Contents
American Libraries Online
ALA News
Booklist Online
Awards
Seen Online
Tech Talk
Publishing
Actions & Answers
New This Week
Calendar

Libraries reach FY2011: Some relieved, all wary
The FY2010 roller-coaster ride is just about over, and many a library advocate is undoubtedly glad to see the back of it. There’s a curious symmetry about the timing: Thousands of tenacious front-line library supporters are taking stock of their finalized local budgets even as 2,000 people rallied on Capitol Hill June 29 to speak up for full library funding at the federal level....
American Libraries news, June 30

Washington Office honors former OITP staffer
The Washington Office held a special dedication ceremony June 25 to commemorate the naming of the Mark A. Bard Conference Room. The ceremony was an opportunity to honor Bard, who served as information technology specialist in the Office for Information Technology Policy. Bard passed away September 11, 2009, from injuries sustained when he was struck by a car two years earlier in Alexandria, Virginia....
District Dispatch, June 25

RDA Toolkit now live
The RDA Toolkit went live on June 23. The Toolkit (copublished by ALA, Canadian Library Association, and CILIP through its publishing imprint Facet Publishing) includes RDA: Resource Description and Access, the long-awaited new unified cataloging standard designed for the digital world and an expanding universe of users needing to share metadata. It offers a one-stop resource for implementing RDA, with ongoing improvements and additions. Peter Murray has some comments on the toolkit here....
ALA Publishing, June 27; Disruptive Library Technology Jester, June 27

2010 Genealogical Publishing Company Award
Thomas Jay Kemp, director of genealogy products for NewsBank, is the 2010 recipient of the Genealogical Publishing Company Award, administered by the RUSA History Section. Kemp is well-known as one of genealogy’s premier librarians and authors, and several of his sources are classics known even to non-genealogy librarians and to novice genealogists....
RUSA, June 22

Library History Round Table awards
The ALA Library History Round Table has named the 2010 winners of the Justin Winsor Prize Essay Award, the Donald G. Davis Article Award, and the Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award honoring the best writers on the topic of library history. Pamela R. Bleisch, Kate McDowell, and David Allan (for his book A Nation of Readers: The Lending Library in Georgian England) are the respective winners....
Library History Round Table, June 27

YALSA’s 2010 Spectrum Scholar
As part of its commitment to furthering diversity in the profession, YALSA chose Hoan-Vu Do as its 2010–2011 Spectrum Scholar. Do will attend the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science. He is the division’s third sponsored Spectrum Scholar, a program funded by the Friends of YALSA....
YALSA, June 29

ProQuest establishes Ron Clowney Spectrum Scholarship
ProQuest, a long-time supporter of the Spectrum Scholarship program, has established a Spectrum Scholarship to honor the life of Ron Clowney (right). Clowney, ProQuest vice president of U.S. higher education and government sales, passed away in May. His colleagues chose to honor his life by creating this new scholarship within the Spectrum program. The first Ron Clowney Spectrum Scholarship was awarded in June 2010 to Felipe Alberto Castillo....
Office for Diversity, June 22, 23

New Jersey State Library wins Astra Award
The New Jersey State Library received a 2010 Silver Astra Award in the Out-of-Home Campaign category from the New Jersey Communications, Advertising, and Marketing Association for its Library Champion Billboard Campaign. The awards were announced May 19....
New Jersey State Library Newsletter, June 29

U.S. librarian gets Fulbright
Pamela Louderback, library director at Northeastern State University in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is the 2010–11 recipient of the £12,500 ($18,872 U.S.) Fulbright–Queen’s University Belfast Governance Award. Louderback, who has published research in the field of indigenous education, will travel to Ireland this fall to research government-directed educational policies and practices for Irish children....
NSUBA Library, Mar. 26; U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission

2010 ISTE Media Specialist Technology Innovation award
Librarians from two East Coast K–12 schools have been named the winners of the third annual Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award, which recognizes collaborative technology innovation projects created by elementary, middle, and high school educators. Tricia Svendsen (Joseph W. Martin Jr. Elementary School in North Attleborough, Massachusetts) and Cathi Fuhrman (Hempfield Senior High School in Landisville, Pennsylvania) were the media specialists honored at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Denver June 29....
International Society for Technology in Education, June 24

Neil Gaiman wins Carnegie Medal
A novel he came up with 25 years ago but put aside because he didn’t think he was good enough to write it has made Neil Gaiman the first author ever to win the Carnegie and the Newbery medals with the same book. Gaiman was named winner of the UK’s most prestigious children’s fiction prize, the CILIP Carnegie Medal, on June 24 for The Graveyard Book. Australian illustrator Freya Blackwood won the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for outstanding illustration for Harry and Hopper....
The Guardian (U.K.), June 24

2010 Locus Awards
The 2010 Locus Awards winners were announced at the annual Science Fiction Awards Weekend, held June 25–27 in Seattle. Best SF novel went to Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker (Tor), the best fantasy novel was China Miéville’s The City and the City (Del Rey), and the best YA book was Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan (Simon Pulse)....
Locus Online, June 26

Horrible Science writer wins top award
Nick Arnold, author of the Horrible Science series, has won Britain’s top award for science writing. Arnold’s book Wasted World, which takes a funny yet serious look at the problems of pollution and global warming, has been awarded the prestigious Thomson Reuters Record Award for Communicating Science. The prize is awarded by the Zoological Society of London for the most outstanding communication of zoology to a general audience....
Cision Wire, June 17

2010 Scottish Book of the Year
American historian Donald Worster has been awarded the Scottish Book of the Year Award for his biography A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir. Worster received a total of £30,000 ($45,150 U.S.) in recognition of his literary talent, and the significance of his biography, which positions John Muir as a national icon for Scotland and a figure of global significance for concern about the environment....
Scottish Arts Council, June 18

Dundee International Book Prize
A dramatic murder mystery set in a Lancashire town during Victorian times was unveiled as the winner of the 2010 Dundee International Book Prize, a collaboration between the University of Dundee, Polygon, and Dundee City Council. Alan Wright will be awarded the £10,000 ($15,000 U.S.) prize, the highest in the U.K. for an unpublished writer, and with it a publishing deal for his debut novel, Act of Murder....
City of Dundee, Scotland, June 25

2010 Desmond Elliott Prize
Ali Shaw was named the winner of the £10,000 ($15,000 U.S.) Desmond Elliott Prize in London June 23 for The Girl with Glass Feet, published by Atlantic Books. Shaw has worked as a bookseller and at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, but is now concentrating solely on his writing. The prize is a new one for first novels with a compelling narrative written in the U.K. and is now in its third year....
Desmond Elliott Prize, June 23

Libraries fading as school budget crisis deepens
Students who wished their school librarians a nice summer on the last day of school may be surprised this fall when they’re no longer around to recommend a good book or help with homework. As the budget crisis deepens, administrators have started to view school libraries as luxuries that can be axed rather than places where kids learn to love reading and do research. No one will know exactly how many jobs are lost until fall....
Associated Press, June 24

Councilor: Expose library porn watchers
A city councilor in Quincy, Massachusetts, wants made public a list of people who have been caught looking at pornography on library computers. Ward 2 Councilor Daniel Raymondi said he wants to know how extensive the problem is at the Thomas Crane Public Library, after the issue came up in a recent discussion about the library budget. Raymondi said part of his motivation is to determine if any library policy violators are sex offenders....
Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger, June 29

San Diego to break ground on Central Library
City leaders plan to break ground in July on a new $185-million main library in downtown San Diego, despite concerns that the project could leave taxpayers on the hook should private donors fail to raise enough money to pay for it. The City Council voted 6–2 June 28 to move forward with library construction under the promise that a fundraising campaign will be able to collect the additional $32.5 million needed to finish the job....
San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune, June 28; KPBS-TV, San Diego, June 29

Is Indianapolis library’s renovation suit repaired?
A new ruling has revived the hopes of Indianapolis–Marion County Public Library officials for a second try at recovering up to $25 million from New York–based engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti over an allegedly botched marquee project for IMCPL’s renovated Main Library that caused $50 million in cost overruns. Although a jury cleared the company of fraud, library officials questioned the dismissal of several claims that never made it to trial. The Indiana Appeals Court reinstated one—a claim that Thornton Tomasetti breached a standard of professional care....
Indianapolis Star, June 29

Lawmakers override S.C. governor’s library veto
The South Carolina House overrode Gov. Mark Sanford’s vetoes of two critically popular state services June 16: aid to county public libraries and the Department of Archives and History. Lawmakers from smaller counties and rural areas pleaded with House members to overcome the Sanford veto of $4.6 million for libraries, which would have caused some to close and wiped out public access to internet services. The override vote was 110–5....
The State (Columbia), June 16

Bookmarks teach anti-school lesson in library stacks
Two grassroots groups opposed to publicly funded education added their message to the stacks of the University of New Hampshire and the Portsmouth and Dover public libraries. Dover Public Library Director Cathy Beaudoin said some 5,000 bookmarks from the School Sucks Project and Freedomain Radio were found at DPL after a shelf of books spilled onto the floor. Had the groups asked to display a poster, the library likely would have granted approval, she said, but hiding the material prompted its removal....
Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald, June 25

Behind the scenes at the Disney Archives
After Walt Disney died in 1966, his grieving staff sealed his office suite in Burbank, California. In 1970, the company handed the key to Walt’s still-sealed office to a former UCLA research librarian named Dave Smith (right), who was sent into the chamber to learn its history. “I didn’t expect this to become my life’s work, but it did,” Smith, 69, said as he gave a tour of the Disney Archives, a massive collection spread across several in-house libraries and warehouses filled with Disney movie props, costumes, toys, art, animation, vintage theme-park gear, and company publications....
Los Angeles Times: Hero Complex, June 26

British authors fear income losses from library loans
A host of authors in the U.K. are up in arms at the prospect of a drop in their already limited incomes through cuts in the money paid out on library loans. Authors receive just over six pence per loan, up to a cap of £6,600, through the Public Lending Right scheme. But its budget is being reduced this year by 3%, to £7.45 million, and authors are desperately concerned that further reductions will be forthcoming in the autumn....
The Guardian (U.K.), June 28

Thesis library amasses youthful thoughts of now-famous alumni
Every year, more than 1,000 Princeton University students slave away on a senior thesis, after which it is deposited in the Seeley G. Mudd Library basement, never to be seen again—unless the student becomes famous. “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933,” written in 1981 by Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, is the latest hot read in a long line of sought-after theses by such alumni as Michelle Obama, Ralph Nader, Bill Bradley, David Duchovny, Sonia Sotomayor, and Samuel Alito....
Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger, June 26

Rikers Island prison library
Joe Halderman, the CBS news producer convicted in 2010 of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, is now an inmate librarian at a makeshift New York Public Library branch started in March at one of the correctional facilities on Rikers Island. The branch is run by Nicholas Higgins, the supervising librarian of NYPL’s Correctional Services Program. Every week, Higgins takes a city bus to the Eric M. Taylor Center, lugging a sack of books that inmates have requested. Watch the video (3:35)....
New York Times: City Room, June 25

ICANN board approves porn domain
Pornography will have its own top-level domain, .xxx, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided June 25. The proposal was made under ICANN’s rules for “sponsored” TLDs, through which domains have been created by interest groups, including the aeronautical industry (.aero) and the cooperative movement (.coop). ICM Registry, the company that proposed the domain, welcomed the vote....
PC World, June 25

Naked cheese thief arrested in library restroom
A man faces charges after an unusual incident at the Main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. 52-year-old Darrell Bess was taken into custody June 23, after he was found bathing in the men’s restroom, armed with knives and in possession of four pounds of stolen parmesan cheese. Court documents show that Bess is homeless and has a history of bizarre thefts....
WKRC-TV, Cincinnati, June 24

Japan’s bullet train library
A decommissioned bullet train (Shinkansen) locomotive has been turned into a children’s library in Akishima, Tokyo. The city government thought that having an old bullet train as a library would make a trip to the library exciting for young readers. Watch the video (in Japanese, 2:40)....
Japan Probe, June 27; DailyMotion, June 26

Sri Lanka’s Library Association
The Sri Lanka Library Association celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Its president, Upali Amarasiri, is director of the National Institute of Library and Information Science at the University of Colombo. In this interview, Amarasiri offers his views on the association, the profession, and the status of librarians in Sri Lanka today....
The Island (Colombo), June 26

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New iPhone4: Review and Q&A
David Pogue writes: “Apple’s new iPhone, its fourth in four years, reached stores on June 24. The first thing you notice is the new shape. Despite a beefier battery (16% more likely to last a full day), a faster processor, and upgraded everything, the new model is still noticeably thinner and narrower than before.” Some Q&A: “The annual release of a new iPhone always seems to whip my readership into an emotional frenzy. Here’s a sampling of the emails so far, with my replies.” Another review is here. Some early owners reported reception problems....
New York Times, June 23–24; PC Magazine, June 25; Associated Press, June 25

Browser-based mobile viewer for Google Docs
Google has further enhanced its Google Docs product June 28 by releasing a mobile viewer for Android, iPhone, and iPad users. The mobile docs viewer lets users view documents, zoom in and zoom out, navigate pages, and download the document all via their mobile browser. Supported file types include PDF, .ppt, .doc, and .docx. Users can go to docs.google.com and access any of their previously uploaded documents....
Mashable, June 28

Get 10GB free online backup space
Mohan Ramkumar writes: “Cloud storage services offer paid monthly subscriptions either for unlimited storage or for hundreds of gigabytes of data. Most of us do not have that much critical data to back up and therefore it would be a total waste of money. For those of us who have data that cannot be stored using the 1–2GB free space offered, we have a list of four of the best free online storage services that offer free space of more than 10GB.”...
MakeUseOf, June 28

A glossary of journalism tech terms you should know
Jennifer 8. Lee writes: “The days are over when a journalist could ignore those geeks in the corner who typed lines of code and spoke in a bizarre language populated with acronyms. Any journalist’s story now can be distributed with an API; information gathered by a reporter can be used in a mashup or shared via Scribd. This glossary defines terms related to web standards, programming, online tools, social networking, online advertising, and basic technology.”...
Poynter Online, June 28

Digital image pioneer wants to smooth out pixels
In 1957, Russell Kirsch took a picture of his infant son and scanned it into a computer. It was the first digital image: a grainy, black-and-white baby picture that literally changed the way we view the world. Science is still grappling with the limits set by the square pixel. Now retired and living in Portland, Oregon, Kirsch has written a program that turns the chunky squares of a digital image into a smoother picture made of variably shaped pixels.”...
Discovery News, June 26

50 open source tools to replace education apps
Cynthia Harvey writes: “The educational community has discovered open source tools in a big way. Analysts predict that schools will spend up to $489.9 million on support and services for open source software by 2012, and that only includes charges related to operating systems and learning management systems. For this list, we’ve collected educational apps from a variety of categories (including library systems) that can replace popular commercial software.”...
Datamation, June 22

LC selects firm to help Twitter archiving
The Library of Congress has been in the business of storing American artifacts for 210 years, but when it comes to the new world of social media, LC realized it was going to need a hand. This week LC announced that it has hired the Massachusetts-based software firm Signiant to help LC archive one of America’s priceless treasures: the tweet....
Oh My Gov!, June 25

Top five OCR spell-checking tools
Tina Sieber writes: “Optical Character Recognition is the process of converting text captured in an image into a text document. Unfortunately, most free OCR services do not provide a spell-checking feature. In this article I am going to introduce the best spell-checking tools for post-processing OCR texts. This includes alternatives for existing tools that do not provide internal OCR spell-checking.”...
MakeUseOf, June 29

Security issue with GoodReader and the iPad
Jason Griffey writes: “GoodReader is by far the best interface and app for handling different file types on the iPad. But it doesn’t require authentication or any warning to connect via Bonjour, and it allows you to browse and download any files that are so shared—files with credit card information, passwords, and bank account information. If you use it, make sure that Ask Permission Before Connecting is on.”...
Pattern Recognition, June 26

ALA Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., June 24–29. Watch for AL Direct’s Special Post-Annual Conference issue on Friday, July 2.

Yahoo style guide
Sarah Houghton-Jan writes: “Yahoo has released a style guide in direct competition with the Associated Press stylebook. It will be in stores (in both digital and physical formats) on July 6. In reviewing the Yahoo guide, it’s clear that it is more progressive, modern, and mindful of internet technologies and web terms and their usage; for example, it recommends website instead of Web site and email instead of e-mail.”...
Librarian in Black, June 28

Amy Chow on e-books
Amy Chow, head librarian at the Brearley School in New York City, caught up with eBookNewser to discuss e-books in school libraries: “For the most part, when people access an entire book online, they often read or use specific parts of the full text instead of starting at the beginning and reading every page to the end. I’ve noticed the usage of e-books at my school to be largely consisting of nonfiction books as opposed to longer narratives, like novels.”...
eBookNewser, June 25

Feds: College e-readers must be accessible
In a joint June 29 “Dear Colleague” letter, the U.S. Department of Education and the Justice Department cautioned the presidents of colleges and universities that e-readers required for classwork must allow visually impaired students to use them. The letter came just after a two-year settlement agreement went into effect with Arizona State University in Tempe, whose Kindle DX pilot project with Amazon triggered the disability-rights dispute. Of the e-readers produced by four companies—Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Apple—only Apple’s iPad can be used by blind people....
U.S. Department of Education, June 29; Wired Campus, June 29

OverDrive to add Disney Digital Books
Digital distributor OverDrive announced a preliminary agreement with Disney Digital Books to enable libraries to offer access to Disney’s comprehensive library of books online. Young library patrons and their parents will be able to enjoy—for the first time—unlimited access to more than 600 new and classic Disney books....
OverDrive, June 29

Clay Shirky talks on cognitive surplus
Chris Croissant writes: “We were thrilled and privileged to have Clay Shirky come into the Penguin offices in London June 29 to give a fascinating insight into his new book Cognitive Surplus. Explaining how for decades, technology encouraged us to squander our time as passive consumers, Shirky argues that technology has finally caught up with human potential and examines the changes we will all enjoy as our untapped resources of talent and good will are put to use at last.”...
Penguin Blog, June 30

Fiction may not be so dead after all
Carolyn Kellogg writes: “Every few years someone finds a platform to declare fiction dead, despite all evidence to the contrary. This time around, it’s Lee Siegel. It’s hard to figure out which is more problematic: how poorly Siegel’s argument is made, or how many things he gets wrong in the process. So for fun, let’s see if I can resuscitate poor old fiction by addressing Siegel’s points, one at a time, as he lays them out.”...
Los Angeles Times: Jacket Copy, June 23; New York Observer, June 22

What scientists recommend for summer reading
Rachel Saslow writes: “Once they’ve plowed through their monthly stack of technical journals, which books do science and engineering professionals read for fun? And which books did they love as youngsters? We asked several of them to name their favorite beach reads over the years, both novels and nonfiction with scientific themes.”...
Washington Post, June 29

Nifty-keen beach books roundup
Clayton Moore writes: “According to the Bookslut policies and procedures manual and my newly revised job description, I’m supposed to be writing about mysteries. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. There’s usually no mystery involved. The books we love, whether they fit into the genre or not, are all about crime. Here’s the lineup, by month of release, to get you through the long hot summer.”...
Bookslut: Mystery Strumpet, June

Sherlock Holmes’s first caper for sale
Stephen J. Gertz writes: “The only known inscribed copy, apart from Arthur Conan Doyle’s own, of the first printing of A Study in Scarlet, the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in London on July 15. Published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in November 1887, it is expected to sell for £250,000–£400,000 ($375,000–$600,000 U.S.). There are only three signed or inscribed copies recorded of this classic debut in the detective genre of literature, one of the rarest and most highly sought books of modern times.”...
BookTryst, June 28

Librarian splurges on savings tips
Former Franklin Park (Ill.) Public Library librarian Rachel Singer Gordon has a constant desire to pass on information. That’s why she blogs 10–15 times a day on MashUpMom.com and shares money-saving tips and ideas with 14,000 visitors daily. Now, Gordon has mashed up her money strategies and internet tips into Point, Click, and Save: MashUpMom’s Guide to Saving and Making Money Online (Information Today), which shows how to build a money-saving (and making) network using other websites and social networks, as well as how to avoid virtual scams....
Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald, June 29

Time’s best blogs of 2010
From the savvy to the satirical, the eye-opening to the jaw-dropping, Time makes its annual picks of the blogs we can’t live without. The magazine selected five essential blogs (The Daily Wh.at, TechCrunch, Gawker, Politico’s Ben Smith, and Boing Boing), as well as five others that are overrated....
Time, June 28

Open Library now lending virtual books
On June 29, a group of libraries led by the nonprofit digital Internet Archive created a one-stop website for checking out e-books, including access to more than a million scanned public-domain books and a catalog of thousands of contemporary e-book titles available at many public libraries. Participants will also contribute scans of a few hundred older books that are still in copyright, but no longer sold commercially. Gary Price offers some analysis....
Wall Street Journal, June 29; Open Library Blog, June 29; ResourceShelf, June 29

Risky youth behaviors and online safety
danah boyd writes: “I’m pleased to announce a rough draft of Risky Behaviors and Online Safety: A 2010 Literature Review (PDF file) for public feedback. This document was produced for the Harvard Berkman Center’s Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative and builds on the 2008 edition that Andrew Schrock and I crafted for the Internet Safety Technical Task Force. As researchers who are actively collecting data and in the field, many of us are frustrated because what we see doesn’t match what politicians believe.”...
Apophenia, June 24

Study reveals factors in ed-tech success
Schools with one-to-one computing programs have fewer discipline problems, lower dropout rates, and higher rates of college attendance than schools with a higher ratio of students to computers, according to the results of a major new study (PDF file). But for one-to-one programs to boost student achievement as well, they must be properly implemented. The findings come from Project RED (Revolutionizing Education), a national initiative that released its results June 28 at the International Society for Technology in Education conference....
eSchool News, June 28

Knock, knock! OCLC at the door with WorldCat Direct
Barbara Quint writes: “OCLC continues to push its services and the services of the libraries it serves into a more demanding user environment. According to Tony Melvyn, the new WorldCat Direct service has had a long evolution. OCLC began testing the idea of home delivery with the Montana Home Delivery/NCIP Pilot Project in 2007–2008. So how does WorldCat Direct work?”...
Information Today, June 28

Florida librarians launch Gulf Oil Spill Info Center
The University of South Florida library in Tampa has created the Gulf Oil Spill Information Center to provide impartial, up-to-date, high-quality information about the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, its historical context, and cleanup efforts. Resources already uploaded to GOSIC include a video series (3:33 for June 8 video) and a report from the Oil Spill Academic Task Force (PDF file). A research portal is also under development, which will contain many more documents and sources....
University of South Florida Libraries, June 29

IMLS and Labor Department forge new partnership
The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration announced a new partnership that will help job seekers access employment and training services in public libraries. PLA President Sari Feldman noted that by working together at the federal level, the two agencies can help shine a spotlight on what works and encourage even greater and more effective collaborations at the state and local levels....
District Dispatch, June 25

Checklist Manifesto for the reference desk
Brian Herzog writes: “In a library near me, the director did most of the reference work. When she announced her retirement, the staff was worried about having to do reference themselves until a replacement was found. She emailed me saying she had just read The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande and asked for my help in creating a ‘reference checklist’ for her staff—hopefully it would help them cover all the bases when helping patrons.”...
Swiss Army Librarian, June 29

Five real-time search engines to try
Richard Byrne writes: “Real-time search engines draw their results from popular social media services like Delicious, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. What makes their search results different from standard search engines is that the most current links are given priority over older links. Real-time search is very helpful for finding information about the latest trends or news in a particular niche. Here are some real-time search engines that you should try.”...
Free Technology for Teachers, June 26

Thoughts on the library job market
Rick Roche writes: “After I posted our opening for a full-time reference librarian in April, I received 78 applications with résumés from fully qualified librarians or library students close to qualifying. Reading through the letters, I got a look into the very deep pool of library talent that is currently available for hire. Many qualified, experienced, and creative librarians are currently either unemployed or underemployed. From my reading of the letters and résumés, I sense that underemployed is the new norm for young librarians.”...
ricklibrarian, June 21

FSU students graduate virtually
In a ceremony attended by the avatars of six students, the first virtual graduation (9:09) at Florida State University took place online on May 1. The Spring 2010 Second Life Graduation Ceremony of the College of Communication and Information enabled distance students who had earned their degrees online to graduate online as well. The iSpace Second Life FSU campus, where the graduation was held, was built through the efforts of the faculty and graduate students of the CCI School of Library and Information Studies....
Florida State University College of Communication & Information, June 25; YouTube, June 26

Behold The Greatest Show on Earth script
Nathan Masters writes: “Cecil B. DeMille’s annotated working manuscript from the 1952 circus-life melodrama The Greatest Show on Earth, starring Betty Hutton and Charlton Heston, resides in the Cinematic Arts Library at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Such records are an invaluable resource for students, faculty, and other scholars looking for insight into the origins of a particular movie or studying the filmmaking process in general. This blog post is the first in a series exploring the many USC libraries.”...
University of Southern California: LibWire, June 25

Guidelines for new or revised romanization tables
The Library of Congress Policy and Standards Division has developed Procedural Guidelines for Proposed New or Revised Romanization Tables. They are looking for comments....
Catalogablog, June 23

Huntington Library lovers donate $240 million (PDF file)
Surpassing the dreams of organizers, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, announced that its “For Generations to Come” fundraising campaign has exceeded by $60 million the $175-million goal it set in 2004. The donations will be used for the establishment of new endowments to provide income in perpetuity to support staff, protect the collections, and fund research and educational programs. Expanded community involvement was a key accomplishment of the effort....
Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, June 28

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