A promptly handled reconsideration request at the Waukee (Iowa) Public Library morphed into a public-relations nightmare for Director Maryann Mori last week when area residents misinterpreted a Des Moines Register story about the relocation of The Notebook Girls from the YA section to adult nonfiction as restricting adolescents’ ability to borrow the title. However, nothing … Continue reading When a Good Deed Meets Bad Press
The message of the American Library Association can best be summarized in one word, a word we all understand, a word that holds us together as librarians. That word is “Read.” “Why do we need libraries when all the information in the world is on the internet?” It’s a tiresome question that American librarians are … Continue reading Libraries Now More Than Ever
The libraries at Stanford University have been a juggernaut of innovation over the last 20 years. They have reenvisioned scholarly communications with the launch of HighWire Press, initiated digital preservation and archiving tools LOCKSS and CLOCKSS, become a founding member of the open-source course management software Sakai, and developed numerous enhancements to Blacklight, the open-source … Continue reading The Stanford Innovation Juggernaut
The 13th annual LITA National Forum brought library and information technology professionals together in Atlanta September 30–October 3 to discuss projects and developments surrounding the conference theme, “The Crowd and the Cloud.” Expert speakers shared knowledge of, and experiences with, the leading trends and innovations in library technologies, including mobile, social, and web services. Keynoting … Continue reading Crowd Discusses the Cloud at LITA Forum
What makes younger library users, past or present, so interesting to researchers? At the Library History Seminar XII, September 10–12, many scholarly papers focused on youth services. The ideas in circulation at the Madison conference suggested that two factors ignite academic interest—censorship and new technology. Forces of change make young people visible in the library, … Continue reading Hearts and Minds in Play
Yahoo headlines blared out the shocking news today that “Rupert Grint has risked upsetting parents of young Harry Potter fans—he’s urging them to read controversial novel A Clockwork Orange.” Grint did so by joining his costars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson to pose for a trio of American Library Association READ posters. The Yahoo News … Continue reading Rupert Grint’s Shocking Book Choice for Potter READ Poster
I have never been prouder to be a part of this profession than I was on September 11 this year, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Barbara Jones, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, at the entrance to ALA headquarters here in Chicago, making a simple statement of opposition to book burning. At our sides were Gerald … Continue reading Banning and Burning
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that politically the library profession is quite liberal. There may be a lot more conservatives in the profession than I know about but if they exist, they are for the most part quiet and under cover. My experience is that the library profession is not just overwhelmingly … Continue reading The Conservatives Among Us
The Chicago Banned Books Week Read-Out on Saturday attracted some 150 people to historic Bughouse Square across from the magnificent Newberry Library. Lots of folks brought their kids, apparently unafraid that they might hear something "age inappropriate" read aloud. Frequently censored author Chris Crutcher emceed the program and began with a tale of his earliest … Continue reading Banned Books Read-Aloud Draws Crowd to Chicago’s Historic Bughouse Square
A new Delaware law that went into effect September 15 is enabling public libraries to get their internet use policies ready for the inevitable influx into their facilities of patrons wielding wireless devices. HB 340 extends libraries’ acceptable-use policies to any mobile devices that individuals bring onto library premises, and specifies that, while in the … Continue reading Acceptable-Use Policies Go Mobile in Delaware
I was tickled to death when I opened my September issue of AARP Bulletin and saw a full-page article about Banned Books Week. That was before the e-mails and calls flooded into the Office for Intellectual Freedom, demanding to know what business the American Library Association had banning books. Turns out the article, titled "Banned," … Continue reading Relax AARP Bulletin Readers, Librarians Do Not Celebrate Book Banning
Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, opened a 9/11 commemoration this afternoon that started taking shape earlier this week as a protest and ended up as a statement to the world that librarians value reading, learning, and tolerance over book-burning, fear, and ignorance. I have never been prouder to … Continue reading Qur’an Read-Out Commemorates 9/11, Decries Book Burning
