LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Story in the New York Times:

France has never been shy about promoting its culture, so few were surprised when it took a close interest in a new digital library intended to showcase Europe’s history, literature, arts and science.

But when the new site, called Europeana, begins life on Thursday, more than half of its two million items will come from just one of the 27 countries in the European Union: France.

So comprehensive is France’s cultural dominance over this cyberspace outpost that other countries are having their own history written for them — in French, of course.

“I find the figures extraordinary,” said Viviane Reding, the European commissioner responsible for the project. “France has half the content — the collapse of the Berlin Wall is illustrated with a French TV documentary.”

Full story here.

Ziff Davis Media announced Wednesday that it was ending print publication of its 27-year-old flagship, PC Magazine, and would take the title online only.

It is the latest of several magazine publishers to drop a print edition, as advertising plummets and the cost of printing a paper version rises.

“The viability for us to continue to publish in print just isn’t there anymore,” Jason Young, chief executive of Ziff Davis, said in an interview.

While most magazines make their money mainly from print advertising, PC Magazine derives most of its profit from its Web site. More than 80 percent of the profit and about 70 percent of the revenue come from the digital business, Mr. Young said, and all of the writers and editors have been counted as part of the digital budget for two years.

Full story here.

It's Over: "This year's Pimp my Bookcart contest had nearly a hundred submissions from all around the world. They came from schools, libraries, a book store, and a jail. There were carts made by kids, teenagers, and adults. They were higher-quality than ever, which made judging extremely difficult. We're not exaggerating when we say that our shortlist was in the dozens. We finally hunkered down in an undisclosed location in Indianapolis and argued well into the night. In the end we followed our hearts."

Las Vegas area CBS affiliate KLAS reports that the association of school librarians in the Clark County School District was present in recent meetings. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported yesterday that the district is holding meetings to gauge parent views on what should be cut due to financial shortfalls. The librarians went to gauge the risk to their jobs as local television reports have noted that parents are strongly considering already terminating art and music education in schools.

The district has posted a chart with cuts under consideration. It is noted there that cutting out middle school and high school librarians would save the district USD$9,510,215. The argument present in favor of cutting such librarians is that teachers or support staff could maintain libraries.

Clark County School District's boundaries are coterminous with the boundaries of Clark County in Nevada. The district serves Nevada's population center. According to the US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, as of the 2005-2006 school year the district had 314 schools and served over two hundred and ten thousand students.

As Harry Potter and his friends ride off into the literary sunset, a young girl and a vampire in love have set off a new round of parties and eagerly anticipated books and movies.

“Twilight,” a movie based on the novel by Stephenie Myers, opens Friday in local theaters. The tale of teenage girl Bella and Edward, the handsome vampire who loves her, has found a wide audience beyond the young adult category. Local libraries have long waiting lists of readers who want to borrow the four book series.

“We had three copies of each of them, and I just bought a fourth copy because the waiting list was so long,” said Director Connie Shumate of the Princeton (WV) Public Library. “I don’t think even Harry Potter matched this. Harry Potter was basically young adult reading, but this is everybody. This is all age groups.”

Ryan Naraine notes at ZDNet's Zero Day blog that Adobe is pushing out security updates for AIR, the Adobe Internet Runtime. AIR technology undergirds programs such as Twhirl, Spaz, and more that might be involved in alternative library outreach online.

This article states, "Members include teachers, librarians, solicitors, nurses and linguists," plus people from many other categories of occupations. More here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087101/Radio-DJ-fired-BNP-teachers-police-lawyers-e...

The British National Party in UK, according to Wiki's s description, "is a far-right and whites only political party in the United Kingdom...The BNP asserts that there are biological racial differences that determine the behaviour and character of individuals of different races, although it does not regard whites as superior to other ethnic groups. The party claims that preference for one's own ethnicity is a part of human nature. Its publicity has often conflated Islam with Marxism, due to both systems aiming to put all the world's people under a common system, and has suggested that mainstream politicians with Marxist pasts are partially responsible for this. Historically, under John Tyndall's leadership, the BNP was overtly anti-Semitic; however, under the current leadership of Nick Griffin, the BNP has focused on criticism of Islam." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party

New book about novelist V. S. Naipaul : THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS,
The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul, By Patrick French,
Illustrated. 554 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $30.

According to the review in the New York Times, it’s a handsome volume, jacketed in silver and black, with a disarming cover photograph of Mr. Naipaul stooping, with a gap-toothed grin, to tie a loose shoelace. Reviewer Dwight Garner says author French is "a relative rarity among biographers, a real writer, and at his best he sounds like a combination of that wily bohemian Geoff Dyer and that wittily matter-of-factual cyborg Michael Kinsley. Even the cameos in Mr. French’s biography are crazily vivid. Here is his hole-in-one description of the editor Francis Wyndham: “Popular, gentle, solitary and eccentric, Wyndham lived with his mother, wore heavy glasses and high-waisted trousers, gave off random murmurs and squeaks and moved with an amphibian gate.”

Looking to save wherever he can in a tough economy, Paul Otto scooped up bargains the other day at his local library.
"When you can get the same movies for free, why would you go out and pay for it?" asked a savvy Otto, who thumbed through the rows of DVDs a Pasadena Public Library.

And he's not alone. Movie fans increasingly are combing their local libraries' selections of DVDs and videos available to check out for free - a cheaper option to buying them or spending $3 and up to rent them from the local video store.

Full story here.

Time to do the 'Director Job Shuffle' dance.

Seattle PI: A search committee on Tuesday, announced three finalists for the top position of the Seattle Public Library.

The committee, appointed by the library's board of trustees, narrowed the field for the position of city librarian/CEO to the following: Susan Hildreth, the state librarian of California; Jane E. Light, director of the San Jose (Calif.) Public Library; and Rivkah K. Sass, executive director of the Omaha (Neb.) Public Library.

Running this state of the art library system will not only take an extraordinary director and librarian, it will require someone who can handle all the many needs of the $290.7 million "Libraries for All" project. In the past ten years, there have been four new libraries in communities without library service, the replacement, expansion or renovation of 22 existing branches, and of course the new Central Library.

Who would be your pick?

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science will receive more than $1.1 million for student scholarships.

Jane Iris Crutchfield, who died at the age of 92 on Dec. 10, 2006, was a lifelong teacher and school librarian. She taught at public schools in Virginia before returning to UNC in the 1950s to earn a bachelor’s degree in library science.

Crutchfield’s gift will go to the library science school’s Susan Grey Akers Scholarship Fund, named after a former dean at the school. That endowment fund gives aid to students who are admitted to the school’s master’s program. It’s the largest gift ever given to the library science school. Bizjournals.

Guess we're not through with her yet...Sarah Palin that is.

According to Tony Allen-Mills in London's Times Online, but she “may yet emerge as the savior of the American publishing industry.” Literary agents are lining up to sign the former Republican vice-presidential candidate to a book deal that could earn her $7 million, and sales should justify the price.

Not bad for a “small-town Alaska girl turned beauty queen,” said the blog OhMyGov!. It’s too soon to know whether Palin is paving the way for a run for national office in 2012, or simply “defending herself from being labeled an intellectually weak, shop-a-holic, ticket-spoiling, loose cannon.” But one thing’s for sure—she’ll soon have enough money “to keep her living large in ‘real’ America for life.”

Article in the NY Times about research into how (motion picture) stories have been told, are being told and will be told in the future.

In league with a handful of former Hollywood executives, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory plans to do something about that on Tuesday, with the creation of a new Center for Future Storytelling.

The center is envisioned as a “labette,” a little laboratory, that will examine whether the old way of telling stories — particularly those delivered to the millions on screen, with a beginning, a middle and an end — is in serious trouble.

Press release from MIT includes the philosophy of the project: "Storytelling is at the very root of what makes us uniquely human," said Frank Moss, Media Lab director and holder of the Jerome Wiesner Professorship of Media Arts and Sciences. "It is how we share our experiences, learn from our past, and imagine our future. But how we tell our stories depends on another uniquely human characteristic -- our ability to invent and harness technology. From the printing press to the Internet, technology has given people new ways to tell their stories, allowing them to reach new levels of creativity and personal fulfillment. The shared vision of the MIT Media Lab and Plymouth Rock Studios allows us to take the next quantum leap in storytelling, empowering ordinary people to connect in extraordinary ways."

Part of the "Three Book" series on NPR:
Awkward over hors d'oeuvres? A mess with martinis? Knowing what to say at a cocktail party can be overwhelming — but these three books will have you culturally informed in no time. Story at NPR.

Synopsis: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the craft of elevating websites or individual website pages to higher rankings on search engines through programming, marketing, or content acumen. This article covers the origins of SEO, strategies and tactics, history and trends, and the evolution of user behavior in online searching.

Some students at Lower Cape May Regional High School (LCMR) are picking up a new hobby and saving lives. The NJ school’s knitting club kicked off this fall when Art Teacher Susan Wolfe and Librarian Tish Carpinelli invited skilled and novice knitters to the library to learn about and improve their knitting skills while making caps that can help save the lives of babies in the developing world.

Simple health measure are the key to saving many of these children: antibiotics to fight infections, training for skilled birth attendants, immunizations, on education on breastfeeding and basic care such as drying a newborn baby and keeping it warm. (That’s where the hats come in.) The program is Save the Children's Knit One Save One.

The program has attracted knitters from around the world, including high profile knitters like actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Debra Messing and about two dozens LCMR students. Just a few students showed up for the first meeting, but the excitement spread (fueled by Wolfe’s homemade cookies), and more students are participating every week. Story from Cape May County Herald. Sounds like a great activity!

Lakewood NJ: The Board of Education has agreed to pay $32,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by the widow of a former librarian whom she said died partly because of harassment from his co-workers and superiors.

Cheryl A. Watson, in her complaint filed with the state Superior Court in April 2007, claimed Assistant Superintendent Joseph C. Attardi, Assistant Principal Anne D. Luick, teacher and librarian Roz Renner, and other school officials discriminated against her late husband, George Watson Jr., because of his race and disabilities.

Here is his 2005 obituary.

The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) announced that 237 out if the 1,003 examinees passed Philippines Librarian Licensure Examination given this November 2008. More details from ABS and Philippines Star.

Any LISNews readers take the exam? Wondering if that would that be considered a good percentage?

As a heads-up to listeners, it should be noted that LISTen #49 will be posted on a slight delay. The podcast rarely has to wait out an embargo. In this case we will do so.

LISTen #49 will have in it a special chat with actress and web entrepreneur Felicia Day. This is as announced verbally at the close of LISTen #48. You did listen to that shorter than usual episode, right?

As such, LISTen #49 will be posted at 0800 UTC on November 24th. You can find what that means in your own local time by visiting this link.

A special feature may post at the normal audio posting time. This remains tentative as some factors remain in play.

GALVESTON, Texas — A Hurricane Ike-damaged library wants to share stories of Galveston residents who rode out the storm on the island and those who fled.

From The Houston Chronicle: The Rosenberg Library is seeking personal accounts of the hurricane, which hit Galveston on Sept. 13, as part of its historical project "Memories of Ike."

The library, on its Web site, says recording Hurricane Ike from the viewpoint of the everyday citizen offers a chance to understand the disaster from the "ground up."

The Rosenberg Library also welcomes personal accounts of those who evacuated, with the written information eventually being made available to researchers and authors. The library itself is an Ike survival story, after the storm surge swamped the first floor and destroyed some building internal systems.