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

Saugus library closes indefinitely
In the face of the proposed elimination of its entire budget, the Saugus (Mass.) Public Library closed indefinitely May 24. After voters rejected a $5.2-million tax override by a more than 2–1 margin April 24, Town Manager Andrew Bisignani said he would cut the library’s full $566,000 budget, as well as lay off four police officers, two firefighters, and two public works employees, and reduce the School Department budget by $1.7 million....

Library film festival riles anti-Castro community
The Princeton (N.J.) Public Library came under fire in mid-May over the inclusion of two documentaries about Cuba among 14 films in its 2007 Princeton Human Rights Film Festival. The controversy resulted in a shouting match at the May 12 screening of ¡Salud! What Puts Cuba on the Map in the Quest for Global Health, as well as accusations in the conservative blogosphere that the library was disseminating pro-Castro propaganda....

Rochester library will change filtering policy
Despite objections from the Rochester (N.Y.) Public Library board, the Monroe County Library System adopted May 23 a policy to use filtering software to block all websites deemed pornographic, unless the site is judged to be in accordance with the library’s collection policy by a library director or “delegate” following a written request from an adult patron....

Sacramento staffers bewail dumbing-down of collections
Staff members took their concerns over management practices to the Sacramento (Calif.) Public Library Authority Board May 24, speaking out against centralized purchasing of materials that they claim has led to a dumbing-down of collections. The board was presented with a petition containing 600 signatures from library workers, former librarians, and patrons protesting selection practices exemplified by the purchase of 30 DVDs of the film Jackass Number Two....

Map thief’s restitution upped to $2.3 million
E. Forbes Smiley III, who was sentenced to 42 months in prison for stealing 98 rare maps from seven repositories in the United States and England, was ordered May 22 to pay $2.3 million in restitution to his victims. At the time of his sentencing last September, he was tentatively ordered to pay $1.9 million, but the figure was revised upward following efforts to recover the maps and assess their value....

Former librarian again sentenced to death
For the second time, former Broward County (Fla.) Library Supervisor William Coday received a death sentence May 23 for murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1997. Coday had been convicted and condemned to death in 2002, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned the sentence in October, faulting Circuit Court Judge Alfred Horowitz for rejecting testimony from six psychiatric experts who said Coday’s psychosis was triggered by rejection....

Preliminary results from public library study
Starting in June, ALA will begin sharing results from the 2007 Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study. Preliminary data will appear in a postcard inserted in the June/July centennial issue of American Libraries, and initial findings will be presented to the study advisory committee at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 23, at Annual Conference. Among the findings: 68% of public libraries offer online homework resources....

Diversity and Outreach Fair participants
The Office for Literacy and Outreach Services Advisory Committee congratulates the librarians and library supporters selected to participate in the 2007 Diversity and Outreach Fair. This annual event celebrates extraordinary examples of diversity and equity of access in America’s academic, public, and special libraries, library schools and associations, and other organizations....

Advocacy at Annual Conference
Advance online registration for the Advocacy Institute during ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., is still available. The full-day institute, which will be held Friday, June 22, at the Renaissance Washington Hotel, begins with advocacy basics, such as goal setting, message development, and coalition-building techniques....

Art Museum of the Americas
Enjoy this unique collection of 20th-century Latin American and Caribbean art in the intimate atmosphere of this Spanish colonial-style structure at 201 18th Street, N.W. The permanent collection includes art by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Amelia Pelaez, Hector Poleo, and Joaquín Torres-García....
Art Museum of the Americas

NDIIPP offers programs
On June 25, the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program will hold several informative and thought-provoking events at the Library of Congress in Washington. The events are timed to coincide with ALA Annual Conference. All events are in the Library’s Mumford Room, which is on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E....
Library of Congress

International Monetary Fund
Could you pass up an exhibit called “Money Matters”? This is the permanent exhibit at the International Monetary Fund. You can also see a video on the work of the IMF and enjoy a self-guided tour of the facility in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood at 720 19th Street, N.W. The IMF also sponsors special exhibits on the history of money and trade....
International Monetary Fund

YALSA gets connected
Get Connected: Tech Programs for Teens, written by RoseMary Honnold for YALSA and published by Neal-Schuman, will be released June 13. Borrowing its title from the Teen Tech Week theme, Get Connected offers tried-and-true, practical tips for young adult library workers seeking to incorporate technology into their programs and services. Honnold, who has been young adult services coordinator at the Coshocton (Ohio) Public Library since 1998, speaks extensively on YA services....

Sign up for PLA Results Boot Camp 3
Applications are being accepted for PLA’s intensive library management training, Results Boot Camp 3, to be held October 29–November 2 in Salt Lake City. This week-long, interactive workshop will include both individual and group activities, and will focus on current library issues using case studies describing real library situations....

PLA to present PLDS demo
PLA will present two live demonstrations of its new Public Library Data Service Statistical Report Online Database at ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Demonstrations will take place Saturday, June 23, at the PLA Booth—part of the ALA Membership Pavilion in the Exhibits Hall—from 2 to 3 p.m., and at the Grand Hyatt Washington in the Roosevelt/Wilson Room from 4 to 5:30 p.m....

Careers in federal libraries (PDF file)
Have you ever thought about working as a federal librarian? Join the Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table on Friday, June 22, for “Careers in Federal Libraries,” an informative session and webcast at the Library of Congress during ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. A panel of librarians representing 11 agencies will describe the diverse opportunities available....

We the People Bookshelf awards
Two thousand school and public libraries throughout the United States will receive a collection of 15 classic books from the We the People Bookshelf project, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and ALA. The theme of this year’s Bookshelf is the “Pursuit of Happiness.” The We the People initiative supports projects that strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture....

2008 National Library Week grant
Libraries across the United States are invited to apply for the $5,000 Scholastic Library Publishing National Library Week Grant, which will be awarded to a single library for the best public-awareness campaign incorporating the 2008 National Library Week theme, “Join the circle of knowledge @ your library.” This year’s deadline is October 1....

ASCLA Century Scholarship
Cynthia Nugent, a student at the University of Southern Mississippi School of Library and Information Science, has been awarded the 2007 ASCLA Century Scholarship. The scholarship is a diversity initiative aimed at the development of a representative workforce that reflects the communities served by all libraries....

Librarian wins “Read to Us” contest
E. Raymond Wells, a librarian at Jane Long Elementary School in Freeport, Texas, was one of three national winners of the Scholastic Book Club's “Read to Us” contest. Wells’s winning entry was reading The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman and Peter Sis. He used varied voices to keep kids interested, and that caught the attention of judges....
Scholastic, May 17; Brazosport (Tex.) Facts, May 24

Harry Potter books upheld again
A Gwinnett County, Georgia, mother who fought to have books in the Harry Potter series removed from school libraries lost her latest fight before a state court judge May 29. Superior Court Judge Ronnie Batchelor ruled in favor of the Gwinnett County School Board, which, in May 2006, rejected Laura Mallory’s efforts to have the books banned. In December, the state Board of Education upheld the county’s decision....
WXIA-TV, Atlanta, May 29

Illinois filters hit snag
Opponents of a bill that would require filters on public library computers to block objectionable images on the internet may have won a reprieve, as the proposal appears stalled in the Illinois Senate. But library officials worry that the legislation, proposed several times before in different forms, could still be revived or return next session in a new bill....
Chicago Tribune, May 30

Tiny border town worries feds
Step through the front door of the Haskell Library and you’re in Derby Line, Vermont. Walk across the carpeted floor to the circulation desk and you’re in Stanstead, Quebec. The 106-year-old Romanesque building, which straddles the international border, has enjoyed a kind of informal immunity from border restrictions through the years. But a U.S. Border Patrol crackdown focusing on three unguarded streets could soon change that....
CNN, May 26

Google deal to bring U.S. scrutiny
The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1-billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick. Privacy groups have noted that Google collects the search histories of its users, while DoubleClick tracks what websites people visit. The merger, a complaint reads, would “give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world.”...
New York Times, May 29

Web registration tool digitizes books
A few simple keystrokes may soon turn blather into books. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered a way to enlist people across the globe to help digitize books every time they solve the simple distorted word puzzles commonly used to register at websites or buy things online. Instead of wasting time typing in random letters and numbers, Carnegie Mellon researchers have come up with a way for people to type in snippets of books to put their time to good use, confirm they’re not machines, and help speed up the process of getting searchable texts online....
Associated Press, May 29

A modern-day book burning
In the 10 years Tom Wayne has operated Prospero’s Books, a used bookstore in midtown Kansas City, Missouri, he has amassed thousands of books in a warehouse. But they aren’t selling, and libraries won’t even take them for free. So on May 27, Wayne began putting them to the torch, tossing scores of books into a burning cauldron to protest what he sees as society’s diminishing support for the printed word....
Associated Press, May 27

Library to bear name of slain librarian
Memories of Mary Cooper’s laughter have not faded in the many months since the 54-year-old school librarian was killed with her daughter near Mount Pilchuck, Washington, last July 11. At a ceremony May 24 at Alternative Elementary School II in Seattle, the library where Cooper taught was named in her memory....
Everett (Wash.) Herald, May 24

Yucaipa-Calimesa district bucks library trend
At a time when some already-weakened school libraries face renewed difficulties, the Yucaipa-Calimesa (Calif.) Joint Unified School District is taking steps to bolster its libraries. A comprehensive school library–improvement plan, which could be approved by the school board as early as June 5, seeks to augment the district’s library offerings and staffing, and enhance its ability to teach students how to find and use information....
Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise, May 23

Massachusetts libraries at risk
On May 26, budget cuts and voter indifference in Northbridge, Massachusetts, finally caught up with the institution officially known as the Whitinsville Social Library (right). The town cannot afford the $200,000 needed to keep the library fully running for another year, so it will cut back from 40 to 12 open hours per week. From Randolph to Newbury, Ashland to Wrentham, library directors have been struggling in recent years, facing cutback after cutback....
Boston Globe, May 27

Outsource Jackson County Library?
Outsourcing library operations has the potential to knock 40% off the budget for all 15 branches in Jackson County, Oregon, says the executive director of the Jackson County Library Foundation. Jim Olney said preliminary discussions with Library Systems and Services LLC (LSSI), a Maryland-based library management company, indicate to him the cost of operating the libraries could be reduced from $8 million to $5 million....
Medford (Oreg.) Mail Tribune, May 26

Florida public libraries brace for cuts
Library officials have identified $2.5 million in potential cuts to deal with the budget fallout from lawmakers’ plans to reduce Florida’s property taxes. Library leaders say most of the cuts represent cosmetic service changes, but belt-tightening still won’t cover the $4 million that would need to be trimmed under the least restrictive property-tax reform plan being pushed by state Senate leaders....
Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, May 23

Ancestry.com puts 90 million war records online
On May 23, Ancestry.com unveiled more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War’s end in 1975. The records, which can be accessed free until June 6, came from the National Archives and Records Administration and include 37 million images, draft registration cards from both world wars, military yearbooks, prisoner-of-war records from four wars, unit rosters from the Marine Corps from 1893 through 1958, and Civil War pension records....
Associated Press, May 24

Brits walk across U.S. to dispel stereotypes
Two British men are walking across the United States in hopes of dispelling European stereotypes of Americans. Stuart Hamilton (right), a librarian who has worked for the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in Copenhagen as a researcher into censorship for the past four years, and Dave Toolan, a former account manager from Brighton, England, quit their jobs and then began the walk about a year ago in Delaware....
Lawrence (Kans.) Journal-World, May 25

March of the penguin protesters
And Tango Makes Three, the story of two male penguins who bring up a chick, which Justin Richardson cowrote with the playwright Peter Parnell, generated more heat than its authors perhaps anticipated. In 2006, it shot to the top of the ALA list of most frequently challenged books. But this was not a tale: It was, in fact, inspired by a newspaper article that told how a zookeeper noticed two of his penguins, Roy and Silo, were trying to hatch a stone....
The Guardian (U.K.), May 23

The Dell XPS M1210 rocks
Jenny Levine writes: “A couple of months ago I bought a new laptop, and I love it so much that I want to post a review for anyone searching for information about it. The Dell XPS M1210 has been amazing, and so far I haven’t experienced any problems with it. This puppy is so powerful that I could run Second Life on it and listen to music in Rhapsody, surf the web, watch Joost, and read email, all at the same time if I wanted to. As someone recently said to me, ‘It moves as fast as you do!’”...
The Shifted Librarian blog, May 26

Earphone and headphone glossary
You may think that there’s not a lot to say about headphones other than what kind of sound quality they deliver. Not true. There are as many variables in picking a set of earphones as there are for selecting a new portable player. For starters, the terms “headphones” and “earphones” aren’t really interchangeable. Check out the sonic terminology....
PC Magazine, Apr. 18

A cell phone for Boomers
Arlene Harris is the mastermind behind Jitterbug, a company launched last October that combines a unique mobile phone with a suite of services designed to meet the needs of older users. When you open a Jitterbug phone it emits—get this—a dial tone. It also has an earpiece that actually covers your ear and a microphone next to your mouth, not somewhere around your cheekbone....
Business Week, May 29

What next? The open source ILS
Andrew Pace writes: “It’s true that I am one of the skeptics. I’ll state that up front. But, in truth, my skepticism toward building an open source integrated library system was born in optimism that the vendors of proprietary software would be paying close attention to the landscape. Alas, I don’t think they were.”...
Hectic Pace blog, May 30

The best point-and-shoot cameras
Point-and-shoot digital cameras have undergone big changes in the last few years. The newest models are smaller, faster, and higher resolution than ever. They are also shipping with a wider array of features than ever before, which can be overwhelming for first-time buyers. Before you hit the store, picture the ways you will use your camera....
PC Magazine, May 29

50th anniversary of the first digital image
It was a grainy image of a baby—just 5 centimeters by 5 centimeters—but it turned out to be the well from which satellite imaging, CAT scans, bar codes on packaging, desktop publishing, digital photography, and a host of other imaging technologies sprang. In the spring of 1957, National Bureau of Standards computer pioneer Russell Kirsch asked “What would happen if computers could look at pictures?” and helped start a revolution in information technology....
National Institute of Standards and Technology, May 24

Patterson confirmed for IMLS board
The U.S. Senate confirmed University of Oklahoma SLIS Professor Lotsee Patterson as one of three presidential nominees to serve as members of the National Museum and Library Services Board May 25. The board advises the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent federal agency that is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s museums and libraries....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, May 29

Tomes entombed
In 1985, Mississippi Educational Television produced Tomes and Talismans, a series of thirteen 20-minute episodes that dramatized elements of library research. The plot revolves around a group of intrepid information scientists compiling a library of all human knowledge in a post-apocalyptic America. Ms. Bookhart (Niki Wood) awakens in a world controlled by entities called the “Wipers.” This is the first segment (8:32) of the first episode; YouTube also has the others....
YouTube, May 12

Google Maps takes it to the streets
Google launched a new feature on its mapping service May 29 that allows people to see panoramic views of streets and buildings. Google Maps now offers a 360-degree view of many streets in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver, and Miami, with other cities to roll out later. Users can now zoom in on street signs, bus stops, and other details in the Bay Area....
C|Net news.com, May 29

GeoNames: Wikipedia for geographical data
Duncan Riley writes: “The GeoNames project is a free global geographical database. Its goal is to aggregate free data from various sources and make it available as a database or via a range of web services. GeoNames answers questions such as: where is a place? what are its coordinates? which region or province does the place belong to? what city or address is near a given GPS latitude or longitude?”...
TechCrunch blog, May 26

Group donates surprise quilt
The quilting group that began quilting last fall at the Abington Community Library in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, recently surprised Library Director Leah Rudolph with a sample of their work—a full-size quilt made from scraps from their original projects. Rudolph said, “It is heartwarming to see these women in action and realize how they have grown through this opportunity.”...
Abington Community Library