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

New York City budget provides for service six days a week
In a $59-billion budget agreement announced June 12, New York City public libraries will be funded for six-day-a-week service for the first time in six years. Based on a record $4.4-billion surplus, the budget will also reduce property taxes by 7% and provide some sales tax relief on clothing and shoe purchases of over $110....

Providence Public Library approves city contract
Trustees of the Providence (R.I.) Public Library voted June 13 to accept a one-year municipal contract that increases the city’s funding of the library by $300,000 and establishes an advisory committee to oversee PPL’s budget. The agreement ends a dispute over the level of city financing, governance of the branch libraries, staffing levels, and hours that began in July 2004 when the library cut staff and services in response to several years of level funding by the city and state....

Fearing radicals, prisons remove religious books
Officials at the federal prison in Otisville, New York, removed hundreds of books from the chapel library on Memorial Day, mostly titles of a religious nature. The action was part of a belated response to an April 2004 Department of Justice review of the way prisons choose providers of Muslim religious services that resulted in a federal directive designed to prevent violent inmates from access to radical Islamic religious texts....

Supreme Court asked to repeal library worship ban
The Alliance Defense Fund, a law firm representing the Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries, asked the U.S. Supreme Court June 7 to overturn a September 20 federal appeals court ban on conducting worship services at the Contra Costa County (Calif.) Library’s Antioch branch....

Former FISA Court judge to speak at Annual Conference
Former Chief Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Royce Lamberth will speak in an open session at Annual Conference about the inner workings of the secretive court and how it has changed since passage of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. Lamberth will talk on Saturday, June 23, from 8-10:15 AM in Room 143-B of the Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place, NW, Washington, D.C....

ALA files comments on three telecom issues
ALA recently filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission in relation to several key telecommunications policy issues and how they relate to America’s libraries: deployment of broadband to public libraries, subscriptions to broadband services, and net neutrality....
District Dispatch blog, June 19

Loriene Roy on health information issues
ALA President-Elect Loriene Roy will address health information issues and library resources for Hispanics and Latinos at the 2007 Trejo Foster Foundation Institute, July 13, 7 p.m., at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The TFF Institute brings together leaders, practitioners, and students in the library and information fields to discuss and advocate for issues, policies, and practices that affect Hispanic and Latino communities and individuals....

Parade of Bookmobiles
The Office for Literacy and Outreach Services will hold a Parade of Bookmobiles during ALA Annual Conference on Tuesday, June 26. The event will feature bookmobiles making their way from the Washington Convention Center to Franklin Square at Eye and 13th Streets. Once at Franklin Square, the bookmobiles will be open to the public for pictures and tours from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m....

ALA welcomes two new Library Champions
The Development Office has announced two new ALA Library Champions: Innovative Interfaces and Mirrorstone. Corporate Library Champions demonstrate the importance and value of libraries as dynamic, modern community centers for learning, information, and entertainment. Visit Innovative Interfaces at booths 4132 and 3205, and Mirrorstone at booth 2947 at ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C....

Picturing America grant recipients
The ALA Public Programs Office, in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities, has selected more than 1,500 schools to receive Picturing America, a new grant opportunity for schools and school libraries. Picturing America will provide a collection of 40 large-scale reproductions of American artworks and related materials to promote the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture....

Executive Board recognizes Spectrum Scholarship Program
In action taken at their spring meeting held April 12–15 in Chicago, the ALA Executive Board formally recognized the outstanding achievements of the Spectrum Scholarship Program on the occasion of its 10th anniversary. Established in 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program is ALA’s national diversity and recruitment effort....

One AL article, from beginning to end
What kind of work goes into producing a single column in American Libraries magazine? More than you imagine. See every drop of blood, sweat, and tears in this fast-paced, high-powered, behind-the-scenes look (5:40) at AL’s daily grind. (A higher-res Quicktime version that takes a bit longer to load reduces the distortion created by fast camera tracking in the low-res Flash version on our website.)...

ALA Wheel of Confusion #2
If you thought the last episode was a brain-buster, brace yourself as ALA Librarian Karen Muller tells host John Chrastka about the longest acronym in ALA history. Will it be seven letters long? Ten? Not even close! It takes a 1:26 video to just say what the acronym stands for....

Beth Yoke on YALSA
In this episode (6:30) of “ALA in Focus,” ALA Manager for Membership Services John Chrastka chats with Beth Yoke, executive director of YALSA, about the events, meetings, and parties at the 2007 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Yoke also talks about the 10th anniversary of Teen Read Week, how to establish YALSA discussion and interest groups, and the multiple hats she tried on in West Virginia....

Conference Center 411
See this wiki for directions on getting to the Washington Convention Center from airports, by Metro or MARC trains, as well as other useful convention center information (e.g., parking, business center services)....

The Library of Congress at Annual Conference
On Monday, June 25, at 4 p.m. in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium, ALA members and LC staff are invited to attend a conversation between Librarian of Congress James Billington and Brian Lamb of C-SPAN on issues of importance to libraries. LC staff will be conducting several tours and programs, as well as staging a full schedule of programming at the LC booth (#1741) at the Convention Center....
Library of Congress blog, June 19

YALSA to celebrate 50 years at President’s Program
YALSA will present its 50th Anniversary President’s Program, “A Day in the Life of a Teenager: Five Decades with YALSA,” on June 25 at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The program will also feature a panel discussion. moderated by Michael Cart (right), on the past five decades of young adult literature with an eye toward future trends....

Social networking for teens
In honor of National Internet Safety Month, YALSA has released a brochure to assist librarians in educating teens about safe use of online social networking software, including sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, and LiveJournal. Social Networking: A Guide for Teens is available as a downloadable PDF file on YALSA’s website....

Intellectual freedom for kids
ALSC has just released Kids, Know Your Rights! A Young Person’s Guide to Intellectual Freedom. This four-page, full-color, PDF brochure is free to download and speaks directly to kids in grades 5 and up, using simplified, kid-friendly language to tackle such difficult, abstract ideas as challenges to the First Amendment, how censorship affects children, and how they can defend their right to read, privacy and confidentiality, and respecting the opinions of others....

Special collections in children’s literature
An ALSC committee has created a Special Collections in Children’s Literature Wikiography to provide an easily accessible clearinghouse with helpful information about 14 special collections that are used by researchers studying children or their literature....

New bibliographies boast the best in children’s literature
The ALA–Children’s Book Council Joint Committee, in cooperation with the ALSC Quicklists Consulting Committee, has released a set of four bibliographies intended to provide guidance to parents, grandparents, and others interested in assembling a high-quality library for children at home. The bibliographies are available as full-color PDFs on the ALSC and CBC websites and are free to download, copy, and distribute....

2007 LITA National Forum
Online registration now is available for the 2007 LITA National Forum, “Technology with Altitude: 10 Years of the LITA National Forum,” to be held October 4–7, 2007, at the Marriott City Center in Denver. Jeffrey Kiehl, National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, will open the Forum with The Scientific and Social Challenges of Global Warming....

New editor of C&RL News
ACRL has appointed David Free editor-in-chief of College and Research Libraries News, effective July 16. Free comes to ACRL from the Decatur Campus of Georgia Perimeter College, where he served as public services librarian. He is an acknowledged pioneer in the world of academic library podcasting....

New edition of User Services in College Libraries
ACRL has published a new edition of User Surveys in College Libraries, compiled by Doreen Kopycinski of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Kimberley Sando of DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. It is number 38 in ACRL’s College Libraries Section’s CLIP Notes series. Using the CLIP Notes guidelines, the compilers developed a survey based on that found in the 1995 edition to allow for an historical comparison....

ACRL on global evolution
ACRL has published Global Evolution: A Chronological Annotated Bibliography of International Students in U.S. Academic Libraries, by Kaetrena D. Davis of Georgia State University in Atlanta. This chronological, annotated bibliography shows the evolution of the issues concerning undergraduate and graduate international students in American academic libraries and contains many possible guidelines and ideas for meeting the basic and advanced information needs of an increasingly diverse patron group....

Marc Truitt named ITAL editor
The LITA Board of Directors has appointed Marc Truitt editor of its Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) journal. Truitt is associate director of information technology resources and services at the University of Alberta Libraries....

SupERTuesday closing reception
Don’t miss the SupERTuesday Closing Reception at Annual Conference, with food and prizes, sponsored by Exhibits Round Table, your exhibitors, and ALA. Fill out the SupERTuesday entry form in the ActionAd Booklet (received at Registration) or in the Tuesday edition of Cognotes and drop it in the free drawing boxes in the exhibit hall. Drawings will be held on Tuesday, June 26, at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 1:00 p.m.; the Grand Prize Drawing will be held at 2:30 p.m. You must be present to win.

EMIERT Annual Conference events
“Libraries, Immigrants, and the American Experience” is one of the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table programs at Annual Conference....

ALA and others receive $28 million in 21st Century grants
On June 19, the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced grants of almost $28 million under the 2007 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The program supports tuition assistance, curriculum development, service expectations, job placement, recruitment of nontraditional library students, and support for doctoral candidates to teach library science and research. ALA received funds for more Spectrum Scholarships in its Reach 21 program, a support staff certification pilot project, and the Online Resource Center for Library Cultural Programming....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, June 19

Scholastic will get the AASL Crystal Apple
AASL President Cyndi Phillip has selected Scholastic Library Publishing as the recipient of the 2007 Crystal Apple Award. The award is given at the discretion of the AASL president to an individual or group with a significant impact on school libraries and students. Phillip specifically cited Scholastic’s support for the school library media field through its production and distribution of “School Libraries Work,” a compilation of state studies on the impact of school library media programs on student achievement....

AASL Innovative Reading Grant
Nancy Baumann, school library media specialist at Barnett Shoals Elementary School in Athens, Georgia, hjas been awarded AASL’s first Innovative Reading Grant. The $2,500 grant is intended to support the planning and implementation of a unique and innovative program that encourages reading for children, especially those who struggle with literacy....

Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty awarded to the four John Does
In a ceremony June 15 at its Biennial Conference in Seattle, the American Civil Liberties Union presented the Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty awards to four Connecticut librarians and the president of a New York internet service provider who stood up against the Patriot Act and refused to violate the privacy of their patrons and clients....
American Civil Liberties Union, June 15

Knox County branch move runs afoul of civil rights
Tennessee officials say the Knox County government violated the federal Civil Rights Act by deciding to move its Burlington branch library farther from the center of East Knoxville’s black population before getting public input. As a result, Tennessee Secretary of State Riley Darnell has frozen grant funding for the library system until the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services determines whether to refer the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice....
Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel, June 20

Life after Harry Potter?
July 21 is the release date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final chapter in J. K. Rowling’s popular saga. But without Harry Potter, will teens keep reading? The answer is an emphatic yes. Books for teens are in a period of unprecedented growth, with its success beginning with the boy wizard himself. (This article is adapted in part from a chapter in the third edition of YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults, edited by Holly Koelling.)...
Today Show (NBC), June 13

Schwarzman helps NYPL raise $2.2 million
Blackstone Group Chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman, whose buyout fund is about to go public, raised money for another cause June 18—the New York Public Library. Schwarzman, a member of the library’s board, was honored at a dinner that brought in $2.2 million to modernize the 13 million-volume collection....
Bloomberg, June 19

UIUC grad to catalog Abbey’s incunabula
Although he’s not yet 25, Christopher Cook already is regarded as an expert in his trade. Cook is off to London on June 24 to begin cataloging the Westminster Abbey library’s collection of incunabula, or early printed books. The recent GSLIS graduate and new rare book cataloging project manager at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois hopes, he said, to “provide a descriptive bibliography of the Abbey’s collection of 15th-century imprints, shedding light on book distribution, collecting habits, and binding practices in early modern England.”...
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, June 12

Sacramento library probes maintenance firm
The Sacramento (Calif.) Public Library has launched an internal investigation into a company that paid a contractor to replace light bulbs and paint curbs, then as much as tripled some prices to the library. A May 21 Public Records Act request to examine invoices billed by Hagginwood Services Inc. revealed bills of $410 to unplug a toilet, $411 to fix a leaking water fountain, and $2,423 for repairing lights in one room....
Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, June 20

Jackie’s story
Jackie Ramseur sits outside the Clearwater (Fla.) Public Library on a park bench, her bags at her feet, smoking roll-your-own cigarettes. She’s homeless, but in her bag, she has library books. There’s Valley of Silence, a Nora Roberts romance novel about Celtic vampires. She has Stargirl, a young adult novel about teenagers confronting high school cliques. And Second Wave: Acorna’s Children, a sci-fi novel she picked up off a library display because it had a cat on the cover, and she loves animals....
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, June 8

Oak Park builds a transgender resource collection
Oak Park (Ill.) Public Library has received a $3,000 LSTA grant to create the first focused transgender resource collection in a U.S. public library. The library is purchasing materials that will serve, reflect, and welcome transgender people. The collection will also increase public awareness and understanding of gender identity and gender expression issues....
Chicago Tribune, June 18

Putin creates a Yeltsin Presidential Library
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree creating a Presidential Library named after former President Boris Yeltsin. The library will be located in the Synod building in St. Petersburg and will have branches in all regions of the Russian Federation....
Itar-TASS, June 19

Swindon Library closes its loo
The main library in Swindon, England, has shut its toilets for good after drug addicts left them in a disgusting state. Library staff and visitors were regularly confronted with a mess and vandalism, so the council decided to close them permanently. With the new £9-million central library in Regent Circus not due to open until next summer, the town’s main reading rooms will be without any toilets until then....
Swindon (UK) Advertiser, June 18

13 book hacks for bibliophiles
Adam Pash writes: “From your local library to the classroom to the bookstore, there are a lot of tools available to help you save time and money when it comes to the bound world of information. Today, in the interest of lifehacking your bookshelf, I’m rounding up my favorite 13 ‘book hacks’ for getting the most from your bound literature. The first three hacks provide ways to integrate your computer with your local library, from a web-based notification tool to a Firefox extension to a killer Mac-only menu bar app.”...
Lifehacker, June 19

National Fiber to the Library initiative
The Community TeleStructure Initiative has announced plans for a series of workshops on a National Fiber to the Library effort with the goal of connecting every library in the United States with fiber-speed internet by 2010. The first workshop will be held in Sausalito, California, on July 2, and will include broadband policy and market leaders in California joined by key national policy leaders from the American Library Association, the Fiber to the Home Council, and the FCC....
Community TeleStructure Initiative, June 13

Geotag your flickr photos
You may have recently noticed an extra option available when viewing the detail on your own flickr photos. Under additional information there is an option to place this photo on a map. This is a mash-up between flickr and Yahoo Maps—only fitting since they share the same mother company. On your main flickr page, under the You menu, you can select My Map to begin. From here there is a search box to navigate to a specific location and another toolbar to choose which photos you want to play with....
Infodoodads blog, June 13

Meredith Farkas’s top tech trends
Meredith Farkas writes: “Unfortunately, I’m set to speak at another session [at Annual Conference] that is at the exact same time as the Technology Trends panel, but I thought I’d contribute my trends virtually. So, in addition to the text version of my trends (which contain links to examples), I created a Flash movie (screencast) of my trends with narration. I figured it would be the closest thing to actually being there and you can actually see the applications I’m talking about.”...
LITA Blog, June 15

Welcome to the Twitterverse
Soon-to-be C&RL News Editor David Free explains the essence of the social networking tool Twitter. He advises: “Of course, if you don’t just want to be talking to yourself, you will need to add friends to Twitter.” Free shows you how....
Bigwig Social Software Showcase

NISO programs get a boost from Mellon Foundation
The National Information Standards Organization has received a $196,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation under its Scholarly Communications Program. The award will be used to transform and invigorate the standards process by supporting the adoption of technology tools for collaboration and the incubation of new community initiatives via a series of Thought Leader meetings....
National Information Standards Organization, June 18

EBSCO acquires two ABC-CLIO databases
Publisher ABC-CLIO and EBSCO Publishing announced a new alliance June 15 designed to benefit history scholars, teachers, and students. As part of the undertaking, EBSCO has acquired two of ABC-CLIO’s databases, Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. ABC-CLIO editorial staff will continue producing content for the databases and the two databases will be made available via EBSCOhost....
EContent, June 19

Bacteria and keyboards
The Krafty Librarian writes: “Don’t do it, don’t look at your keyboard too closely. Ignorance is bliss in this instance, trust me. I looked and I am horrified to say my keyboard looks worse than the dirt-catching crevices of my car. So what is a person to do? First inclination is to run screaming for the hand sanitizer and call hazmat to dispose of the thing. But the folks at NPR had an idea.”...
The Krafty Librarian, June 14

What book got you hooked?
Was it The Cat in the Hat? Or Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are? Or was it Daddy’s Roommate? From now until July 31, Idearc Media and First Book want you to let them know what book got you hooked on reading and why. In August, First Book will post a list of the top 50 children’s books with the most votes....
First Book

Librarians in popular culture
Ruth A. Kneale offers a synopsis of her talk at the 2007 Special Libraries Association Annual Conference on how librarians are portrayed in the movies, in music (such as this speed-metal band from Seattle, Blöödhag), on TV, in books and comics, with some toys and t-shirts thrown in....
Librarian-image.net

The siren song of the internet
Michael Gorman continues his blogging on Web 2.0: “A common feature of call-in talk shows and even blogs is the person claiming to have ‘done research’ into the topic under discussion. What invariably follows is a torrent of half-baked ideas, urban myths, and political vituperation, the former two being attributed to ‘the internet.’ Research, properly used, signifies complete and critical investigation of, or experimentation in, a particular subject resulting in new conclusions or discoveries. To many, it now means a few minutes noodling around to see which shards of data a search engine can retrieve and, worse, a delusion that one is now in possession of all pertinent facts.”...
Britannica Blog, June 19

I’m no antidigitalist
David Lee King has composed a song based on Michael Gorman’s recent posts on the Britannica Blog. He writes: “Last week, as I was reading everyone’s responses to Michael Gorman’s blog posts, I re-read a couple of the posts myself . . . and this phrase from his earlier ‘blog people’ article started running through my head . . . and wouldn’t leave. So I did what any self-respecting closet musician would do on his day off—I wrote a song!”...
David Lee King’s blog, June 18

The Peloponnesian War and research libraries (PDF file)
LC Reference Librarian Thomas Mann writes about the differences between scholarship and quick information seeking: “A single reference question on ‘tribute payments in the Peloponnesian War’ may indeed be trifling in the grand scheme of things, but when we take it apart and look at its implications for the future of both scholarship and librarianship, it takes on quite a bit more significance. We must not yield to the temptations to let either the technologies themselves or transient fashions constrict our vision of what needs to be done to promote scholarship of the highest possible quality.”...
Library of Congress Professional Guild (AFSCME 2910), June 13

Use WorldCat to make lists
WorldCat now has a list-making capability. You can group library-owned items you have found while using WorldCat, keep track of items of interest and refer back to them whenever you want to, or share lists with friends and colleagues. Some ideas for lists are books to recommend, secondary research sources, or movies to check out....
WorldCat

Helping the world use digital resources
Siân Harris writes: “Retired University of Florida librarian Lenny Rhine (right) has been spending much of his time travelling the world. He’s not in search of a great sun tan, though; his aim is to train librarians in the developing world how to use digital resources. Rhine runs training courses to teach medical librarians and health workers how to use the massive array of resources that have now become available to them through UN programs.”...
Research Information, June/July

Chronicling America offers 310,000 newspaper pages
Approximately 310,000 digitized newspaper pages, dating from 1900 to 1910, are now accessible through the Chronicling America website. The site is a project of the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities....
Library of Congress, June 15

Readex enhances access to historical maps
Readex, a division of NewsBank, will provide customers with access to the more than 50,000 maps within its digital edition of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817–1980. The company is adding cartographic records monthly and will continue until every Serial Set map carries a record. Renowned works include the American Civil War Atlas, maps delineating the boundary between the United States and Mexico, and John C. Fremont’s Oregon map (above)....
EContent, June 14

Welcoming Google into the reference interview
Jill Cirasella, Brooklyn College Library reference librarian, writes: “Google is famously user-friendly, and its output doesn’t require distillation or translation. As a result, the reference interview has evolved from a mediated dialogue into a three-way exchange with information moving in all directions: between librarian and patron, between librarian and Google, and between patron and Google.”...
Library Philosophy and Practice (2007)

The 2007 Tehran Book Fair
Iranian-American Ali A. Parsa sheds some light on Persian humor after a visit to the Tehran Book Fair. He writes: “There are many bookstores in Tehran and the annual Tehran Book Fair, a huge feat lasting several days, is worth visiting. It draws a huge crowd, mostly the young who seem to come with the double purpose of watching each other and purchasing books.” ALA also had a presence (above) at the fair, thanks to Homan Sharif with Medcom Information Services, who told us that the Stephen Hawking READ poster got the most comments....
Persian Mirror; Homan Sharif

Camels as bookmobiles in Kenya
In order to address illiteracy while working within the limitations of the region, a small group of Kenyans started a mobile book-lending service that delivers books to 3,500 villagers and nomads around Garissa. On each visit they bring 200 books, lending each for a period of two weeks and then retrieving them to share with the next community. This short video documents the library’s mission and activities....
WorldChanging, June 14; Rocketboom, June 13

Is online freedom of speech dying?
Jon Newton writes: “In 2007, anybody with more dollars than sense now feels free to sue websites for the slightest slight. That’s bad enough, but things have now reached ridiculous extremes. If the Net is about anything, it’s about freedom of speech and hyperlinking—directly connecting stories, data, and information—is absolutely integral to it. Now, however, it’s being claimed that merely linking to something someone somewhere doesn’t like is sufficient grounds for a civil complaint.”...
People to People Net, June 18

Dexter’s Library
Dexter, the star of the Cartoon Network’s Dexter’s Laboratory, is asked by the school librarian to “keep an eye on things” while she is at a staff meeting. This gives him an opportunity to enforce the rules as never before, with the help of War of the Worlds–like spaceships. The episode first aired April 25, 2003....
You Tube