Rettig to host advocacy planning session
ALA President-elect Jim Rettig is seeking member input to help plan his advocacy initiative on June 28, 1:30–3:30 p.m., at the ALA 2008 Annual Conference in Anaheim. The session, entitled “Advocating for All Libraries: Saving the Library Ecosystem,” will focus on the need for the library community to broaden its advocacy efforts. Respond by June 9 if you are interested in attending this planning session....

David Macaulay’s Arbuthnot Lecture
If you are unable to come to Madison, Wisconsin, to hear author and illustrator David Macaulay present the 2008 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture at 7–8 p.m. Central time, April 17, you can view a live video feed of the lecture (see the right-hand column of the website under “Information”). An archived version will be saved at the same site....
South Central Library System, Madison, Wis.

Hats off to the ALA staff
On April 11, President Loriene Roy and Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels presented 33 ALA staff members with certificates and gifts for service of 5, 10, and up to 40 years of service. Even though the largest number of people have 5 or 10 years of service, the average for this group is just about 15 years. But that’s because there are three with 40 years: Neida de la Torre (Member and Customer Service), Lois-Ann Gregory-Wood (support for ALA Council), and Bob Hershman (Publishing operations manager)....
ALA Marginalia, Apr. 11

National Library Week video: Monkey Wars
Imagine that there was a movie at your local multiplex called Monkey Wars: Part 6. Sounds like the greatest movie ever, right? But what would you do if you had not seen Parts 1 through 5? One solution is suggested in this celebration of National Library Week (April 13–19). Hint: Americans go to school, public, and academic libraries 50% more than they go to the movies. Starring Chicago comedian Shad Kunkle and shot in part at Morton College Library in Cicero, Illinois....

National Library Week video: College reference desk
“Can athlete’s foot catch on fire?” “Do you guys need any tutors for football?” “Do you have anything to eat?” These and other urgent academic library reference questions are answered in this final National Library Week (April 13–19) homage to the 72.8-million reference questions answered by academic librarians each year—that’s almost twice the attendance at college football games. Shot at Morton College Library in Cicero, Illinois, and starring Shad Kunkle, who grew up in Iowa, which gives him every right to wear that sweatshirt....

Libraries Build Communities in Anaheim
ALA member-volunteers, through this day-long service project, continue to assist schools, libraries, and the local community in cities where ALA meets for Annual Conferences. Libraries Build Communities makes a huge difference to schools and libraries drastically affected by cuts in staff and budgets. Volunteer to help on Friday, June 27, by registering ($10 fee is contributed to local library funds). Participants choose from available projects and are provided with lunch and a T-shirt....

Other volunteer opportunities
There are many other opportunities for volunteering at Annual Conference: local committee booth, silent auction, and Scholarship Bash, for example. These are organized by the local committee, which is headquartered in the Anaheim Public Library. You don’t have to work there to help; all librarians are welcome. You should be an ALA member, so make sure your membership is up to date. Contact Carol Stone, director of the Anaheim Public Library and chair of the committee, who can direct you to the appropriate volunteer chair....
Annual Conference wiki

Digital preservation defined
The ALCTS Preservation and Reformatting Section has prepared a definition of digital preservation. Growing out of a conversation held at the Digital Preservation Discussion Group at the 2007 ALA Midwinter Meeting, the definition was developed to promote an understanding of digital preservation within the library community, as well as among our allied professions and the user communities we exist to serve....

Become an ALA representative to IFLA
ACRL invites applicants to serve as ALA representatives to standing committees of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions for the term 2009–2013. There is currently one vacancy each in the following IFLA committees: Art Libraries, Information Literacy, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Science and Technology Libraries, Social Science Libraries, and University Libraries/General Research Libraries....
ACRL Insider, Apr. 14

AASL seeks presenter proposals for 2009
AASL is seeking presenter proposals for the 2009 ALA Annual Conference, to be held July 9–15 in Chicago. The deadline to submit a proposal is May 26. Content must address at least one of three areas of responsibility: learning and teaching, information access, or program administration....

Zhou wins Equality Award
Liana Zhou, director of the library and archives at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University in Bloomington, has received the 2008 Equality Award. The award, donated by Scarecrow Press, honors an individual or group who has made an outstanding contribution toward promoting equality in the library profession. She was selected for her accomplishments in making the Kinsey collection more diverse and advocating for sex education and gender equality....

Molly Raphael wins Flemming Civil Rights Award
Molly Raphael, director of libraries for Multnomah County, Oregon, has been awarded the Arthur Flemming Civil Rights Award for her efforts to increase diversity in library employment, collections, and programming. The award is given by the Managers of Color affinity group of Multnomah County. Since Raphael’s arrival at the library in 2003, the diversity of library staffing has increased by 50%....

Rowling calls Potter lexicon alphabetical plagiarism
Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling flew to New York from Edinburgh to testify April 14 in a lawsuit against RDR Books, a small Michigan publisher, to stop the publication of Steven Vander Ark’s Harry Potter Lexicon, an encyclopedia based on his popular website of the same name. Rowling argued in Federal District Court in Manhattan that the proposed encyclopedia is a copyright infringement and little more than an alphabetical form of plagiarism. Vander Ark, a former school library media specialist at Byron Center (Mich.) Christian School, testified April 15 that he and his website staff members, including a teacher of Greek and Latin and two other librarians, had compiled the lexicon as a ready reference for Potter fans, because the books had no index or glossary....
New York Times, Apr. 15–16

Bridgeport library budget on the chopping block
Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mayor Bill Finch’s proposed budget cuts $1.1 million, giving the city library $2.9 million, the lowest allocation since 1991, library officials have said. The library’s current budget is $4 million, and City Librarian Scott Hughes said he asked for a conservative $5.1 million. Anything less would force massive layoffs and closing of branches except for the one downtown, Hughes told the city council’s Budget and Appropriations Committee April 11....
Bridgeport Connecticut Post, Apr. 14

Butterflies send a message to Charlotte County officials
Charlotte County, Florida, library patrons are sending county leaders a message: No more budget cuts. The Friends of the Mid-County Regional Library presented commissioners April 8 with 2,000 letters from residents asking for last year’s funding levels. The next day, about 80 children and adults met in the library and, following a tribal wish-making tradition, each released a butterfly in the outdoor atrium to demonstrate their support....
Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, Apr. 10

Teens come to library for soap, snacks, homework help
Youth Services Librarian Jennifer Teitelbaum knows how to bring teens into the Spring Valley branch of the San Diego (Calif.) Public Library. A soap-making class drew about 25 to the library, where teens could make their snowman-shaped soap purple and smell like coffee or make surfboard soap with a plastic spider in the center. A selection of molds, colors, charms, and scents were offered so teens could inject some personality into their soap....
San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune, Apr. 10

He wrote 200,000 books, sort of
Philip M. Parker, professor of management science at INSEAD, has generated more than 200,000 books, making him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” Parker has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject—broad or obscure—and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books-on-demand in a range of genres. Many have sales in the dozens, often to medical libraries collecting nearly everything he produces....
New York Times, Apr. 14

Thousands of UNESCO cultural books destroyed
For more than two decades, 250 historians and specialists labored to produce the first six volumes of the General History of Latin America, an exhaustive work financed by UNESCO. Then in 2004–2005, UNESCO paid to destroy many of those books and nearly 100,000 others by turning them to pulp. UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said it was “completely incomprehensible and inappropriate” that some of the organization’s “most important and successful collections” were ordered destroyed. Several irate African and Latin American ambassadors said libraries and schools in their impoverished countries would have been eager to receive comprehensive history books....
Washington Post, Apr. 12

Iraq’s ruined library soldiers on
R. H. Lossin writes: “Five years ago this week, U.S. troops stood by as looters sacked the Iraq National Library and Archives—one of the oldest in the world. Despite the sack of a major cultural institution and the collapse of the society around it, the library struggles on, continuing a long tradition of resurrection from the ashes of war. But efforts at book donation have become ever more challenging as the security situation worsens.”...
The Nation, Apr. 9

18 cinematic trips to the library stacks
Joy Piedmont identifies 18 movies where significant scenes play out in a library, from Desk Set (1957) to Jumper (2008). In The Mummy (1999), she writes: “We first glimpse librarian Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) in a less than adventurous moment, but her reaction after toppling several bookcases (‘oops!’) reveals her sense of fun.”...
Entertainment Weekly, Apr. 14

Experts seek clues to book deterioration
A researcher from Strathclyde University has teamed up with the British Library to design a method of “smelling” the chemicals given off by decaying paper, hoping the technique will lead to an easy way to test the health of valuable or ancient books and ensure their survival. Jim Levicki, a postdoctorate researcher at the university’s department of pure and applied chemistry, is working to isolate these chemical markers of degradation—the smell of which will be familiar to anyone who has inhaled the musty air of old bookshops....
Glasgow (U.K.) Sunday Herald, Apr. 13

South African library to reprint indigenous books
The National Library of South Africa in Pretoria will publish out-of-print indigenous language books and has called on the public to help identify titles. The library and the Department of Arts and Culture are spearheading the process in a bid to reduce illiteracy and promote the culture of reading and writing....
BuaNews, Apr. 15

New Google Earth release
Google Earth 4.3 (beta) is now available for downloading. You can download it from the Google Earth download page. The Google Earth website has been updated, and the User Guide now reflects 4.3 tips. New features include day/night lighting effects, a street view layer (like Google Maps), new and faster 3D models, new navigation gadgets and controls, and imagery dates. Watch a video demo....
Google Earth Blog, Apr. 15

Control your Second Life avatar with a 3D camera
Linden Labs Chair Mitch Kapor has a new project: creating hands-free, 3D navigation for Second Life using a 3D camera that tracks your body geometry, allowing you to fly around in-world in much the same way you’d ride a Segway, by leaning back and forth. Just lift your arms above the waist to fly....
Hands Free 3D

FixYa
Social networking meets technical support with FixYa, a social networking site dedicated to helping people with their computer and gadget problems. Recent solutions and problems, as well as a plug for the top experts, can be found on the homepage. You can search for both products and solutions, or browse by manufacturer to find the help you need. The site also lets you register and store all of your product warranty and support information in one place....
Librarian in Black, Apr. 14

Updated web browsers: Which one works best?
Apple’s Safari, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and Mozilla’s Firefox are battling to win the nod as your browser of choice. So which one should you use—Safari 3.1, Firefox 3, or Internet Explorer 8? Apple’s latest offering preserves the company’s signature focus on clean design and smooth usability, but it lacks any phishing or malware filters. Version 3 of Firefox represents a big step forward, but IE8 remains a work in progress....
PC World, Apr. 13

15 best freeware apps for Mac users
Here are 15 essential free applications for OS X. Keep them handy on a CD or DVD for the next time you do a clean install—they’re that good. For more resources, make sure to check out the Mac shareware category. Included in the list are Quicksilver, Adium, TextWrangler, Gimp, Azureus, GeekTool, and Burn....
Best of the Web

On the road to the Semantic Web
Dan Farber writes: “The Semantic Web has been just around the corner for a few years. It turns out that bringing a semantic layer of metadata to the internet is like climbing a mountain in flip-flops. On April 15, Semantic Web mountain climbers Powerset, Radar Networks, and Metaweb participated in a salon at Powerset’s San Francisco office, where I talked with them about their product plans.”...
Outside the Lines, Apr. 16

The EPA seeks your comments
The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information, a project that will help the agency develop a strategy to improve access to its diverse body of environmental information. Through June, EPA is inviting comments on its public discussion board or via email. This is a wonderful opportunity for users of EPA materials to make sure the agency knows what kinds of environmental information you need today and in the future....
Environmental Protection Agency, Apr. 11

Last call for Connecting to Collections Bookshelf
Museums, libraries, and archives are encouraged to fill out the simple online form to apply for the IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf. The Institute of Museum and Library Services plans to distribute the bookshelf to institutions in each of the nation’s 435 congressional districts. It includes an essential set of books, online resources, and a user’s guide that can profoundly impact the ability of small libraries and museums to care for their collections. The deadline is April 30....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Apr. 14

Library card application forms in 15 languages
The Connecticut State Library has translated library card application forms into 15 languages and is making them available for libraries to use. Each translation is in both Word and PDF format so that libraries can copy and paste needed fields into their local forms. Languages include Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Urdu, and Vietnamese....
WebJunction Connecticut

Inside the Guantanamo library
Detainees at Joint Task Force Guantanamo have a minimum of two hours of recreation time per day, which can include library privileges. Navy PO2 Nat Moger writes: “Detainees have access to a library of more than 6,000 items, from books and magazines to DVDs and CDs. Managing this is a dedicated librarian, known as ‘Julie.’ Like every job at the JTF, this one is more complicated than it looks. ‘I don’t know if this is a result of our English program, but our dual-language books have been popular lately, and for the most part they’re romances,’ said Julie.”...
Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Apr. 8

A Gathering of Readers
An online celebration of indigenous children’s reading and culture, A Gathering of Readers, is taking place during National Library Week. Some 30 schools that serve Native children around the world are participating. The website suggests activities for kids and teens, information on indigenous authors, and background on how schools promote reading and culture....
School of Information, University of Texas at Austin

LC and History join forces
The Library of Congress and History (formerly The History Channel) have joined forces to create a multimedia partnership to showcase the library’s collections to the vast audience of the History brands, including the History channel, history.com, and other television properties. The partnership will also bring historical content to more than 200,000 teachers across the country who use the channel’s branded educational materials....
Library of Congress, Apr. 14

ABC-CLIO History Connections resource books
History teachers can take advantage of events in 2008 with two new resource books from ABC-CLIO. Developed by leading historians and educators, History Connections: The Presidential Election (right) and History Connections: The Olympics offer teachers complete classroom-ready thematic units for engaging students in thinking critically about the context and content of the historical events that are unfolding in their own lives....
ABC-CLIO, Apr. 15

ARBAonline free during NLW
Libraries Unlimited is providing free access to ARBAonline during National Library Week, April 13–19. Derived from the trusted reference standard American Reference Books Annual, ARBAonline features 18,000+ reviews of reference works published since 1997. You will be asked to register, then simply click the product title from the title list. For subsequent visits during the week, just enter your email address.

Cornell and Duke to enhance Project Euclid
Cornell University Library and Duke University Press have established a joint venture to expand and enhance the services of Project Euclid, an online information community for mathematics and statistics resources from independent publishers. Starting in July, Duke will work to broaden and deepen Project Euclid’s subscriber base, and Cornell will continue to support the IT infrastructure and assume responsibility for archiving and preservation activities....
Cornell University Library, Apr. 14

Band names for librarians
If you were in a band with a bunch of other librarians, what would you call it? Would you refer to your profession in the title? Tyler Rousseau started off with: “Personally, if I were to be in a rock band with fellow librarians, I would go with The Dewey Decibel System. If it were an alternative band, I think I would favor Mending Potter’s Spine.” Other commenters chimed in, including a real librarian band called The Bearded Pigs (above)....
Library Garden, Apr. 14

The Empty Pockets library PSA
Australian comedy duo Empty Pockets (Matt Parkinson and Matthew Quartermaine) from the TV series The Big Gig (1989–1991) engage in wild slapstick to plug the public library in this video (1:25): “Come on down to the public library; it’s the hippest club in town.”...
YouTube, Apr. 11