the “Many Voices, One Nation” program, an evening of literature and performance during Annual Conference, June 22, from 7 to 10 p.m. Join Nancy Garden, Patrice Gaines, E. Ethelbert Miller, and other writers and artists as they weave a tapestry of spoken words, song, and dance celebrating our fundamental unity within the global human family....

Free internet safety bookmarks available at Annual Conference
ALA is joining with MySpace and the Illinois Library Association to distribute one million free bookmarks containing tips on internet safety at the 2007 Annual Conference. The bookmarks are printed as a series, each aimed at a specific audience including kids, teens, and parents. By distributing these bookmarks, MySpace and the library community hope to help educate youth and parents to make safe and informed decisions online....

REFORMA program on English-only censorship
Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz., right) and Office for Intellectual Freedom Director Judith Krug will speak about the impact that English-only initiatives have on children and young adult library services. The program will be held 1:30–330 p.m., June 24. The program will address the critical need for library workers to learn how to confront English-only initiatives....

Panel features tech writers and exhibitors
American Libraries “Technically Speaking” columnist Andrew Pace and Smart Libraries Newsletter writer Marshall Breeding will moderate a first-ever panel discussion with leading technologists from seven major library vendors. Titled “Speaking Technically: A Conversation about Cutting‑Edge Library Automation and Technology,” the session will take place on the LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage in the exhibit hall on Sunday, June 24, from 10:30 a.m. to noon....

Best of ALA-APA Library Worklife
The ALA–Allied Professional Association: The Organization for the Advancement of Library Employees is sending out a free special issue of its electronic newsletter, Library Worklife: HR E-News for Today’s Leaders to individual and institutional ALA members. Twenty-six of the most popular articles since 2004 are included....

American Libraries launches AL Focus video site
American Libraries has launched AL Focus, a video component of the American Libraries Online website. AL Focus is the creation of AL Associate Editor Daniel Kraus and ALA Internet Development Specialist Jenny Levine. Kraus is an accomplished filmmaker whose works include the documentaries Sheriff and the feature film Ball of Wax. He will be in charge of producing and editing video and audio for the new site....

Bibliotheca Alexandrina 5th anniversary
American Libraries Editor in Chief Leonard Kniffel visits (4:42) the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, for the library’s 5th anniversary. Kniffel takes in some of the local sights (including the ancient library at Serapeum, circa 297 A.D.), and speaks to Library Director Ismail Serageldin and Chief Librarian Sohair Wastawy, among others....

ALA Wheel of Confusion #1
TESLA? ANSS? ECRR? Join us in a lighthearted look (5:22) at those confounding ALA acronyms with staff members Charles Wilt, Marci Merola, and Adam Burling. Can any of them overcome the mighty wheel? Featuring host extraordinaire John Chrastka and the woman with the answers (most of them, anyway), Karen Muller....

Donavan Vicha on ASCLA and RUSA
ALA Manager for Membership Development John Chrastka sits down (or stands up, actually) with Donavan Vicha, Web Program Officer for ASCLA and RUSA (10:37). John finds Donavan right in the middle of an online class being held in the virtual world of Second Life, and they use the opportunity to chat about avatars, virtual book talks, voice-to-voice interface, Moodle, and RUSA’s section of ALA/Arts Island in Second Life....

A guide to dining in D.C.’s Penn’s Quarter (PDF file)
In this Annual Conference restaurant guide, DC Public Library’s Elena Tscherny reveals that Washington is the culinary paradise of the East. She writes: “My husband Alex, already enjoying his retirement from the Library of Congress, is my constant companion in our weekly explorations of the wonderful downtown restaurants offering local and international cuisines.”...
American Libraries 38, no. 6 (June/July): 112–117

Family and friends at ALA Annual Conference
You can purchase one of three types of passes for your people: Exhibits Only at $25, Exhibits Plus at $35, or Exhibits Supreme at $50. You can purchase them on site. All passes are four-day passes, but can be used on any single day or combination of days....

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The museum, located at 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, S.W., has on ongoing special exhibition on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. “A Dangerous Lie” explores the continuing impact of the most widely distributed antisemitic publication of modern times. Today, technology has made the Protocols available to anyone with internet access, and it continues to be circulated by those who promote hatred, violence, and even genocide....
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Drumming, anyone?
If you missed the drum circle at the ACRL National Conference, you can catch another at Annual. Ethnomusicologist Arthur Hull, the father of the modern-day community drum circle movement, will lead a two-hour community group drumming event open to everyone at all levels (cost is $5), and with drums and other percussion instruments provided. It will be Saturday, June 23, 3 to 5 p.m., at the National Music Center, 801 K Street, N.W. Contact Keith Russell for more details....
Village Music Circles

YA authors LIVE on stage
Join YALSA Monday, June 25, for an afternoon featuring contemporary young adult authors at the LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage at the ALA Annual Conference. The event will feature Carolyn Mackler, Nick Hornby, Gene Luen Yang, and others....

New LITA guide on interactive technologies
LITA Guide #13, Using Interactive Technologies in Libraries, is now available for preordering. Edited by Katherine Hanson and H. Frank Cervone and published by Neal-Schuman and LITA, the guide will be available on June 13. Leading information professionals offer helpful forecasts for the future of such major technologies as RSS, wikis, blogs, and podcasting....

PLA introduces new Toolkit for Success
PLA will introduce its latest publication, Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose and Persuasion: A PLA Toolkit for Success, at ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The toolkit provides guidance for the entire advocacy planning process, including goal setting, audience analysis and identification, message and strategy development, and tactic evaluation and selection. PLA will present a demonstration of the contents and application of the toolkit on Sunday, June 24, from 1:30 to 3:30....

CLENERT Annual Conference events
“Learning When There Is No Time to Learn” and “Learning for Library Staff” are two Continuing Library Education and Networking Exchange Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

FAFLRT Annual Conference events
The Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table is offering tours of the U.S. Census Bureau Library at Annual Conference....

GLBTRT Annual Conference events
“Aging Issues for GLBT Patrons” and “Addressing the Information Needs of Female-to-Male Transsexuals” are two Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

IRRT Annual Conference events
“International Library Partnerships” and “Opportunities to Participate in Global Library Development” are two International Relations Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

LHRT Annual Conference events
“Washington, the Nation, and the World: Papers in Honor of John Y. Cole” and “Library Policies of American Occupation: Japan Was Not Iraq” are two Library History Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

LIRT Annual Conference events
The Library Instruction Round Table is hosting a program on “It’s Showtime for Instruction Librarians! The Making of Short Films for Marketing and Instruction” at Annual Conference....

LRRT Annual Conference events
“Information Seeking Behavior from Childhood through College” and “Research: A User Experience” are two Library Research Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

LSSIRT Annual Conference events
The Library Support Staff Interests Round Table is co-hosting the “Conference Within a Conference” at Annual Conference....

MAGERT Annual Conference events
“Library Security for Maps” and “200 Years of the Coast Survey” are two Map and Geography Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

NMRT Annual Conference events
“Navigating the Rapids: Myths and Realities of Intergenerational Workplaces” and “Using Past Lives to Launch Your Library Career” are two New Members Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

SORT Annual Conference events
The Staff Organizations Round Table is sponsoring walking tours to explore historic sites near DuPont Circle at Annual Conference....

SRRT Annual Conference events (PDF file)
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Multicultural Idea Exchange” and “Darfur: The Library’s Responsibility and Our Community’s Need to Know” are two Social Responsibilities Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

FTRF Roll of Honor Award
Lucille C. Thomas, immediate past president of the Brooklyn Public Library’s board of trustees and former assistant director of the New York City Board of Education’s Office of Library, Media, and Telecommunications, is the recipient of the 2007 Freedom to Read Foundation Roll of Honor Award. Thomas is a longtime advocate of the principles of intellectual freedom and equity of access to information in public and school libraries....

W. Y. Boyd Literary Award
Robert Mrazek’s novel The Deadly Embrace is the winner of the W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction for 2007. “It is a very compelling tale that enables the reader to obtain a perspective of what it was really like in war-weary England in the days before the Allied invasion of France on June 6, 1944,” said jury chair Robert Schnare....

Six Spectrum doctoral fellows announced
The first six recipients of the Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship have been announced by ALA and the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences: Janet Ceja Alcalá (University of Pittsburgh), Tammy Mays (University of Wisconsin at Madison), Liladhar Pendse (University of California at Los Angeles), Elisabeth Rodriguez (University of Pittsburgh), J. Brenton Stewart (University of Wisconsin at Madison), and Vivian Wong (University of California at Los Angeles)....

AASL Distinguished School Administrators Award
Nathan S. Greenberg has won AASL’s 2007 Distinguished School Administrators Award. Greenberg is superintendent of schools in the Londonderry (N.H.) School District and a member of the Board of Directors of the New England School Development Council....

Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize
Marcel LaFlamme has been awarded the 2007 Miriam Braverman Memorial Prize by the Progressive Librarians Guild for his essay titled “Towards a Progressive Discourse on Community Needs Assessment: Perspectives from Collaborative Ethnography and Action Research.” LaFlamme is enrolled in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College in Boston....
Progressive Librarians Guild, June 6

FLICC awards for federal librarianship
The Federal Library and Information Center Committee has announced the winners of its national awards for federal librarianship, which recognize the many innovative ways that federal libraries, librarians, and library technicians fulfill the information demands of government, business, and scholarly communities and the American public. The award for Federal Librarian of the Year went to Carla Pomager, systems/acquisition librarian for the Army General Library Program....
Library of Congress, June 12

Inmates file lawsuit over book ban
Inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, New York, were stunned at what they saw at the chapel library on Memorial Day: Hundreds of books missing from the shelves, part of a post-Sept. 11 federal directive designed to prevent radical religious texts from falling into the hands of violent inmates. Three prisoners have filed a lawsuit over the policy, saying their constitutional rights were violated. They say all religions were affected—Islamic prayer books, Christian books, and ancient Jewish texts were among those removed....
Associated Press, June 10

Kentucky library identifies rare sculpture
Late last year, a sculpture sitting inside the front entrance of the Paris–Bourbon County (Ky.) Public Library for 30 years was an artwork created by Edmonia Lewis in the 1870s and long considered lost. The Bride of Spring (right) is a rare creation by the first African-American and Native American female sculptor to gain international fame....
Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, June 10; Paris-Bourbon County Public Library

Incoming freshmen and summer reading
Many of next fall’s first-year college students have thrown their tasseled caps in the air and are ready to pick up the sunscreen and surfboards, but there may be another item to put in the beach bag: a book assigned by the university. In an attempt to welcome students to the college classroom experience before they even move into the dorms, a growing number of universities are dishing out summer reading assignments to their first-year students....
U.S. News & World Report, June 7

Santa Clara University’s Second Life
With the completion of Santa Clara Island imminent, Santa Clara University is expanding into the internet game called Second Life. The island features three digital replicas of campus buildings: the de Saisset Museum, Mission Church, and a completed version of the library currently under construction. The virtual library has the most functionality. A small staff of librarians and assistants can help visitors through chatting and possibly voice communications when that feature is added to the game....
The Santa Clara, May 24

America’s obsession with secrecy
Case Western Reserve University Journalism Professor Ted Gup writes: “Today the nation’s obsession with secrecy is redefining public and private institutions and taking a toll on the lives of ordinary citizens. Excessive secrecy is at the root of multiple scandals—the phantom weapons of mass destruction, the collapse of Enron, the tragedies traced to Firestone tires and the arthritis drug Vioxx, and more. In this self-proclaimed Information Age, our country is on the brink of becoming a secretocracy, a place where the right to know is being replaced by the need to know.”...
Washington Post, June 10

Egypt says university must allow veils
An Egyptian court ruled June 9 that a U.S.-accredited university in Cairo was wrong to bar a female scholar who wears an Islamic face veil from using its facilities. The American University in Cairo, seen as a bastion of Western liberal education in Egypt, had revoked Iman al-Zainy’s longstanding library privileges after she donned the niqab, a face veil that leaves only the wearer's eyes uncovered....
Reuters, June 9

Drupal, Joomla, and Moodle: Tools to use
With Drupal and Joomla, you can build a website that contains forums, bulletin boards, chat rooms, blogs, media, document editing, newsletters, customizable RSS feeds, calendars, and much more. Moodle combines many of the social software tools we love, like RSS and wikis, with the functionality and layout of a traditional course management tool....
ALA TechSource blog, June 6

Ebrary’s e-book survey (PDF file)
Content provider ebrary has compiled the results of its informal e-book survey conducted to better understand the digital content needs of the library community. Anyone interested in receiving a copy may register or visit the ebrary booth at ALA Annual Conference. One finding was that respondents ranked Google and other search engines as the least prevalent factor driving e-book usage....
Ebrary, June 11

LibGuides integrates with Facebook
LibGuides is a system for publishing information and creating social networks centered around library resources. Librarians create Guides that contain any kind of content, then publish them online for users to interact with. LibGuides is also available from Facebook, enabling users to access the library content, chat with reference librarians, and even search the catalog, all from their facebook homepages....
Springshare

Shameless self-promotion
Andrew Pace writes: “Many of you have perhaps heard that I am moderating a debate at ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., titled ‘The Ultimate Debate,’ Saturday, June 23, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. I hope you will join me and the debaters—Karen Schneider, Joe Janes, and Stephen Abram—as we discuss ‘Do Libraries Innovate?’ For pre-debate rabble-rousing, see the LITA-L list archives!”...
Hectic Pace blog, June 13

Browser keyboard shortcuts
Mozilla offers a complete list of Firefox keyboard shortcuts and their Internet Explorer and Opera equivalents. Discover the wonders of Alt + Home, Ctrl + U, Ctrl + L, and Ctrl + Plus sign....
Mozilla.com

How Bluetooth works
There are lots of different ways that electronic devices can connect to one another. This article takes a look at a method of connecting devices called Bluetooth that can streamline the process. A Bluetooth connection is wireless and automatic, and it has a number of interesting features that can simplify our daily lives....
How Stuff Works

A historical glimpse into library automation
Andrew Pace writes: “I love those old volumes of the Journal of Library Automation, precursor to Information Technology and Libraries, LITA’s scholarly publication. The forefathers of library automation (sorry, they seem to have been all men in that first issue) were there for the 1968 inaugural issue—Ned Morris, Richard Johnson, Robert Wedgeworth, Richard Chapin, Dale Pretzer, and, one of my absolute favorites, Richard De Gennaro. They wrote about Texas A&I’s acquisitions system, Stanford’s book catalog, Brown’s fund-accounting system, machine-readable shelf lists, and the nascent history of library automation.”...
“Technically Speaking,” American Libraries 38, no. 6 (June/July): 52

Web 2.0: The sleep of reason
Michael Gorman expresses his views on the internet and credulity to get the ball rolling in an ongoing forum on Web 2.0: “Bloggers are called ‘citizen journalists’; alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular, though we can thank our stars there is no discernable ‘citizen surgeon’ movement.” In part 2, he rants, “Digital Maoism is an unholy brew made up of the digital utopianism that hailed the internet as the second coming of Haight-Ashbury—everyone’s tripping and it’s all free; pop sociology derived from misreading books such as James Surowiecki’s 2004 The Wisdom of Crowds.”...
Britannica Blog, June 11–12

Book ads: The Golden Age, 1962–1973
Advertisements for books have been around nearly as long as books themselves, and in the New York Times, they’ve appeared since shortly after the first issue of the newspaper went to press in September 1851. The Times Paper Cuts blog takes a look at ads from the Golden Age, when they were fresh, pushy, serious, and wry, often all at the same time. There was a new sense of electricity in the culture and in the book world....
Paper Cuts, June 11

Lit 50: Who really books in Chicago
The Chicago literary community has entered one of its most tumultuous times, what with the prospects of a major Borders retreat and the closing of the Virgin Megastore and Tower Records, along with the near-death experience of one of Chicago’s best-known independents, Women and Children First. But there are many Chicago literary movers and shakers who keep the books in the stores and in our minds....
NewCity Chicago, June 5

Char’s BookExpo superlatives
Char Gwizdala, a librarian at Queens (N.Y.) Library, offers her take on the best events at BookExpo this year, among them the most patient author (Matthew Reinhart, right), the yummiest give-away, the coolest picture-taking event, the most socially conscious exhibitor, the coolest and most unassuming couple, and the best swag....
Char’s blog, June 3

Bartlesville update
Maureen Johnson, whose book The Bermudez Triangle is under reconsideration by the Bartlesville (Okla.) Mid-High school, writes: “The first thing is that the only librarian on the committee, the only person who stood up for the book . . . was removed from her position as a chair of one of the library committees by Janet Vernon, the head of the committee, and the person who still refuses to talk to me about the book.”...
Maureen’s Blog, June 8

Google adjusts privacy policy
Google will make the data it stores about end users anonymous in its server logs after 18 months, according to a June 11 blog post by the company’s global privacy counsel. Previously, Google had said it would make the data anonymous after 18 to 24 months. The decision comes in the wake of a letter (PDF file) sent in May from a European Union data protection working group regarding the company’s privacy policies and a report released June 9 by Privacy International that ranked Google worse than any other internet company in protecting user privacy....
Computerworld, June 12

LC to name National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
The Library of Congress has created the post of National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Appointed for a two-year term by the Librarian of Congress, the ambassador will speak to the importance of fiction and nonfiction in the lives of young people. The appointment of the first ambassador will be announced in January 2008....
Library of Congress, June 7

FSU chemist preserves LC materials
This summer, a Florida State University chemist will use his knowledge of cellulose, a key component of paper, to help the world’s largest library find ways to preserve its vast treasure trove of books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, and pamphlets, many irreplaceable. André Striegel, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at FSU, has been invited to serve as the first Preservation Research and Testing Professor in Residence at the Library of Congress Preservation Research and Testing Division....
Florida State University, June 4

Grants to Native American libraries
The Institute of Museum and Library Services June 12 awarded Native American tribes across the country $1.3 million in grants to improve library services. In all, 229 grants will strengthen library service for 237 Native American tribal communities and Alaska Native villages....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, June 12

Literacy and learning at the Multnomah County Library
Produced by Portfolio Productions for the Library Foundation in Portland, Oregon, this video (3:55) illustrates how Multnomah County Library’s innovative literacy and reading programs inspire the practice of reading for life....
YouTube, May 24

National Library of Australia to add WorldCat records
The National Library of Australia has agreed to add some 12 million bibliographic records to WorldCat, making these records visible to web searchers worldwide. Australian libraries will use WorldCat to catalog, find, and share library materials....
OCLC, June 11