[LISNews] The LISNews For February 8th 2010
The LISNews Librarian News By Email
lisnews at lishost.net
Mon Feb 8 11:57:03 CST 2010
Happy Monday! It's the LISNews for February 8th, 2010...
On Monday we start with the most popular headlines from the weekend:
-[1] - Three Dollars a Month Is...Too Much
http://lisnews.org/node/35869/
-[2] - Amazon gives the self-published a second life
http://lisnews.org/node/35870/
-[3] - Warren Beatty Biography, "Star"
http://lisnews.org/node/35862/
-[4] - A Search Engine That Relies on Humans
http://lisnews.org/node/35880/
-[5] - Bookmark Collectors...Mark Your Calendars
http://lisnews.org/node/35877/
And here's the latest from LISNews:
--In Tough Times, a Library Branch Reopens
- http://lisnews.org/node/35887/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Monday February 8th at 12:56 PM
-Read 11 times - 0 Comments
In Tough Times, a Library Branch Reopens The reopening of the St. Agnes branch of the New York Public Library has given the
library system something to celebrate in the face of budget woes.
--Bigger kids striving to get their younger peers to read
- http://lisnews.org/node/35885/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Monday February 8th at 12:01 PM
-Read 62 times - 0 Comments
Bigger kids striving to get their younger peers to read The K is for Kids Foundation was started by Karen Clawson as a
county-wide spin-off to Laurel Oak Elementary School’s Bring a Book, Bring a Friend Fun’raisers. Parents and supporters of
the school would bring books to an event to help stock the school’s media center. “We started by telling our friends and
telling our families and it grew from there,” said Clawson. “What we did for one school, we were able to do for eight school
libraries last year.”
--Is the Great American Novel Destroying Novelists?
- http://lisnews.org/node/35884/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Monday February 8th at 12:00 PM
-Read 69 times - 0 Comments
Is the Great American Novel Destroying Novelists? Is the idea of the Great American Novel the worst thing that ever
happened to great American novelists? Some days it does seem that way. American authors who struggle to define the American
experience by cramming it all into one novel almost inevitably come to some version of grief, and no one epitomizes this
dilemma better than Ralph Ellison, who published only stories and essays in the 40 years after he dazzled the literary world
with Invisible Man. It was no secret that he was working on a second novel all that time—he published excerpts while alive,
and a novel-length fragment appeared a decade ago.
--Google book scanning: Cultural theft or freedom of information?
- http://lisnews.org/node/35883/
-Front Page Story by Blake Posted Monday February 8th at 11:57 AM
-Read 63 times - 0 Comments
Google book scanning: Cultural theft or freedom of information? A proposed partnership between the French government and
Google is stoking fears in France that the country's literary treasures will fall under commercial control of a U.S.
technology company.
--Librarians, Your Time has Come! Interview with Author Marilyn Johnson
- http://lisnews.org/node/35882/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Monday February 8th at 11:01 AM
-Read 76 times - 0 Comments
New Jersey.com's Dylan Foley interviews Marilyn Johnson about her latest book, "This Book is Overdue, How Librarians and
Cybrarians Can Save Us All". Here are a couple of questions to arouse your interest: Q. You’ve written this quirky book
about modern librarians. Why? A. Librarians have had my back for so long. They helped me so much when I was a magazine
writer and when I was writing my book on obituaries. With the new book, I realized I was writing about a profession that was
undergoing seismic changes. Q. In your book, you tapped into wide social circles of librarians. What was your experience?
A. One of the great things about these librarians is that they are out there on the web. Once you stumble on one, you find a
whole group of them. Librarians make up one of the most connected professions. Entire interview here.
--Google Person Finder Helping Haiti's Survivors
- http://lisnews.org/node/35881/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Monday February 8th at 9:13 AM
-Read 129 times - 0 Comments
Since librarians are good at finding things (and people), you might want to consider adding Google Person Finder to your
database. Here's info on the API, which is now available via open source. Google has a crisis response group that
quickly went into action after the quake in Haiti in January, coordinating with groups internally and externally, including
governmental and non-governmental authorities. A crisis response page was soon posted at here. It was realized there would
be a need for a way to find out the status of family and friends who may have been impacted by the quake. As groups began to
coalesce around this need, it was discovered that a Person Finder application had been created in the aftermath of the WTC
attacks in 2001. Another was created in response to hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, a quick survey showed these
applications could not be revived in a short time. However, they have since worked out the kinks and created a viable
program. Google now cordially invites you to work with them in a coordinated effort to help the crisis relief efforts for
the people of Haiti.
--A Search Engine That Relies on Humans
- http://lisnews.org/node/35880/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Sunday February 7th at 7:56 PM
-Read 308 times - 0 Comments
Aardvark, a social search company, is developing a new paradigm for Web searches that taps into social networks, not
automated formulas, to provide answers to queries. Article at NYT.com
--Book Probes 'Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks'
- http://lisnews.org/node/35879/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Sunday February 7th at 7:37 PM
-Read 190 times - 0 Comments
Listen to full story on "All Things Considered" on NPR Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman and mother of five,
never knew that she revolutionized medicine. Shortly before she died of cancer in 1951, doctors took a tissue sample from
her — without her permission. Those cells became the first human cells to gain "immortality" — replicating themselves in
laboratories long after Henrietta Lacks died. Host Guy Raz talks to science journalist Rebecca Skloot about her new book,
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
--What They Don't Tell You About Being a Public Librarian
- http://lisnews.org/node/35878/
-Blog Entry by Anonymous Patron Posted Sunday February 7th at 4:58 PM
-Read 118 times - 0 Comments
What they don’t tell you about being a public librarian is the poop. The poop that is oozing out of the pant leg of the
un-diapered toddler and onto the floor. The poop that said toddler steps in and tracks all over the carpet in search of
his mother. The poop on the carpet that the mother ignores as she whisks her child out of the library. Nope, they don’t
tell you about the poop. A while back, I ran into an old high school friend at an estate sale. We spent a few minutes
catching up -- I told her that after working for 20 years in the environmental field, I’d gone back to school, gotten a
library degree and was working part-time in a small public library. She smiled wistfully and said, “Oh, I’d love to work in
a library. It would be so quiet and stress-free. You can just sit and read books all day.” I didn’t tell her about the
poop. What they don’t tell you about being a public librarian is the guy who locks himself in the restroom and starts
yelling about government conspiracies and the “fat cow librarians” who are out to get him. They don’t tell you about the
local cops who just grin and shrug and say, “Well, your library is the last stop on the bus line,” as they escort the
handcuffed guy out of the building. They don’t tell you about Porno Guy, who sits at the Internet computers facing the
Reference desk so staff can see what he’s looking at. They don’t tell you about the kid who calls you a “racist bitch”
because you ask him not to use the profanity in the library. They don’t tell you about the woman who calls once a week
wanting the names of the doctors who performed the alien autopsies at Area 51. Or the man who wants you to read portions of
The Joy of Sex to him over the phone for his “research project.” They don’t tell you that about being a public librarian.
Then again, they don’t tell you about the woman who brings you a plate of hot-from-the-oven Apple Pan Dowdy because you
helped her find the recipe earlier that morning. Or the high schooler who gives you a fist bump and says, “Librarians
rock!” because you located an obscure resource for his term paper. Or the 8-year-old who invites you to his birthday party
because “you’re the nicest librarian in the world.” Nope, they don’t tell you that about being a public librarian, either.
It’s probably just as well. We’d be overrun with folks wanting our quiet, stress-free jobs.
--Bookmark Collectors...Mark Your Calendars
- http://lisnews.org/node/35877/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Sunday February 7th at 1:48 PM
-Read 295 times - 2 Comments
On February 20 and 21, 2010 the first convention for bookmark collectors will take place online. For 24 hours, bookmark
collectors from all over the world will meet to give and attend seminars, view galleries, shop, swap, and socialize with
other collectors and enthusiasts. For many collectors, this will be the first time they will have the opportunity to meet
and discuss their passion with other enthusiasts, live. If you collect bookmarks, make bookmarks, or are curious about
bookmarks; if you are interested in ephemera, biblio-paraphernalia, craft samplers, book history, small art, or
collectibles; or if you are interested in seeing the first virtual convention for collectors of any sort, then stop by the
website and register for the Bookmark Collectors Virtual convention. Convention Websites are BMCVC and Bookmark Convention.
Organizers are Alan Irwin, info at bmcvc.com and Lauren Roberts, lauren at bmcvc.com, who also runs the website Bibliobuffet. In
My Book® will participate in the convention as a vendor.
--The Biblio File Amazon/Macmillan podcast now available
- http://lisnews.org/node/35876/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Sunday February 7th at 1:17 PM
-Read 201 times - 0 Comments
>From Teleread: We had a great show today on The Biblio File, marred only by a minor technical malfunction in the middle. I
was joined by Paula Berinstein of The Writing Show (as well as a number of listeners in the text chat) and we talked for
over an hour about Ficbot’s and my posts, the Amazon/Macmillan situation in general, and related matters.
--Check Out This Website
- http://lisnews.org/node/35875/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Sunday February 7th at 11:39 AM
-Read 292 times - 0 Comments
You've gotta see this...a beautifully done promo for "Life List" by Olivia Gentile. Site design by Pentagram.
--Book Review: This Book is Overdue
- http://lisnews.org/node/35874/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Sunday February 7th at 9:54 AM
-Read 236 times - 0 Comments
>From the MN Star Tribune, a thoughtful review of Marilyn Johnson's new title, "This Book is Overdue" about the value of
librarians in our information-saturated world. "Librarians have a champion in Johnson, yet her clear bias takes nothing
away from the book, partly because she builds a solid case for their existence. While almost anyone can Google almost
anything, we're vulnerable to a sort of "information sickness" that Johnson describes as not knowing where one piece of
information leaves off and the next begins. "I was, in other words, overstimulated yet gluttonous for more." This is where
librarians are our best allies, and Johnson thankfully adopts a "show, don't tell" approach." Here's the website for the
book and here is the the authors website. It's a must-read for today's librarian.
--Retailing Pressure and Emergence of the ebook are Threatening the Future of Authors and Their Work
- http://lisnews.org/node/35872/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Saturday February 6th at 9:11 PM
-Read 286 times - 0 Comments
Political espionage author and journalist Henry Porter solemnly points out: "To begin to write a book these days seems
more than the average folly. Publishing appears to have been hit by a storm similar to the one that tore through the music
industry a few years ago and is now causing unprecedented pain in newspapers We are told that fewer people are reading, that
book sales are down, that the supermarkets which sell one in five copies of all books care more about their cucumber sales,
that the book is shortly to be replaced by the ebook and electronic readers sold by, among others, Amazon, which seems bent
on reducing publishers to an archipelago of editorial sweatshops and the writer to the little guy stitching trainers in an
airless room. Publishing seems to be one of the great mysteries of commerce. Despite the large numbers involved – a total
of £1.752bn was spent on 235.7m books in 2009 in the UK, that's nearly four books for every man woman and child – the
business today is a testament to self-deprecation, with only a few people willing to assert the unique value of books and
their content." More from the Guardian Observer.
--The iPad’s Closed System: Sometimes I Hate Being Right
- http://lisnews.org/node/35871/
-Blog Entry by Bibliofuture Posted Saturday February 6th at 3:45 PM
-Read 168 times - 0 Comments
The iPad’s Closed System: Sometimes I Hate Being Right
http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-01/ipad%E2%80%99s-closed-system-sometimes-i-hate-being-right Remember that
groundbreaking Apple Super Bowl ad from 1984? The one where the woman throws a hammer at Big Brother, signifying a new era
of freedom that would be ushered in with Macintosh? My, how times have changed. Here we are more than 25 years later and the
despotic, all-knowing face up there on that giant screen now belongs to Steve Jobs—and Big Brother Steve is holding an iPad.
Full article at link above.
--Amazon gives the self-published a second life
- http://lisnews.org/node/35870/
-Front Page Story by Bibliofuture Posted Saturday February 6th at 12:07 PM
-Read 404 times - 1 Comments
After Zetta Elliott couldn't interest publishers in her novel about a black-Latina teen who travels back in time to Civil
War-era Brooklyn, she joined a growing number of writers and paid to publish it herself in 2008. A Wish After Midnight sold
about 500 copies — nearly covering her expenses, she says. More important, she says, her teen novel was praised on blogs and
used in schools and libraries. But when an editor from Amazon, the online retailer, called last year offering to publish
it, Elliott says, "I thought it was a hoax." It wasn't. This month, her novel, along with Daniel Annechino's They Never Die
Quietly and Maria Murname's Perfect on Paper, will be released as AmazonEncore paperbacks, e-books and audios. More at USA
Today
--Three Dollars a Month Is...Too Much
- http://lisnews.org/node/35869/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Saturday February 6th at 8:47 AM
-Read 660 times - 10 Comments
It's the classic story...the community wants the library and all it has to offer, but it doesn't want to pay . When a
technology lab bus from the OH state library system parked itself at the Amherst Public Library for a week to offer a
variety of computer classes, library officials knew they had struck the right nerve. “We had over 20 classes and they all
had waiting lists,” library director Robin Woods said. “We had over 250 people taking classes in Excel, Facebook for adults,
genealogy and resume-writing.” Since the bus visit was a response to community surveys and feedback that told library
officials that residents wanted this kind of service and others, Tuesday’s rejection of an $11 million bond issue to finance
a 24,000-square-foot addition to the library is more than a bit puzzling. The 1.17-mill, 28-year issue, which would have
cost $3 a month for owners of homes valued at $100,000, was defeated by 933 to 809, according to unofficial election
results. Chronicle Telegram.
--I shouldn't, but manifestoes are fun, so here goes . . .
- http://lisnews.org/node/35863/
-Blog Entry by Anonymous Patron Posted Friday February 5th at 4:08 PM
-Read 6 times - 0 Comments
The greatest issue facing libraries today is the growing suspicion that we don’t need libraries anymore. We’ve gotten to
the point where we can imagine we’re independent, that we can order any book, watch any video, dig up any obscure piece of
trivia, contact anybody anytime and generally become autonomous information-gathering machines. It seems a little absurd in
this world to pour public funds into a service we can already do for ourselves, especially when money gets tight. Given a
choice between paying police to protect us from our neighbors and paying librarians to help educate those neighbors, there’s
really no choice at all. But when we suddenly discover that sometimes we can’t afford every book we need, when we’re
neither rich nor gullible enough to buy the latest proprietary gadget, when we can’t apply for a job because we can’t afford
the Internet right now, when it turns out that we haven’t been talking to people or learning things but simply responding
instinctively to pictures and fonts, we might just realize how necessary libraries are. It might actually be in our own best
interest to pool our money to support an organization whose purpose is to provide everyone in the community with access to
the best possible sources of information and education. This makes the library a transformational institution. The library
reminds us that knowledge is not individual, but communal. The library binds us in a common knowledge in a common space. It
is the job of librarians to discover the educational needs of the community and to tend to them, so that, one person at a
time, everyone’s knowledge grows. And a little better marketing couldn’t hurt, either.
--Warren Beatty Biography, "Star"
- http://lisnews.org/node/35862/
-Front Page Story by birdie Posted Friday February 5th at 2:41 PM
-Read 318 times - 0 Comments
Sounds like a good beach/vacation read. Vanessa Grigoriadis reviews Peter Biskind's biography of Warren Beatty-- "Star;
How Warren Beatty Seduced America" in Sunday's New York Times. Presumably Beatty first agreed to cooperate in the creation
of the book but later renegged on his offer. From the review: For a relative unknown, dating an actress like [Joan] Collins
was a coup, but Beatty was more interested in platonic seduction of those higher on the food chain: writers and directors.
His first scalp was the (gay) playwright William Inge, author of “Come Back, Little Sheba” and “Picnic,” who hoped to cast
him in the part of a man so sexually confident that “he feels a wreath has been hung on his penis.” Soon, he secured an
audience with Clifford Odets at Romanoff’s restaurant on Rodeo Drive, and bonded with Elia Kazan, who gave him his first big
break, “Splendor in the Grass.” He impressed them with his intelligence, but he liked playing the pretty boy too. From a
young age, he maintained a diet of soy burgers and carrot juice, washed his hair with a six-pack of beer, and even separated
his eyelashes with a pin before shooting a scene (for sex, he pumped up his thyroid with vitamins) — and he didn’t care who
knew it. Carly Simon has never explicitly admitted that Beatty was the inspiration for “You’re So Vain,” but he likes to
think so.
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