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U.S. & World News
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AL Focus
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Awards
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LC Working Group issues final report on bibliographic futures
A Library of Congress task force has completed its mission to look at the future of cataloging and other forms of bibliographic control and recommend steps on how the library community can continue to provide effective access in a changing technological world. The LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control released On the Record (PDF file), its 44-page final report, January 9 after responding to suggestions from a wide range of organizations and individuals who read a draft version issued November 30....

Library of Congress places 3,000 photos on Flickr
The Library of Congress announced January 16 that it has teamed with the photo-sharing website Flickr to broaden public access to the 14 million photographs and other visual items in LC’s collections. The pilot project is beginning with 3,000 photos from two of the library’s most popular collections—the George Grantham Bain Collection, featuring the photographic files of one of America’s earliest news picture agencies, and Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photos of rural and farm life and World War II mobilization taken between 1939 and 1944—that have been placed in an area of Flickr designated as The Commons....

West Virginia funding flap flops back to court
The boards of the Kanawha County (W.Va.) Schools and the Kanawha County Library were back before the state Supreme Court in early January to revisit a critical funding issue believed to have been resolved last spring: Should boards of education in the state’s nine largest counties be required to share a percentage of their state aid with county libraries?...

Protesting library workers shut down Victoria PL for three days
Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 410 did not report to work for three days, effectively closing the nine branches of Greater Victoria (B.C.) Public Library January 16, 18, and 21, in the latest skirmish in a labor dispute over pay equity. The dispute stems from a contract clause saying that library positions should be compared with equivalent city positions. The union argues that the comparison should refer to jobs with similar education and training requirements, while management says that it applies to strictly equivalent positions, such as a librarian in the city archives....

Council adopts revised accreditation standards
ALA Council adopted a revision of the 1992 Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies on January 15 at the Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. The revision places stronger emphasis on systematic planning, student learning outcomes, assessment, and diversity, tying the standards directly to ALA policies on diversity....

The American Dream Starts @ your library grants
ALA is requesting proposals for a new grant titled “The American Dream Starts @ your library.” The grant, funded by the Dollar General Foundation, seeks to help public libraries increase their literacy services to adult English-language learners. The grant will give 15 libraries a one-time award of $5,000 each. The deadline for submitting an online application is January 31....

Post-conference info from Midwinter 2008
ALA has started a wiki page for Handouts, Podcasts, and other Post-Midwinter Information where you can post handouts, presentations, notes, minutes, and whatever else your committee or unit distributed during your meetings. Registered users can upload a 2MB or less file to the wiki and then link to it from that page. Alternatively, If you already have files posted elsewhere, please link to them from the wiki....
ALA Marginalia, Jan. 16

FBI whistleblower answers questions at Midwinter
Despite a warning from his superiors, FBI Special Agent Bassem Youssef answered questions at a January 12 session of the ALA Midwinter Meeting. In 2002, Youssef blew the whistle to Congress and the director of the FBI that discriminatory practices within the Bureau were undermining the effectiveness of America’s counterterrorism efforts. In this video (7:41), Youssef and his attorney Stephen M. Kohn discuss the case, talk about the abuse of National Security Letters following the passage of the Patriot Act, and speak of Abu Ghraib prison as an example of the U.S. failure to understand Middle Eastern culture. The ALA Washington Office has uploaded the complete session....

Best books for young adults
YALSA has announced its 2008 list of Best Books for Young Adults. The 85 books, drawn from 216 official nominations, are recommended for those ages 12–18 and meet the criteria of both quality literature and appealing reading for teens....

Popular paperbacks for young adults
YALSA’s Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Committee has announced its 2008 selections. This year, the committee produced four lists of selected titles in the following topics: Sex Is...; What Makes a Family?; Magic in the Real World; and Anyone Can Play....

Quick Picks for reluctant young adult readers
YALSA has announced its 2008 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers selection list. The list recommends books that teens, ages 12–18, will pick up on their own and read for pleasure; it is geared to the teenager who, for whatever reason, does not like to read. “Goths, gangs, rappers, and vamps reigned supreme on this year’s list,” said H. Jack Martin, committee chair....

Great graphic novels for teens
YALSA has announced its 2008 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list. The books, recommended for those ages 12–18, meet the criteria of both quality literature and appealing reading for teens. The list of 43 titles is drawn from 138 official nominations....

Audiobooks for young adults
YALSA has announced its 2008 Selected Audiobook list for ages 12–18. This year’s list features a wide range of recordings, with 21 fiction titles and one nonfiction title representing diverse genres and styles, including fantasy, historical fiction, and adventure....

Selected DVDs and videos for young adults
YALSA has announced its 2008 Selected DVDs and Videos for Young Adults list. The list recognizes productions for technical merit, content, and interest to young adults ages 12–18. Eight films were chosen, among them The Grace Lee Project, Juvies, and The Guarantee....

First annual Sparky Awards
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) announced the winners of the first Sparky Awards January 22. The contest called on entrants to imaginatively illustrate in a short video the value of sharing ideas and information of all kinds. In first place was Share (0:53), written and directed by Habib Yazdi, a senior communication studies major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill....
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, Jan. 22

Joseph F. Schubert Library Excellence Award
The 2007 Schubert award, administered by the New York State Regents Advisory Council on Libraries and funded by EBSCO Information Services, has been presented to the Galway (N.Y.) Public Library for its Story Quilt project. The library gathered stories from the community and turned them into one-page narrative poems that captured the images, people, and times of the town. A book featuring the 216 poems was published in April 2007....
New York State Regents Advisory Council on Libraries, Dec. 17

George W. Bush Presidential Library design contest
The Chronicle of Higher Education is looking for serious, humorous, or adventurous designs for the Bush Library, drawn as if you’d sat down next to the president and sketched out your idea on a scrap piece of White House stationery. All submissions should be on the back of a size-10 envelope. The winning designer will win a brand new iPod Touch. The deadline is February 1....
Chronicle of Higher Education

More on Washington’s school library crisis
Once considered a mainstay of the school library, reading time could be in danger at some schools in Washington State, educators say. To adapt to state budgets, Southeast King County districts are overhauling how they run their libraries and how much money goes into library programs. Ideally, officials from all Southeast districts say they would keep a full-time librarian at every school, but rising transportation costs and state-mandated initiatives have forced districts to make tough decisions....
Seattle Times, Jan. 20

School library book outrages aunt
Kathryn Ann Frangos was upset when her 13-year-old nephew pulled Give a Boy a Gun, a tale of school violence, from the shelves of the Bangor Area (Pa.) Middle School. Author Todd Strasser’s book is a story of two boys who avenge their social estrangement by holding classmates and teachers hostage at a school dance. Although they chose to retain it, the school board was prompted by Frangos’s complaint to examine the way it chooses and keeps books at its school libraries....
Easton (Pa.) Express-Times, Jan. 22

Flood damages Montana State library books
Subzero weather caused a water line to freeze and then burst early on January 22 in Montana State University’s Renne Library, flooding the building with thousands of gallons of water and damaging some of the library’s most valuable books. The water flowed from the third floor to the Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections department on the second floor, where hundreds of rare books were damaged. Library Dean Tamara Miller estimated 80–90% of them could be salvaged....
Bozeman (Mont.) Daily Chronicle, Jan. 23

Disputed Iraqi archive finds a home at the Hoover Institution
Two shipping containers’ worth of records created by Iraq’s Baath Party that have been stored on an American naval facility for the past 21 months are about to find a new home at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank and library affiliated with Stanford University. The deal, signed January 21, came despite recent impassioned calls from Iraqi National Librarian Saad Eskander for the collection’s immediate repatriation to Baghdad....
Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 23

Arkansas branch must improve its circulation or close
The Greenland branch of the Washington County (Ark.) Library System has 11 months to prove it’s earning its funding. The library board unanimously decided January 17 to give the faltering branch a year to improve its circulation, which has been down considerably from the past two years. It must also provide progress reports every three months, show an increase in patronage and circulation, and establish a Friends group as a nonprofit organization....
Fayetteville Northwest Arkansas Times, Jan. 18

TV movie features haunted Evansville library
A local writer who grew up hearing about the legend of a shadowy Grey Lady said to haunt the Willard Library (right) in Evansville, Indiana, used that tale as the inspiration for a screenplay that’s been turned into a new television movie. Rod Spence’s The Good Witch, a two-hour movie set in a small town, premiered January 19 on the Hallmark Channel. It will air again January 25 and 31....
Indianapolis Star, Jan. 20

Dance your fines away at Milford
The Wadleigh Memorial Library in Milford, New Hampshire, has added video games to the library programs to attract teens and to boost circulation, said Circulation Assistant Katie Spofford. In fact, the library will waive fines on overdue books for anyone who can beat her at Dance Dance Revolution during Patron Appreciation Day on January 31. Spofford is studying for her MLS with an emphasis on children and young adults....
Milford (N.H.) Cabinet Press, Jan. 18

Area eccentric reads entire book (satire)
Sitting in a quiet downtown diner, Greenwood (Ind.) hospital administrator Philip Meyer looks as normal and well-adjusted as can be. Yet, there’s more to this 27-year-old than first meets the eye: Meyer has recently finished reading a book. Yes, the whole thing. Meyer, who never once jumped ahead to see what would happen and avoided skimming large passages of text in search of pictures, first began his oddball feat a week ago....
The Onion, Jan. 19

Survey shows U.K. libraries spending more
With nearly 300 million visits to England’s public libraries in 2007, more than 10 million new books added to the stock, and 17% increased spending, libraries in the U.K. still must make better use of funds, improve customer service, and boost usage, according to a report released January 14. The definitive annual library statistics, published by CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) paint a picture of changing trends in public library usage....
Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council News, Jan. 14

Library bags save the world in Norfolk
The average adult will go through an estimated 300 plastic bags in 2008, but not the smart shoppers in Norfolk, England, who have snapped up special bags sold in the county’s libraries. More than 20,000 “Love Your Library” jute bags have been sold in Norfolk since they were introduced last year as an alternative to environmentally damaging plastic carrier bags. The Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library was the busiest library in England in 2007, with more than 1.5 million visits....
Norwich (U.K.) Evening News, Jan. 18; CIPFA, Jan. 14

Instant boot-up
Device VM has a product that circumvents the everlasting Windows boot-up. The company has released a tiny piece of software that, when integrated with common computer hardware, gives users the option to boot either Windows or a faster, less complex operating system called Splashtop. Depending on the settings, a person using the software, based on the open-source operating system Linux, can start surfing the Web or watching a DVD in less than 20 seconds, and, in some cases, in less than five....
Technology Review, Jan. 16

RFID in libraries: Best practices
The National Information Standards Organization has issued RFID in U.S. Libraries (PDF file), containing recommended practices for using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in library applications. The scope of the document is limited to item identification—that is, the implementation of RFID for books and other materials—and specifically excludes its use with regard to the identification of people....
National Information Standards Organization, Jan. 16

Make the most of Google Calendar
Christina Laun writes: “Google Calendar is fast becoming the application of choice for users all over the world. With great functionality and integration with Google’s other products, it’s no wonder its popularity is growing. But chances are good that you’re not maxing out all the features of Google Calendar that you could be. Here are a few ways you can try to add to your Google Calendar experience.”...
Virtual Hosting blog, Jan. 14

New ProQuest search widgets
ProQuest has made available portable search boxes that allow instant searching of most ProQuest platform databases on any page of a library website. Jenny Levine explains the process: “You can specify a database to be searched, include your proxy server’s address, add specific terms to the search for automatic ‘and’ functionality, and even change the color and border of the box. The ProQuest examples are all for an academic library, but this works just as well for school libraries (classroom project pages), public libraries (municipality sites, park district pages, parent network pages), and even special libraries (intranets).”...
ProQuest, Jan. 10; The Shifted Librarian blog, Jan. 21

EBSCO adds customized Visual Search (PDF file)
Two new Visual Search options in the EBSCOhost interface offer visual learners additional graphical approaches to information discovery. The first style uses colorful blocks (above), each representing a record or article. The blocks are part of a map of results that enables users to see what they are searching and where the next step may lead. The second user interface style features rows or columns of results in which each item represents a subject or an article....
EBSCO Publishing, Jan. 11

10 security menaces to worry about in 2008
Twelve cybersecurity veterans with significant knowledge about emerging attack patterns worked together to compile a list of the attacks most likely to cause substantial damage during 2008. Number One is increasingly sophisticated website sttacks that exploit browser vulnerabilities, especially on trusted websites....
SANS Institute, Jan. 14

AT&T considers broad internet filtering plan
Tim Wu writes: “Chances are that as you read this article, it is passing over part of AT&T’s network. That matters, because last week AT&T announced that it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws. The prospect of AT&T, already accused of spying on our telephone calls, now scanning every email and download for outlawed content is way too totalitarian for my tastes. Has AT&T, after 122 years in business, simply lost its mind?”...
Slate, Jan. 16

The 101 best free games on the Web
Saving pennies can put you on the cutting edge, as today’s gaming freebies are résumés for tomorrow’s greats: The PlayStation 3 downloadable hit Everyday Shooter got its start as potential PC freeware—until Sony scooped it up after a gangbusters Game Developers Conference showing. Darren Gladstone and Scott Sharkey group these 101 games into the genre categories of action, adventure/RPG, arcade, fighting, puzzle, shooters, simulations, and strategy....
1UP.com, Jan. 14

Improving Literacy through School Libraries grants
The application package for the 2008 Improving Literacy through School Libraries program competition is now available on the Department of Education website. Eligible applicants include local educational agencies in which at least 20% of the students served are from families with incomes below the poverty line. The deadline is March 7....
U.S. Department of Education, Jan. 22

IMLS awards 19 statewide planning grants for conservation
The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded 19 Connecting to Collections: Statewide Planning Grants January 23 that will be used to create conservation plans for collections held in libraries, museums, and archives. Under the “Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action” program, 19 states will receive $720,497, matched with $527,930 of nonfederal funds, to implement recommendations of the Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Jan. 23

How to read The New Yorker in 10 easy steps
Heather Champ writes: “I’ve subscribed to The New Yorker on and off for years. A subscription to any weekly magazine is a commitment. If you subscribe to more than one, it’s even more important to ensure you stay on top of your consumption. I’ve developed the following process to ensure a timely yet comprehensive digestion of the beauty and wonder that is The New Yorker. Here’s my 10-step approach to the January 7, 2008, issue.”...
The Magazineer blog, Jan. 7

It’s time for universal computer education
John Dvorak writes: “There’s a huge knowledge gap in this country when it comes to computers and technology in general. I blame the educational system, as well as the big computer companies, which have done nothing to encourage public education about the dangers of the computing environment. A good school course about computers, if done right, would reinvigorate a lot of other studies, too, like science. Genuine universal computer literacy—for everyone, not just the geeks—should be a top priority in the U.S.”...
PC Magazine, Jan. 14

Connecting to Collections deadline extended
The Institute of Museum and Library Services, in cooperation with the American Association for State and Local History, has extended the deadline to April 30 for applying for the IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, a core set of books, online resources, and a user’s guide that are essential for the care of collections. A simple electronic application for the free IMLS Bookshelf is available online....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Jan. 22

Search-engine freshness: A study (PDF file)
Dirk Lewandowski of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences analyzed the update strategies of search engines Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Live.com by testing the updates of 40 daily updated pages and 30 irregularly updated pages. He found that the search engines change in up-to-dateness over the years and that none has an ideal solution for index freshness. A major problem is the delay in making crawled pages available for searching, which differs from one engine to another....
Journal of Information Science (forthcoming)

Amazon’s top reviewers and the fate of the literary amateur
Garth Risk Hallberg writes: “Full disclosure: It was late at night, in a fit of furtive self-Googling, that I discovered the first Amazon customer review of my debut book of fiction. ‘Superb,’ wrote Grady Harp of Los Angeles. ‘Fascinating . . . addictive.’ Not to mention ‘profound.’ Such extravagance should have aroused suspicion. Only when I noticed the Top 10 Reviewer tag did I wonder whether Grady Harp was more than just a satisfied customer.”...
Slate, Jan. 22

Henrico County video explains the modern media center
The Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools recently produced this informative look at what school library media centers and media specialists can do to teach 21st-century literacy skills. Remixing a 1940s-era librarian vocational film with interviews with middle-school and high-school information specialists, teachers, and students, Today’s Library is an entertaining showcase of the importance of professional librarians in the educational process....
Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools Video Vault

ALA Annual Conference is in Anaheim, California, June 26–July 2. Registration and housing are now open.

To vote in the ALA spring elections, you must renew your ALA membership by January 31.

Literature for All of Us is a professional literacy organization that brings the rewards of reading and writing through book group discussions to young people in underserved neighborhoods in the Chicago metropolitan area. This winter, as a reader in the Literature for All of Us “Reach for the Stars! Read-A-Thon” from February 1 through March 31, you can support the group’s efforts by asking your family members and friends to sponsor you with a donation for every page or book you read (you choose). Start by creating a web page through Firstgiving, an online fundraising service.