Archive for Libraries

A Republican congressman who has sponsored legislation banning access to social-networking Web sites in schools and libraries has found a new target of displeasure: Second Life.

Rep. Mark Kirk, who is seeking re-election this year, staged a press conference at a library in his suburban Chicago district on Tuesday to highlight what he called the "dangers" of the virtual world to children. Flanked by local officials, he also released a letter asking Federal Trade Commission Chairman William E. Kovacic to "take action to warn parents of the similar dangers and sexually explicit content found on Second Life."

Kirk said he was appalled that Second Life has no age verification features built into its registration process, and he claimed that there are "countless locations" outside of the service's teen-designated area where virtual prostitution, drug deals, and "other wholly inappropriate activities" occur. Read more at News.com.

In tough economic times, the resources of the local public library can be more important than ever, according to an article by Kate Hessling in the Huron Daily Tribune. The Bad Axe District Library, which serves several small townships in Michigan, is one of the busiest libraries per capita in the state.

Library Executive Director Mimi Herrington noted that the way people access books has changed, and the library now offers interlibrary loans and online databases, as well as a home-bound delivery program for those who can't physically get to the library. In addition, many patrons use the library's computer work stations. But, in the end, "the biggest thing we still do in the library is lend books," Herrington concluded.

For further information, read the full article.

London's public libraries must take innovative steps such as rewarding regular borrowers with vouchers for travel or the cinema if they are to stay relevant to an increasingly discerning and Web-savvy population, Culture Secretary Margaret Hodge recently said. Hodge told the Association of London Chief Librarians that in order to attract the "Google generation," libraries should consider extending their hours, introducing Web-based lending service with home delivery, and striking deals with coffee chains, according to an article by Hannah Strange of the London Times.

Hodge said that libraries need to reposition themselves to remain vital in the 21st century as they face competition from the Internet, online booksellers, and other sources. Although spending on libraries has risen 17% in the past decade, the number of books borrowed has slumped by 34%, she said.

For further information, read the full article.

In an age when books, articles, and data are moving online at an ever-increasing rate, are libraries and librarians still relevant? Indeed they are, according to a recent article by Carolyn Feibel in the Houston Chronicle. As Houston librarian Saima Kadir points out, librarians have become teachers of digital literacy; they show beginners how to hold a mouse and sign up for e-mail, and they show more advanced users how to blog or navigate databases. Furthermore, the library provides free access to dozens of electronic resources. The Houston Public Library even offers a 24-hour online chat service.

Often, public libraries are re-creating themselves as community centers, offering computer and English classes, cafes, film festivals, and author readings, says former ALA president Leslie Burger, who directs the Princeton Public Library in New Jersey. "We refer to our library as the community's living room," she says.

For further information, read the full article.

Preliminary findings of research conducted by professor Ruth Small and graduate students in the Center for Digital Literacy (CDL) at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies (iSchool) show a statistically significant increase in the ELA test scores—almost a 10 point difference—among fourth-grade students whose schools had certified librarians over students in schools without certified librarians.

“We believe these findings are important to consider, not only because of the higher ELA test scores. These certified librarians are having a larger impact on students’ overall learning as well,” says Small, who directs the school library media program at the iSchool. “Although we’re still analyzing the data, our preliminary results show that certified librarians are also more likely to provide students with materials that present more diverse points of view and that better support the curriculum than non-certified librarians.”

For further information, read the news report from Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.

Calling school library media specialists “an endangered species,” Washington State Senator Tracey J. Eide (D-Federal Way) introduced a bill January 22 that codifies through a per-pupil formula how many credentialed school library media specialists should be employed by each district and offers some $55 million to fund the initiative. The bill also allots $12 per student in state funding for library materials--a first in Washington State, which has relied exclusively on local levies for school libraries.

For further information, read the full news release in the American Libraries section of the American Library Association website.

Research libraries have long been the proud curators of historic print collections and regarded as places of quiet study. But with the explosion of the Internet and electronic publishing, users are increasingly turning their backs on libraries as a physical space, using them as virtual, digital environments instead. Libraries’ role in warehousing large book collections is rapidly becoming redundant, according to a study to be published January 16, 2008. The study warns that libraries must move with the digital times or risk becoming irrelevant.

One interesting finding is that contrary to popular belief, young people’s ability to search for and evaluate information on the Web has not improved with the widening access to technology, the study says. Young people tend to use search engines such as Google and Yahoo as their first, and often only, port of call in searching for information. They have a poor understanding of their information needs and find it difficult to develop effective search strategies. They also spend little time evaluating information for relevance, accuracy or authority, it says. Read more in the Guardian Unlimited.

The Financial Indusry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Investor Education Foundation and the American Library Association (ALA) have announced 13 grants, totaling more than $853,000, to public libraries and library networks across the United States, giving millions of library patrons and their families greater access to unbiased investing information and resources. The grants are awarded as part of a new program, "Smart Investing @ your library."

To learn more, read the FINRA press release.

James Patterson's Cross, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People--these are a few of the most popular books among inmates in Massachusetts prisons, according to an article by Laura Crimaldi appearing on the Boston Herald.com website.

The article notes that the state's Department of Correction runs 11 full-service libraries providing legal and recreational reading materials to 11,000 prisoners. It also notes that the libraries are considered critical to prisons and that the American Correction Association will not accredit a prison that does not have a library. For further information, read the full article.

For help with a variety of common problems, more people turn to the Internet than consult experts or family members to provide information and resources, according to Information Searches That Solve Problems, a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

A second key finding from the survey is that members of the tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) are the leading users of libraries for help solving problems and in more general patronage. Libraries drew visits by more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes.

For further information, visit the following page on the Pew Internet & American Life Project website.

As libraries turn increasingly digital, they aren't just for reading anymore, according to an article by Frank Trejo in The Dallas Morning News. A growing number are offering audiobooks, e-books, and other new services to patrons. "If anything, automation and technology have actually increased demand for information, including books," says Claire Bausch, director of Garland's Nicholson Memorial Library System. "Just about every morning, we have patrons waiting for our doors to open."

Those sentiments are echoed by Loriene Roy, president of the American Library Association, who notes that libraries have changed with the times. "Libraries are social institutions," says Roy in the article. "They respond to need."

For further information, read the entire article.

  At a time when many educators are trying to break free of No Child Left Behind, bemoaning high-stakes testing and arbitrary standards, school librarians are supporting language to write themselves into the landmark federal law as it faces renewal. Recognition in the “highly qualified” category required of classroom teachers, the librarians say, would help provide funds for their training and recruiting. The revisions sought by the American Library Association would also ensure that by 2010 a certified librarian, or media specialist, would work in every school—including the 40 percent nationwide currently without one. Read the article at Medill Reports Washington.

In West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, a giant warehouse "is being meticulously constructed to house things that no one wants," reports Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian. "It will house books, journals, and magazines that many of us have forgotten about or have never heard of in the first place."

By statute, the British Library must receive a copy of everything published in the UK each year. This includes an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 books each year, as well as 150,000 monographs. The storage logistics are monumental, and digital copies won't replace print copies anytime soon. Is the notion of the copyright library, which retains copies of everything published, really sustainable in the 21st century? To learn more, read the full article.

When residents of Darien, Connecticut, walk into their new library in 2009, they will be able to read a book or magazine while sipping coffee in a cafe that spills out to the sidewalk. They will find books grouped by subject, as they are in bookstores, instead of according to the Dewey Decimal System. They will lounge in overstuffed chairs, peruse DVDs in a Blockbuster-style video section, write a report on a wireless computer or print one on a color copier in the building’s small business center. Darien is among dozens of libraries in the area that are being rebuilt or renovated, and, in the process, recast. Librarians say the changes reflect the impact of technology and communities’ increased need for places to meet, relax, socialize and even telecommute. Read the article in The New York Times.

Library patrons in some areas of the United Kingdom will soon receive a little something extra when they check out a book--an advertising insert. According to a report on BBC News, the advertising promotion is offering advertisers 500,000 inserts through a number of county libraries. The program aims to cover the United Kingdom by the middle of 2008 with approximately 3 million inserts per month. For further information, read the full article.

The way people store and access knowledge continues to change dramatically, writes Anthony Grafton in an article titled "Future Reading" in The New Yorker. Yet Grafton says that digitization will not lead to the "infotopia" some people predict. Instead, it will be "one in a long series of new information ecologies, all of them challenging, in which readers, writers, and producers of text have learned to survive."

Grafton traces the history of knowledge collection back to the Library of Alexandria, then discusses current digitization projects and the notion of the universal library. "For now and for the foreseeable future," he concludes, "any serious reader will have to know how to travel down two very different roads simultaneously." Data streams, he says "will illuminate, rather than eliminate, books and prints and manuscripts that only the library can put in front of you."

For further information, read the full article.

A small, closed-to-the-public library at a prison in Munster has received the national Library of the Year award in Germany. The award carries a prize of 30,000 euro ($43,000). The library offers a collection of works in 30 languages to serve prisoners from 50 different countries.

The large library room is filled with bookcases that reach nearly to the ceiling, according to an article by Francisca Zecher published on the Deutsche Welle website. The walls and ceiling are painted with green leaves reminiscent of the ivy that grows along the prison walls outside. "One could almost forget that one is in a prison if it weren't for the bars on the windows and the grates over the lights," writes Zecher.

For further information, read the full article.

Arcade and video games...dinner and a movie...digital audio books--these are just a few of the offerings that libraries across Massachusetts are using to draw patrons, according to an article by Anna Badkhen in The Boston Globe. The modern-day library, says Kimberly Lynn, president of the Massachusetts Library Association, is a community living room-cum-reference clearinghouse, with some digital gaming sprinkled in.

For further information, read the full article.

A number of major libraries, including the Boston Public Libary and the Smithsonian Institution, are resisting offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, according to an article by Katie Hafner in The New York Times. Some libraries are concerned about restrictions the companies want to place on the digital collections.

Instead, many libraries are signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort. However, a number of prominent libraries, including the New York Public Library and libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, have accepted Google's offer.

For further information, read the full article.

As ideas go, they don’t come much bigger: Digitize the accumulated wisdom of humankind, catalog it, and offer it for free on the Internet in seven languages. The first phase of that simple yet ambitious dream is about a year away from being realized, according to a group of international librarians, computer technicians and United Nations officials who yesterday (October 17, 2007) unveiled a prototype for the project, called the World Digital Library, in Paris. “In essence, what they are doing is building an intellectual cathedral, and it may never get finished,” said Paul Saffo, a long-time Silicon Valley technology forecaster. “But this is a good effort even if it fails, because it is going to inspire a lot of other efforts, and if it succeeds it will be a wonderful resource.” Read about it in The Washington Post or visit www.worlddigitallibrary.org.

Despite predictions to the contrary, libraries continue to survive--and even thrive--in the computer age. One library service, however, that may be doomed by changing times and changing circumstances is the bookmobile.

An article by Anna Badkhen appearing on Boston.com outlines the struggles of Linda Caravaggio to keep a bookmobile running in the town of Beverly. Hers is one of only four bookmobiles that continue to operate in the state of Massachusetts. Across the United States, an estimated 900 bookmobiles remain in service, many in rural or low-income areas.

For further information, read the full article.

Who says libraries don't have a place in today's digital society? According to a recent article by Kimberly S. Johnson posted on the Denver Post.com website, libraries are attracting record numbers of visitors. She cites figures from the American Library Association showing that increasing numbers of visitors are checking out increasing numbers of items over recent years in the United States. According to ALA, nearly 1.3 billion library patrons checked out more than 2 billion items in fiscal year 2005, up from 1.15 billion visitors and 1.7 billion items in fiscal year 2000.

Johnson's article also gives many examples from the Denver area showing how libraries are adjusting their programs to meet the needs of today's patrons. For further information, read the full article.

The average school library today is a well-connected facility with significant numbers of computers for students and staff to do research, according to a major survey of school library media centers. But the survey, conducted by the American Association of School Librarians, also suggests that school district leaders need to pay more attention to their elementary school libraries and that larger schools should be spending more per pupil on their libraries than they do now. Read more of this article from the website eschoolnews.com.

To address the growing problem of low health literacy levels and to help consumers access usable health information, The Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Humana Inc., and Libraries for the Future, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing innovation and investment in our nation’s libraries, have launched the Wellness Information Zone, a new consumer health information project in Atlanta. The program aims to bring together expertise and resources from the two partner organizations to help the 90 million Americans who have difficulty obtaining, understanding and acting on basic health information and services. Read more of this article from CNNMoney.com

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups. Read more of this article from The New York Times.

To connect young people with the excitement of a real page-turner, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) celebrates Teen Read Week from October 14–20, 2007. Celebrated in hundreds of libraries, Teen Read Week uses interactive gaming, poetry slams, book clubs, and library social networking events to encourage teens to read. For more information about Teen Read Week, visit the American Library Association’s Teen Read Week website. In addition, this page contains many ideas on how you can help publicize the event.

Outside Santa Rita jail in California on a recent Saturday morning, it was business as usual. Bored adult visitors were standing, some sitting, talking or listening to music, waiting for their names to be called. But this Saturday morning there was a little more life than usual. Visiting kids, who normally would be standing with the adults, or maybe splayed on the ground playing video games, were checking out kid-friendly books like Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Ferdinand the Bull. Read more about a program that puts books in the hands of kids in this article from the website InsideBayArea.com.

Comedian Paula Poundstone was recently named national spokesperson for Friends of Libraries USA, and she says her own intellectual oddity, quickness and curiosity can be traced to a book read to her by her kindergarten teacher. The book was The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese. Poundstone knows books both as a reader and a writer, the author of a comedy collection and several funny math textbooks for elementary school children, The Math with a Laugh series. Read more about Poundstone in this article from The Leaf-Chronicle of Clarksville, Tenenssee.

It wasn't so very long ago that many pundits were saying that technology would render libraries obsolete. But library use is booming in Massachusetts, according to an article by Eric Moskowitz of the Boston Globe appearing on Boston.com.

Statewide, the article says, total circulation rose 25 percent from 1996 through 2006, and interlibrary loans grew nearly 400 percent, according to statistics from the state Board of Library Commissioners. Area directors say they have also seen growth in use of public computers and attendance at library programs. For further details, read the full article.

To promote reading, first lady Laura Bush brought Curious George for show and tell Tuesday at Driggs Elementary School in Connecticut. She left the other George at home. Bush and U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who once clashed with Connecticut officials over President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, used the school as a backdrop to announce $18 million in library grants awarded Tuesday to 300 schools in 28 states. Read more of this article from The Hartford Courant.

Trying to build popularity, many public libraries across the country have been looking more like big chain bookstores, offering comfortable easy chairs, coffee bars and displays of the latest best sellers. But the new library in a growing Phoenix suburb has gone a step further. It is one of the first in the nation to have abandoned the Dewey Decimal System of classifying books, in favor of an approach similar to that at Barnes & Noble, say, where books are shelved in “neighborhoods” based on subject matter. Read more of this article from The New York Times.

Garrison Keillor doesn’t see much that he likes among many of the candidates running for president. But he finds that a trip to the library, “one of the nobler expressions of democracy,” can cheer him up. Read more of Keillor’s view of the library as a temple of freedom in this article from The Salt Lake Tribune.

More than 300 librarians in town for the annual American Library Association conference spread out across Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, forgoing sightseeing in favor of public service. Their purpose was twofold: to make a difference while combating the perception that libraries are a dying institution, rendered unnecessary by Internet resources. Read more of this article from USA Today.

It was Mary Poppins’s face, though the hair was pure Victor, Victoria. But 9-year-old Graham Walker noticed only the voice, that clipped, hills-are-alive British accent that’s pure Julie Andrews and that was reading to him and 11 other children yesterday at the District’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Read more about Andrews’ support for the American Library Association in this article from The Washington Post.

Thursday evenings used to be quiet at Sekula Memorial Library. Patrons checked out books, read magazines and surfed the Web. No one spoke above a whisper. Then came teen gaming night. Gaming at libraries has become a nationwide trend and is one of multiple efforts libraries are doing to encourage youngsters to step inside and hopefully pick up a book. Read more in this article from The Monitor of south Texas.

Google’s plan to scan the collections of some of the world’s most prestigious libraries just doubled in size. The Mountain View, Calif.-based firm announced that its Library Project has teamed up with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a national consortium of 12 research libraries, to digitize collections in its libraries. Read more about Google’s plans in this article from Forbes.

The adventures of boy wizard Harry Potter can stay in Gwinnett County school libraries, despite a mother’s objections, a judge ruled Tuesday. Laura Mallory, who argued the popular fiction series is an attempt to indoctrinate children in witchcraft, said she still wants the best-selling books removed and may take her case to federal court. Read more about the decision in this article from The Washington Post.

Events featuring video games such as "Guitar Hero" and "Dance Revolution" are drawing teens to libraries throughout Michigan, according to an article by Heather Newman, technology writer for the Detroit Free Press. Library after library polled by the Free Press said video game events were their most popular youth programs and that they also got kids coming back to the library and checking out books. For further information, read the full article.

The publisher of the new Harry Potter novel has strict rules for libraries handling the book this summer. Among them: Libraries must limit the number of employees who handle the books before the July 21 release and provide names and contact information for each branch manager, according to the contract from Scholastic Inc. Read more about the contract that libraries must sign, which the publisher says is required to honor author J.K. Rowling’s wishes of preserving a “magical moment” for children, in this article from The Arizona Republic.

The Pig Skull Book Club has two important rules: No sissy stuff and no girls allowed. Both traditions are designed to appeal to fourth-grade and fifth-grade boys because this club, above all else, involves books boys like in a boy-friendly atmosphere. Read more about one library’s method for getting boys to read in this article from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Mary Baykan, director of the Washington County Free Library in western Maryland, was recently chosen as the 2006 national Librarian of the Year by Library Journal, the industry’s top trade publication. Baykan blends strong research, creativity and a down-home approach into a potent argument: that libraries, far from being anachronisms in a digital world, are latent powerhouses of change. Read more about this award-winner in this article from The Baltimore Sun.

A Miami-Dade parents group has identified a third book that they say paints a false picture of life in Cuba. But this time, they’re taking matters into their own hands. Fed up with the long, bureaucratic process surrounding the removal of two other controversial books about Cuba from school libraries last year, parent Dalila Rodriguez simply checked out the book “Discovering Cultures, Cuba” from the library at her son’s school earlier this month. She said she does not plan to return it. Mrs. Rodriguez says she’s merely protecting her son and other children from lies. School officials say her actions don’t correspond with respect for democracy and due process. Read more about this controversy in this article from The Miami Herald.

It's a word that does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter. Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. Find out just what that word is, and how it has reopened the debate over what constitutes acceptable content in children’s books, in this article from The New York Times.

Scholars and others interested in flipping through some of the Library of Congress’ most fragile books will be able to tap the knowledge without damaging the artifacts. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington last week said the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded a $2 million grant to the world’s largest library for a program to digitize thousands of works with a major focus on “brittle books.” Scanning is expected to begin within a few months. The new project will also digitize American history volumes, U.S. genealogy and regimental histories that hold personal collections from the Civil War period, and six collections of rare books including the Benjamin Franklin Collection. Read the article at CNN.com.

Kids are going online week after week to find out what happens when the Gecko and Sticky go creeping through a frightening forest and an oozy, stinky cave toward the underbelly of a nightmarish mansion. Who are the Gecko and Sticky? What are they doing in a scary cave? Who lives in the mansion, and why does he have an Aztec wristband?

All these questions and more are being addressed beginning with the online debut on January 8 of The Gecko and Sticky in…the Villain’s Lair, a new original novel from Wendelin Van Draanen being published online in weekly installments by the Maricopa County Library District in Arizona. The serial, with related online activities, runs through May 21, 2007. It is appropriate for students in grade 2 and up and is being published exclusively online. For further information, visit the Maricopa County Library District website.

As books on tape, DVDs, computers and other electronic equipment crowd into library branches, there is less room for plain old books. So librarians are making hard decisions and struggling with a new issue: whether the data-driven library of the future should cater to popular tastes or set a cultural standard, even as the demand for the classics wanes. Read more about the problem of limited library shelf space in this article from The Washington Post.

The Wickliffe, Ohio, library has banned children under 14 during after-school hours unless they are accompanied by adults. An Illinois library adopted a “three strikes, you’re out” rule, suspending library privileges for repeat offenders. In Euclid, Ohio, the library pumps classical music into its lobby, bathrooms and front entry to calm patrons, including those from the nearby high school. And, starting on Jan. 16, the Maplewood Memorial Library in Maplewood, New Jersey, will be closing its two buildings on weekdays from 2:45 to 5 p.m., until further notice. Read more about the challenges libraries are facing as the number of latchkey children increases in this article from The New York Times.

As the number of graphic novels in libraries grows, so do the number of challenges to them, according to an Associated Press article appearing on the website of the International Herald Tribune. Libraries are increasingly facing complaints from some parents who are concerned that the comic book-like illustrations in the graphic novels will draw children into reading books with adult content. For further information, read the full article.

The Michigan Supreme Court will be considering the issue of exactly who can borrow books from public libraries throughout the state. According to an article by Emilia Askari in the Detroit Free Press, the case began when George Goldstone of Bloomfield Hills could not check out books from the Bloomfield Township library. Bloomfield Hills does not have a library. Many Michigan communities without libraries contract for book-borrowing privileges with neighboring public libraries, but Bloomfield Hills does not have such an arrangement.

Goldstone and his attorney argue that the Michigan Constitution gives all residents equal access to any public library. On the other side of the argument, librarians fear that, with universal access, the local taxes some communities now assess to enhance their libraries will disappear--along with the special programs the taxes fund. For further information, read the full article.

The Jefferson County (Missouri) Library's second annual Food for Fines campaign collected a total of 5,471 canned food items from patrons who donated the cans in lieu of paying fines on overdue library materials, according to a report postd on STLtoday.com. For further details, read the full article.

In the digital age, copyright rules have become more complex than ever and more difficult for librarians to enforce. In a paper titled "The nonsense of copyright in libraries: Digital information and the right to copy," Paul Staincliffe, collections librarian at the University of Waikato Library in New Zealand, presents an overview of the history of copyright and argues that today's libraries should abandon the struggle to uphold copyright. For further details, read the full paper.

Wikis, open websites that visitors can modify, are booming in popularity. Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia, has become one of the hottest sites on the Internet. Want to learn more about using and even creating Wikis? John Hubbard of the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries has prepared an online video course covering the benefits and disadvantages of the Wiki format.

Librarian Ronnie Wise spent 30 years working to bring books and literacy to some of the poorest citizens of the Mississippi Delta. A moving article by J.R. Moehringer, a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, provides a look at Wise's career. To learn more, read the full article.

September 23-30 marks the 25th observance of Banned Books Week, established in 1982 by the American Library Association to bring attention to censorship issues. For further information about this year's celebration, visit the ALA website.

Reported instances of challenges to books in school and public libraries across the United States totaled 405 in 2005, the lowest number since the American Library Association (ALA) began tracking challenges in the early 1980s. The most challenged book of 2005 was It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health by Robie Harris.

ALA will mark the 25th annual observance of Banned Books Week from September 23-30. For further information, visit the ALA website.

"In an era of increasing controls on the gathering and dissemination of information, many Americans are unaware of the courageous stands librarians take every day" writes Joseph Huff-Hannon in an article entitled "Librarians at the Gates."

Huff-Hannon outlines instances of librarians rallying against a U.S. House bill that would make it a felony for a librarian to issue a library card to an undocumented immigrant, librarians challenging the national security letters that are part of the USA Patriot Act, and a school head who risked (and ultimately lost) a $3 million pledge by refusing to remove the book Brokeback Mountain from the school library.

To find out more, visit The Nation.com.

Funding shortfalls and slowly decaying infrastructure have led to the closing of many libraries in this former Soviet republic, and many that remain are in various states of disrepair, but they are serving more readers than ever, according to a posting at the Moldova AZI website.

How can libraries attract teens who rely on the Internet for almost everything? The Jerome Public Library in Idaho has created the Flight Deck, which features distinctive furniture and carpeting, a gaming area, a domed CD listening station, and a Homework Cafe that offers snacks and drinks during the school year. Fundraising has begun for a similar room at the Twin Falls Public Library, according to an article by Nate Poppino in the Twin Falls Times-News. For further information, read the full article.

Who blogs? And why? Glad you asked.

Digital technology is generating a flood of valuable data for scientists to interpret. But that flood could drown science, says Scott Carlson in an article in the June 23 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Indeed, dealing with the "data deluge" will be among the great challenges for science in the 21st century. Carlson believes librarians can play an important role in helping organize the massive amounts of data.

Some academics envision a day when scientific data will be deposited into broad archives that hold findings from many disciplines, says Carlson. For further information, read the full article.

The library system in one suburban Atlanta county says, “No mas” — it won't buy any more thrillers, romance novels or other works of adult fiction in Spanish. The decision has angered Hispanic leaders and thrust Gwinnett County — where one out of six residents is Hispanic — into the US immigration debate. This Associated Press story appears in The Seattle Times.

What country had the first license plates? (France) What is the life cycle of an eyebrow hair? (150 days). These are just a sampling of the questions answered each day by researchers at the New York Public Library's telephone reference service.

An article by Anthony Ramirez in the June 19 edition of The New York Times describes the service and explains why it continues to thrive in the Internet age, when most patrons can easily perform their own computer searches. For further details, read the full article.

Libraries come out on top when the public is asked to assess the performance of local institutions, according to a new report from Public Agenda. Forty-five percent give an "A" to their local community for maintaining well-run libraries, far ahead of any other community institutions, including schools, parks, and police.

The survey results are published in a new report titled "Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public Attitudes About Libraries in the 21st Century." According to the report, more than 8 in 10 Americans believe that keeping services free should be a very high priority. Having enough current books for children, enough reference materials, friendly and knowledgeable library staff, and good programs for children and teens are also considered absolute essentials for libraries.

For further information, see the full report.

Even as libraries in Qatar are witnessing a drastic decline in the number of visitors, a senior official of the Qatar National Library has called for a national campaign to promote the habit of reading among the public. Find this article in The Peninsula (Qatar).

When the new central library in Minneapolis opens next month, it will provide a glimpse of what the library of tomorrow will look like — and a test of whether buildings traditionally devoted to books can survive in the age of the Internet. Learn about it in The Christian Science Monitor.

The British Library—renowned for collecting books, journals and artefacts from across the globe— is set to shift its focus from Western Europe towards China and India. Academics in these countries will be generating the big ideas in science, technology and economics, the library has forecast in an extensive study set for release today, and could overtake the West as the intellectual and cultural centers of the 21st century world. Find details in The Guardian.

Half of the one million rare books and manuscripts at the National Library of China (NLC), the largest library in Asia, are in poor condition, according to an article by Zhao Huanxin in the April 17 edition of China Daily. And during the past half century, the NLC has been able to repair only about 60,000 of the most precious and endangered volumes.

China's Ministry of Culture has said it would launch an unprecedented project in 2006 to extend the life of paper-based materials as long as possible. Nationwide, China's public libraries house 30 million ancient books, and one-third are dilapidated to some extent, according to Zhang Xiaoping, a division director of the social culture and library affairs department under the Ministry of Culture.

For further details, read the full article.

For over 300 years the main source of public information in the English-speaking world was the broadside — “a single sheet of paper, printed on one side, telling one story, and frequently posted in high-traffic locations for the edification and entertainment of the masses.” Now a virtual exhibition of over 1,800 broadsides from the National Library of Scotland provides historians, educators, and students a chance to experience this mass medium for themselves. “Crime, politics, romance, emigration, humour, tragedy, royalty and superstitions — all these and more are here.” Learn about this fascinating online resource in The Christian Science Monitor.

The libraries of large Finnish cities oppose a proposal by Minister of Culture Tanja Karpela that software should be installed on all computers in public libraries in order to protect children from website with harmful content, according to an article in the international edition of Helsingin Sanomat. The librarians cite free speech issues and believe that concerns about inappropriate content are overblown. For further information, read the full article.

The first Canadian study linking school libraries to student achievement indicates that better libraries improve student test scores and add to kids’ reading enjoyment. The Ontario School Library Association says the research, released yesterday, makes a strong case for better-trained school librarians and better-stocked shelves. Read more about the study in the Toronto Star.

Video games: some say they draw teens away from reading, while others say the games can draw teens to the library. In any case, video games are finding a place in the King County Library System in Washington state, according to an article by Dean A. Radford in the King County Journal.

Catherine Schaeffer, the teen services librarian at the North Bend Library, says the payoff of the "Game On" program involves getting teens into the library and developing a relationship with them. For further information, read the full article.

The New Zealand government urgently needs to boost funding for secondary school libraries to improve students’ literacy, research and ICT skills, PPTA president Debbie Te Whaiti said today. Her call follows an Education Review Office report that says secondary schools’ information literacy programs are of uneven quality. Get details at New Zealand’s Scoop website.

To commemorate the 1,600th anniversary of the creation of the Armenian alphabet, the Library of Alexandria recently presented an exhibition of rare Armenian manuscripts. The alphabet, which has changed very little since its creation in the 5th century AD, became a major repository for both Eastern and Western traditions at a time when literacy in Europe was in steep decline. Look for this article in Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt).

Their dream was to provide a library, which was expected not only to be used by the school, but also to serve as a tool to uplift the living conditions of the community. Read more in The Monitor (Uganda).

A new joint US-Egyptian program will try to ensure that all of Egypt’s 38,000 public schools have well-stocked libraries of Arabic and English titles. The goal of this huge undertaking is to encourage children to read in a country where few have access to books and a quarter of adults are illiterate. Read more about the program in The Christian Science Monitor.

By 2010, people will be able to electronically access an estimated six million books, films, photographs, manuscripts, and other works from libraries and museums across Europe, according to an article by Steve Ranger appearing on CNET News.com. The European Digital Library is being financed by the European Commission. Read the full article.

A survey of English librarians carried out to mark World Book Day has named
To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, as the one book all adults should read before they die. It also cited Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as England’s favorite happy ending. Details of the survey appear on the BBC News website.

The Improving Literacy Through School Libraries (LSL) Program seeks to improve reading skills by providing students with up-to-date school library materials, well-equipped school libraries and media centers, and certified school library and media specialists. Grant applications are due April 11th. Informational conference calls will be held on Thursday, March 2, Friday, March 3, and Monday, March 6, 2006. Get details at http://www.ed.gov/programs/lsl/applicant.html.

A book for kids about conflict in the Middle East is creating a conflict of its own in York Region, as the public school board and Canadian Jewish Congress clash with the Ontario Library Association over what’s appropriate reading for 9- to 11-year-olds. Find this story in the Toronto Star.

What will happen to libraries as the ways people access information continue to evolve? In an article in Searcher, David Grossman offers the opinion that libraries and librarians will continue to exist but that their roles will continue to change. Read the full article.

European libraries and archives contain a wealth of material spanning centuries. Organizing that material and making it accessible in the digital age poses quite a challenge, however. An article on the Information Society Technologies website describes some projects being undertaken in Europe to cope with this challenge. For further information, read the full article.

A much-needed overhaul of the District of Columbia library system may get a boost from a proposed $30 million federal allocation.

A new initiative of Yahoo Australia and New Zealand and the National Library of Australia plans to create the most comprehensive publicly accessible bank of digital images of Australia, according to an article by Diana Thorp posted on the Australian IT website. Australian are being asked to submit images for the archive throughout 2006.

With 5,000 books crammed into less than 500 square feet, the Encore Book Store is hardly elegant. But it is effective. The used-book store, which is tucked away at the entrance of the Vista branch library near San Diego, California, generates 90 percent of the revenue raised each year by the Friends of the Vista Library.

Community members donate the books, which are then sold at the store at prices that generally range from 25 cents to a dollar, according to an article by Triveni Sheshadri in the January 22, 2006, issue of the San Diego Union-Tribune. For further information, read the full article.

What were the hottest library-related stories of 2005? To see the picks of Librarian and Information Science News (LISNews.org), visit their website.

Among the casualties of the Gulf Coast hurricanes were thousands upon thousands of books — textbooks, library books, and treasured volumes from personal collections. A teacher in Montgomery, Alabama, has built a website to coordinate donations of books (no cash donations, please) to resupply classrooms and school libraries in the affected areas. To find out which titles are being sought for each grade, visit the Just One Book website at www.justonebook.net/.

In an effort to raise literacy rates in the northeastern part of the country, the government-owned Kenya National Library Service has set up a camel mobile library. See the photo essay on the BBC News website.

A Cincinnati librarian is one of many honored by a New York Times award program.

September is Library Card Sign-up Month in the United States--a time when the American Library Association and libraries across the country remind parents that a library card is the most important school supply of all. This year, Library Card Sign-up Month is being celebrated with the Public Library Association's advocacy campaign: "The Smartest Card. Get it. Use it. @ your library."

For further information about Library Card Sign-up Month and ways to promote it, visit ALA's website.