September
6, 2006
AL Direct is a free electronic newsletter e-mailed
every Wednesday to personal members of the American
Library Association.
Contents:
U.S. & World News
ALA News
Booklist Online
Division News
Awards
Seen Online
Actions & Answers
Poll
Datebook
AL Direct
FAQ
Second
Cuba book banned in Miami-Dade
For the second time in as many months, a picture book about life in Cuba
has been banned by the Miami–Dade County (Fla.) Public Schools. A
reconsideration committee voted in mid-August to remove Cuban Kids
by George Ancona from the media center at the Christina Eve Elementary
School....
Google
Book Search offers downloadable public domain books
Search engine company Google launched a service August 30 that allows
users of Google Book Search to download complete copies of books that
are out of copyright. Google scanned the originals from the collections
of its library partners—the university libraries at Harvard, Stanford,
Oxford, Michigan, and California, as well as the New York Public Library....
More
early Bach manuscripts turn up in Germany
Researchers from the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig, Germany, have uncovered what
may be the earliest known handwritten manuscripts ever inked by composer
Johann Sebastian Bach. The two documents, transcriptions of organ music
composed by Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adam Reinken, were discovered
in the archives of the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, where a previously
unknown Bach aria turned up in 2005....
California
passes bill to safeguard RFID privacy
The California Senate has passed legislation to ensure that any official
use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in state drivers’
licenses and library cards must contain privacy safeguards. The Identity
Information Protection Act (SB 768), which passed August 30 by a 30–7
vote, was introduced by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) and will go to
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for signing before the end of September....
Civil
War records stolen from library exhibit
A thief took two Civil War documents from a sealed case at the main branch
of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,
the weekend of August 26. The items, a handwritten furlough for a Confederate
soldier and a certificate of medical examination for a slave, had a combined
value of about $400....
Graphic
novels: Suggestions for librarians
ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has prepared a downloadable
PDF
booklet (with artwork by Sergio Aragonés), in conjunction with
the National
Coalition Against Censorship and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund,
that offers tips on how to develop a graphic novel collection, ways to
deal with challenges in libraries, and where to shelve them....
Free
to members: “Messaging and Talking with Congress” online course
Designed for both veteran library advocates and those who are new to Capitol
Hill, the three-part online course “Messaging and Talking with Congress:
An Interactive Workshop” will help library supporters build or hone
effective messages and successfully communicate library needs to Congress.
The ALA Washington Office is making this course, led by popular Advocacy
Guru Stephanie Vance of AdVanced Consulting, available free to ALA members....
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ALSC
to sponsor an Emerging Leader
ALSC has announced its support of the Emerging Leaders 2007 initiative.
The division will provide stipends of $500 per conference to one selected
applicant to attend the Emerging Leaders curriculum designed by ALA President
Leslie Burger....
American
Indian Youth Literature Award winners announced
The American Indian Library Association has announced the recipients of
its American Indian Youth Literature Award, a new literary award created
to identify and honor the best writing and illustrations by and about
American Indians. The winner in the picture-book category is Beaver
Steals Fire: A Salish Coyote Story (University of Nebraska, 2005)
by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, illustrated by Sam Sandoval....
Call
for nominations for 2007 ASCLA awards
The purpose of ASCLA awards is to recognize outstanding achievement in
networking, enrichment, and educational opportunities, and service by
library agencies, libraries serving special populations, multitype library
organizations, and independent librarians. The deadline is December 15....
Nominations
for 2007 RUSA awards
RUSA is seeking nominations for its 17 awards in 2007. The division is
interested in learning about innovative and outstanding achievements in
the field of reference and adult services librarianship. The deadline
for most is December 15....
2007
ALCTS awards await nominees
Nominations are being accepted for the 2007 ALCTS awards. ALCTS presents
10 awards to honor individuals whose work represents the finest achievements
in research, collaboration, creative work, leadership, and service in
the field of library collections and technical services. December 1 is
the deadline....
MLA
now coordinating Minnesota Book Awards
The Minnesota Library Association is the new coordinator of the Minnesota
Book Awards, according to MLA Executive Director Barbara Vaughan. The
program’s future was in doubt late in August, when the Minnesota
Humanities Commission announced it could no longer administer the 18-year-old
book awards, which honor the state’s writers, illustrators, and publishers....
St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press,
Sept. 1
Do
the crime, serve the time in the library
Reading your way out of trouble is possible in Duncanville, Texas, where
teens are sentenced to the public library to undergo a literature-based
program sponsored by ALA’s Great
Stories CLUB. Teens hoping to keep their records clean after minor
offenses are referred by the Duncanville Teen Court as part of a sentence
that includes community service, educational classes, counseling, and
teen court jury service....
Dallas Morning News, Sept.
1
Plans
for San Diego Public Library are in trouble
Despite nearly two years of fundraising, a lack of money is threatening
plans for a landmark downtown San Diego library and putting a state grant
in jeopardy. There is even talk of paving over the undeveloped site for
a parking lot....
San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune,
Sept. 2
Rutgers
budget cuts will affect library service
In light of unprecedented, across-the-board budget cuts and an $80-million
shortfall, library services at Rutgers University have been sideswiped.
The New Jersey Reading Room will now close Mondays, restricting access
to the state’s most comprehensive collection of New Jersey primary-source
materials, while total library hours on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campuses
will be reduced by 109 hours per week this fall....
East Brunswick (N.J.) Home News Tribune,
Sept. 5
Phoenix
College librarian holds all the cards
Some people collect shot glasses, matchbooks, or baseball cards, but not
Carla Smith of Tempe, Arizona. The Phoenix College reference librarian
has an impressive collection of library cards from around the world, from
Äänekoski, Finland, to Yuma, Arizona. With national Library
Card Sign-Up Month starting this week, ALA encourages people to obtain
just one card each....
Arizona Republic (Phoenix),
Aug. 31
The
gloves are off in academia
White gloves are worn in many American research libraries to handle rare
books and documents, but Randy Silverman, a preservation librarian at
the University of Utah with 26 years’ experience in book conservation,
has launched a quiet campaign to “stop the white glove.” He
and a colleague, conservation consultant Cathleen A. Baker, have published
a paper, Misperceptions about White Gloves (PDF
file), in which they call for the wearing of gloves to be replaced
with a policy of people simply washing their hands....
The Guardian (UK), Sept. 4
Signage
will help in Seattle’s downtown library
For all the architectural artistry of Rem Koolhaas’s downtown Seattle
library, there was just one little problem with the building: People kept
getting lost inside. So the Seattle Public Library hired Lynne Faulk this
year to help book borrowers and tourists navigate the $170-million library,
which features fluorescent, chartreuse escalators, but not many signs....
Seattle (Wash.) Post-Intelligencer,
Sept. 5
Police
suspect arson in West Virginia library fire
Beckley police are awaiting word on the damage caused by an arsonist who
struck the Raleigh County (W.Va.) Public Library on North Kanawha Street
early in the morning of September 5. Beckley Police Detective Cpl. Sam
McClure said firefighters and police discovered an accelerant had been
doused throughout the building....
Beckley (W.Va.) Register-Herald,
Sept. 6
MU
journalism library battles moldy mess
The University of Missouri journalism library in Columbia is closed for
at least the next few weeks due to the discovery of an undisclosed number
of moldy books. Library officials said that the mold is due to the combination
of a broken air conditioner and recent hot temperatures and high humidity....
The Missourian, Aug. 31
Des
Plaines library connects with Mexican biblioteca
Through its recent connection with the Biblioteca Benjamín Franklin
of the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico, the Des Plaines (Ill.) Public
Library hopes to promote the exchange of ideas among librarians and learn
more about issues facing public libraries of both countries. Mutual visits
have been the highlights....
Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald,
Sept. 2
Google
debuts 200-year news archive search
News and history junkies take heart: Google’s new News Archive Search
lets you search back over 20 decades worth of historical content, including
scads of articles not previously available via the search engine. Google
has partnered with news organizations including Time, the Wall
Street Journal, the New York Times, the Guardian, and
the Washington Post, and aggregators including Factiva, LexisNexis,
Thomson Gale, and HighBeam Research, to index full-text content going
back 200 years....
Search Engine Watch, Sept. 6
Library
2.0: Service for the next-generation library
Michael E. Casey and Laura C. Savastinuk spell out how this new model
of library service will revitalize the way we serve and interact with
our customers. Library 2.0 encourages constant and purposeful change,
inviting user participation in the creation of both the physical and the
virtual services users want, supported by consistent and frequent evaluation....
Library Journal 131, no. 14
(Sept. 1)
OhioLINK
offers advice on open access
There is no guarantee that Ohio residents will have access to research
produced by the state’s own scholars as the costs and quantity of
scholarly journals keep rising beyond the reach of Ohio higher education.
OhioLINK has released recommendations (PDF
file) that will help authors and their institutions retain the right
to disseminate their works electronically, thereby assuring access to
Ohio research for the Ohio scholarly community and beyond....
OhioLINK, Aug. 30
How
NARA and the JFK Library recovered missing Kennedy materials
Kennedy Library Archivist James M. Roth describes how many pilfered historical
items—some taken by thieves, others possibly removed by Evelyn Lincoln,
former secretary to President John F. Kennedy—were returned to their
rightful place....
Prologue 38, no. 2 (Summer)
Packing
up a library (PDF file)
Education Director Robert Adler Peckerar relates his experiences retrieving
a large collection of Yiddish books from Montevideo, Uruguay, for the
National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts....
Pakn Treger, no. 51 (Summer
2006)
Salaries
of academic librarians in the West and Southwest (PDF
file)
The salaries of academic librarians, like many in the library field, are
affected by their position, the type of library they are working in, and
where their library is located. The data indicates that a majority of
academic librarians in the West and Southwest received annual salaries
lower than the national average. Most affected were librarians at four-year
colleges who received below national average salaries....
Fast Facts (Colorado Library
Research Service), Aug. 22
Celebrate
Hispanic Heritage Month
Each year from September 15 to October 15, the United States celebrates
Hispanic Heritage Month to recognize the economic, cultural, and social
contributions of the more than 41.3 million Latinos residing in the U.S.
The dates were selected to include the Independence Day celebrations of
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Chile,
and to incorporate October 12 (Día de la Raza), a holiday
celebrated in Mexico to observe the colonization, exploration, and multicultural
heritage of the Americas....
National Council of La Raza
International
Literacy Day
September 8, UNESCO’s International Literacy Day, is a timely reminder
to the world about the importance of literacy for individuals, families,
communities, and whole societies. This year’s theme, “Literacy
sustains development,” emphasizes that literacy is not only a positive
outcome of development processes, but also a lever of change and an instrument
for achieving further social progress....
UNESCO
Phishing
expeditions on the rise
Ipswitch, a leading developer of network management and file transfer
solutions, announced the results of its fifth Spamometer survey August
31, revealing that 70% of all email received is spam. The increase stems
from a massive rise in phishing emails—the inherently dangerous spam
messages that ask the recipient to supply personal information that can
lead to identity theft....
Ipswitch, Aug. 31
The
five types of content on library websites
David Lee King, Kansas City (Mo.) Public Library acting IT director, classifies
the types of content most often presented on library web pages....
David Lee King blog, Aug. 22
The
Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour
Stopping at 50 cities in 50 days, the Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour began
September 4 and ends October 27. Over 100 poets, along with musicians,
filmmakers, and journalists, are participating as the bus traverses North
America, bringing innovative poetry to big cities and small towns across
the U.S. and Canada....
Wave Books
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AASL will
hold its 13th National Conference October 25–28, 2007, in
Reno, Nevada. One way to seek permission and funding from your school
administrator to attend is to speak in a concurrent session or participate
in an Exploratorium presentation. What principal would turn down an opportunity
to place the school in the national spotlight? Find out how to submit
a proposal.
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The phrase library automation has many diverse meanings in the
literature of librarianship. This ALA
Library Fact Sheet offers a selection of print and web resources
on the issues to consider when moving from the card catalog to the computerized
catalog, upgrading from one present ILS to another, or considering virtual
reference services.
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