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Mesa board cuts librarians
“It’s not over. We’re going to continue to do what we can both in Mesa and in Arizona,” Fund Our Future Arizona spokesperson Ann Ewbank told American Libraries June 27, three days after the Mesa Public School board implemented as part of its FY2008–09 budget the replacement over three years of every school library media specialist in the district with library aides. Other Arizona school systems now eyeing the cost of school library programs are the Humboldt Unified School District in Prescott Valley and the Glendale Elementary School District....

Bay County director hired after two-year hiatus
After two years without a director, Bay County (Mich.) Library System has appointed Thomas H. Birch Jr. to the position, effective July 21. Birch’s appointment comes some six months after voters approved an operating-millage renewal that was 2/10ths of a mill less than two 1-mill levies that were defeated in 2006. “We’re feeling very good about moving ahead on a whole variety of things,” board Chairman Don Carlyon told American Libraries....

OCLC: National marketing campaign could hike funding
From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America, a new report issued by OCLC, examines the potential of a national marketing campaign to increase awareness of the value of public libraries and the need for support for libraries at local, state, and national levels. With funding from a $1.2-million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, OCLC partnered with the research and advertising agency Leo Burnett to conduct the research....

ALA Annual Conference draws 22,000 to Anaheim
Sunny California skies and the dazzle of Disneyland greeted some 22,000 librarians and library lovers in Anaheim for the ALA 2008 Annual Conference and Exhibition. Commencing June 26 and running through July 2, the conference kicked off with an opening session featuring political pundit Ron Reagan, son of late President Ronald Reagan, who brought the crowd to its feet with stinging observations about “what’s going on in Washington.” (Detailed conference news will appear in a special post-conference issue of AL Direct on July 7.)...

ALA receives $1 million gaming grant from Verizon
ALA will launch an innovative project to measure the impact of gaming on literacy skills and build a model for library gaming that can be deployed nationally. Funding for the project will be provided by a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation. ALA will work directly with 12 leading gaming experts to document the use of gaming as a literacy tool and monitor the results of gaming initiatives. The information will be used to build The Librarians’ Guide to Gaming, a comprehensive, online, literacy and gaming toolbox which will then be field-tested by additional libraries....

The ALA Library in Second Life
ALA Library Reference Specialist Valerie Hawkins writes: “A new development in my reference duties has been appearing in and responding to questions while in the Second Life virtual world, specifically on ALA Island, in the Member Lounge, as the avatar, ALALIbraryVal Miles. My virtual self has already conducted an in-world book talk (discussing the various books available that teach and instruct about living and thriving in Second Life) and created an in-world scavenger hunt (directing avatars to some of the more interesting locations and destinations in Second Life).”...
ALA Marginalia, June 28

AASL honors retiring SLMR editor
AASL honored the retirement of Daniel Callison as editor of its refereed research journal, School Library Media Research, during the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. Callison served as journal editor from 1997 to 2007. Callison is professor and dean in the School of Continuing Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he has worked since 1979....

Second AASL longitudinal survey results due in August
AASL is expecting final results in August of the second in a series of longitudinal surveys providing data on the health of the nation’s school library media programs. The findings from the studies will be used to advocate for school library media programs at the local, state and national level. This year’s survey focused on the use of social networking tools by school library media specialists and their teacher collaborators in elementary and secondary schools....

2008 Diversity Research Grants
The ALA Office for Diversity has announced the recipients of the Diversity Research Grants for 2008. The grants consist of a one-time $2,000 annual award for original research on a topic involving diversity and a $500 travel grant to attend and present at the ALA Annual Conference. The winners are John Pruitt (University of Wisconsin-Rock County), Jamie Campbell Naidoo (right, University of Alabama SLIS), and Eun-Young Yoo (North Carolina Central University SLIS)....

Eglin AFB wins library of the year
Air Force officials announced June 12 that Eglin Base Library in Valparaiso, Florida, was the winner of the Air Force Library of the Year award. The library was recognized for its outstanding customer focus and satisfaction by hosting authors and creating 25 educational summer reading programs for all ages which efforts logged approximately 1,000 participants in just three months....
Air Force Link, June 26

OCLC Minority Librarian Fellowship
OCLC has announced a new OCLC Minority Librarian Fellowship program designed to provide a unique opportunity for aspiring library professionals from historically underrepresented groups. The 12-month program offers the selected Fellow two 90-day assignments within specific divisions of OCLC, and one six-month assignment with a specific operating unit within the OCLC organization. Applications will be accepted between July 15 and August 29....
OCLC, June 30

2008 Kansas Notable Books
The Kansas Center for the Book at the State Library in Topeka released the 2008 Kansas Notable Books list June 22. The list includes 15 fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books that are considered to be the best books published by Kansas authors or about Kansas in the preceding year. The authors will be honored at an evening reception at the Reading Festival in Lawrence on September 27....
Kansas Center for the Book, June 22

Georgia State: Online course reserves are fair use
In a closely watched copyright-infringement lawsuit, Georgia State University fired back at its accusers, three academic publishers who say the institution invites students to illegally download and print readings from thousands of works. The university asserts that its online distribution of course material is permitted under copyright law’s fair-use exemption. Georgia State made its case in papers filed June 24 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta....
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 27

Tiffany Dome restored in old Chicago Public Library building
In 1897, the world’s largest Tiffany Glass Dome was installed in the Chicago Public Library (now the Chicago Cultural Center) to rave architectural reviews. But the passage of time and some bad renovations damaged much of the dome’s beauty—until now. The 111-year-old dome has undergone seven months of restoration, and has returned to its original glory. Watch the newscast....
WLS-TV, Chicago, June 30

Judge throws out Indiana harmful-to-minors law
A federal court struck down a law July 1 that would have required sellers of sexually explicit materials to register with the state, marking a victory for retailers and First Amendment advocates. U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ruled that House Enrolled Act 1042, passed by the Indiana General Assembly earlier this year, burdens First Amendment rights and is unconstitutionally vague and overly broad. The law would have taken effect July 1....
Indianapolis Star, July 1

Residents protest Hartford branch closings
A neighborhood group demonstrated June 30 outside the Mark Twain branch of the Hartford (Conn.) Public Library and held a read-in July 1 to protest a budget-cutting proposal to shut it down. The closure of the Mark Twain and Blue Hills branches has been recommended by the library board to save a good chunk of the $870,000 gap looming in the library’s $8.2-million budget for 2008–09. The plan also calls for laying off 40 full- and part-time employees....
Hartford (Conn.) Courant, July 2

Hennepin County mulls staff reductions
The Hennepin County (Minn.) Library is looking at cutting about 50 positions from its staff of more than 700 in order to swallow higher-than-expected costs it disclosed recently. According to preliminary data given to the library board, budget staffers have identified 46–51 positions that could be cut in 2009. Because some employees work part-time, those possible cuts could affect more than that number of people....
Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 28

ICANN expands internet domain rules
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers voted June 26 to relax rules for naming websites. At its meeting in Paris, ICANN voted to accept a proposal that will allow companies to purchase new top-level domain names ending in whatever they like. In an effort to deter cybersquatters, ICANN will charge a hefty price for the new names. The group also voted to open public comment on a proposal that would allow countries to use non-English script....
C|Net News blog, June 27

All-purpose D.C. card works for District libraries
The District of Columbia is rolling out an ambitious identification program this summer in what it calls a first-of-its-kind effort by a major U.S. city to unify services on one ID card. With the One Card, library accounts, public school attendance, recreation-center use, and other services will be tracked on a single piece of plastic. Over the next three months, public libraries will begin issuing the card....
Washington Post, June 27

Athens County branch collection damaged by smoke
The entire collection of books, periodicals, films, recorded music, and audio cassettes belonging to the Wells branch of the Athens County (Ohio) Public Library in Albany has been subjected to some degree of damage as a result of a June 14 fire caused by a firecracker tossed into the book-return slot. Four teens have been charged with the juvenile equivalent of felony vandalism....
Athens (Ohio) Messenger, June 17, 19

Sad tales fill soaked libraries
Two tales emerge in the saga of Iowa’s libraries and the floods. In one story, the majority of facilities escape the murky water that hit about two weeks ago and become important information hubs, where residents can go online and apply for aid, send emails, or use maps to traverse around closed roads. The other account details the harrowing losses of a handful of libraries smacked by the surging waters, including in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second-largest city....
Des Moines (Iowa) Register, June 25

Most-kissed pig visits Lehi
The world’s most-kissed pig made an appearance at the Lehi (Utah) Public Library June 28, to the delight of dozens of children and librarians. At 14 years old, Daisy Minor has accomplished a lot for a pig. She’s been on national television many times, been featured in dozens of newspapers, and is on her third national tour of libraries, helping kids get excited about reading. She even sports a huge collection of library cards, made out in her name, from libraries across the country....
Provo (Utah) Daily Herald, June 29

Solar off-site storage at Williams College
Before Williams College opens its new library in 2011, it will open an off-campus, high-security, high-density, solar-powered, heavily computerized library storage facility in Williamstown, Massachusetts. On the roof will be 96 photovoltaic panels, which will generate roughly 30,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. The facility will help the college achieve its greenhouse gas reduction target of 10% below 1990 levels by the year 2020....
North Adams (Mass.) Transcript, June 30

Wiegand seeks public library stories
Florida State University LIS and American Studies Professor Wayne Wiegand is using five libraries, including the Morris Area (Ill.) Public Library (right), as the basis for research on the role the public library plays in a small community. The number of people who use public libraries and the number of books checked out has increased every year but one for the past 15 years, Wiegand said. He has found that small-town libraries have always played an important role in their communities....
Morris (Ill.) Daily Herald, June 13

Loriene Roy offers reading tips for Gay Pride Month
In recognition of Gay Pride Month, ALA President Loriene Roy offered National Public Radio listeners some tips on books that highlight the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender experience. One is Mississippi Sissy, in which Kevin Sessums brings the American South of the 1960s and the experiences of a strange little Mississippi boy to life....
National Public Radio, June 26

PASCAL funding slashed
Colleges and universities across South Carolina next year will have to foot the bill for library services that previously were paid for by the state. Funding for PASCAL—Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries—was slashed about 90%, from about $2 million to around $200,000 for the 2008–2009 school year....
Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald, June 29

Montana library is sinking
Residents in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, are on the move to replace their sinking library. A Fourth of July Fun Run is planned, with event proceeds going toward replacing the Meagher County/City Library, where one-third of the building has been condemned because of a sinking foundation. Unknowingly built over underground springs and unstable soil in the late 1970s, the library building first housed an accounting firm. The theme of the run is “Let’s Race to Save This Place.”...
Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune, June 26

UC Riverside Music Library dries out
Students and staff have been working feverishly to restore 800 CDs and 120 musical scores damaged last week when a water pipe burst and flooded the basement of the University of California, Riverside’s Arts Building where the Music Library is located. University Librarian Ruth Jackson said the damage would have been much worse if Music Librarian Caitlin St. John hadn’t moved most of the materials off the lower shelves last summer....
Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise, June 30

Antique lightbulbs found in Iowa library
Will Thomson, a facilities consultant working on transforming the old 1898 Burlington (Iowa) Public Library building into a new museum for the Des Moines County Historical Society, discovered some hidden treasures there recently. He found two functional Thompson-Houston lightbulbs made before 1906. Thomson cleaned the old library bulbs and built a fixture and transformer to accommodate them, and there are plans to put them on display at the new museum....
Burlington (Iowa) Hawk Eye, June 30

British private eyes detect overdue books
A Norfolk County (U.K.) council has admitted using private detectives to try to track down people with unpaid bills for overdue library books. After local authorities were blasted for using antiterrorism powers to spy on people for trivial offences, the council admitted it had spent £9,190 ($18,350 U.S.) to pay detectives to recover overdue library books, DVDs, and CDs. Officials claimed they had recovered hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of library items....
Norwich (U.K.) Evening News, July 1

Recharge your gadgets without electricity
Some new alternative recharging ideas: For USB devices try the hand-cranked Super Battery. Go solar with a 58″-long waterproof solar roll (right), which recharges anything electronic. Try a personal wind turbine that can hook up to various devices when you are on the go. And put more human power into recharging by using the Weza Foot Powered Energy Source....
Going Green @ your library, June 27

Flash files are now searchable
For most people on the Web, if Google or Yahoo cannot find something, it doesn’t exist. That has been one of the biggest drawbacks to creating a website or application that displays itself as a Flash (SWF) file. Search engines could see the file, but they could not see what was in it. Until now. Adobe has teamed up with Google and Yahoo to devise a way for the search engines to read Flash files and index all of the information they contain....
Washington Post, July 1

Alternative browsers: Why use only one?
Samuel Dean writes: “When it comes to browsers, most web workers rely on the usual suspects: Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Opera. There are many alternative browsers, though, and some of them are useful for targeted types of tasks. Here are six examples that I like. For example, Flock is an extremely popular browser for people who do social networking.”...
Web Worker Daily, June 27

Thoughts on EBSCOhost 2.0
Michelle Kraft has been testing the EBSCOhost 2.0 interface, scheduled to go live this month, by running searches in the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature: “I like the overall look and feel of the new EBSCOhost 2.0. I think the display is cleaner and easier to navigate. I especially like hovering to view the abstract and the fact that bookmarking is easier.”...
The Krafty Librarian, June 30

Readex to create world newspaper archive
Digital publisher Readex and the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago announced June 26 that they will create the world’s largest, fully searchable digital archive of international newspapers. The resource will first offer Latin American newspapers published between 1805 and 1922 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and other countries. Further series will focus on historical newspapers published in Africa and South Asia....
Readex, June 26

Collecting travel guides
Scott Brown writes: “When Karl Baedeker published his first guidebook in 1832, Europe was finally at peace after the Napoleonic Wars, steam power was revolutionizing travel, and a new and prosperous middle-class had risen in both Europe and America. Travel quickly became their obsession. All early guides are pursued by collectors and, unlike most collecting genres, later editions are as popular as the first editions. Travel guides should not be confused with travel narratives, which were popular with armchair adventurers.”...
AbeBooks

Changing lives through literature
Kerri Price writes: “Have you ever read a novel that has impacted your life in a profound and meaningful way, or made you feel as though you’re not alone? Literature has the power to transform lives. This is the driving philosophy behind Changing Lives through Literature, an award-winning alternative sentencing program that has grown from one chapter in Massachusetts in the fall of 1991, to roughly 20 chapters across the United States and England today.”...
I Love Libraries, June 30

New jobs: Subject experts need not apply
Todd Gilman writes: “Many recent job postings for humanities librarians, reference librarians, or those specializing in research education do not list subject expertise as a requirement. In place of subject expertise, those job postings require relevant library experience (variously defined) and, more often than not, technology skills, neither of which, to my mind, makes up for a lack of advanced education in a particular discipline. In a number of recent hires, Ph.D.’s and M.A.’s have been passed over in favor of candidates straight out of library school whose only previous degree was a bachelor’s.”...
Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1

Copyright Office issues Section 109 report
After more than a year of intensive study, the U.S. Copyright Office issued its report July 1 on whether to maintain, modify, or eliminate Sections 111, 119, and 122 of the Copyright Act. It will serve as the basis for discussion for possible changes to the statutory licenses. An electronic version of the report is available on the Copyright Office website....
Library of Congress, July 1

Doctor Who: Silence in the Library
Travis Fickett writes: “The premise of this May 31 Season 4 episode of Doctor Who is simple: The Doctor and Donna arrive in the 51st century in a planet-sized library infested with an invisible killer that is attacking a group of explorers led by an archaeologist who knows (and possibly loves) the Doctor from his own future. The library-world is comprised of all the knowledge in the universe—and not just in computers—but in books. Good old-fashioned ink and paper.”...
IGN Entertainment, June 23; Wikipedia

Book drive for Iraq
Christopher Hitchens writes: “In the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, the American University of Iraq has just opened its doors, and it is appealing for people to donate books. The U.S. Congress has pledged more than $10 million to the project, as has the Kurdish Regional Government. Thomas Cushman, professor of sociology at Wellesley College, tells me that the American University attaches special importance to the establishment of a library in English.”...
Slate, June 30

10 suggestions for summer book groups
When vacations, families, and the great outdoors call, book groups can quickly take a back seat. Here are 10 ideas to help your group avoid doldrums and dog days....
Book Group Buzz, June 25

Onondaga County library charts its history
Patrons can browse the history of the Onondaga County Public Library in Syracuse, New York, by using a timeline that evolved from a presentation on the history of the library for staff development day. The timeline begins in the 1840s with a bookcase for the public in Salina Town Hall (right). Photographs are linked to images on OnPix, an ongoing digitization project of the Local History Department....
Onondaga County (N.Y.) Public Library, July 1

How Google used librarians
Steven M. Cohen writes: “Exactly one year ago today (June 29), the Google Librarian Central blog was last updated. The last Google Librarian Newsletter was in May 2007. So why all the fanfare in 2006–2007 about loving librarians? The answer: Books. Google realized that in order to index the world’s data, they needed access to the billions of books held in libraries throughout the world. So their marketing department (those sly dogs) decided to buddy up with ALA and the entire library community to gain access to these print treasures so that they can scan and index them.”...
Library Stuff, June 29

All a Twitter: Want to try microblogging?
Ellyssa Kroski writes: “While sitting before a presentation at a recent library conference, I was able to broadcast my whereabouts, my mood, and my desire to connect with friends for dinner to over 150 conference attendees simultaneously, using my mobile phone. I managed this feat of hyperconnectivity through a service called Twitter, which enables social butterflies like myself to instantly publish brief messages to a network of contacts.”...
School Library Journal, July 1

13 FriendFeed tools for Twitter refugees
Calley Nye writes: “There has been much talk of Twitter users moving over to FriendFeed since Twitter replies were down for the majority of last week. Twitter announced that they were back June 28, but seeing as the outage may have inspired some users to flock to FriendFeed, I decided to take a look at the third-party applications and scripts that enhance the FriendFeed functionality. For those of you moving on to FriendFeed’s greener pastures, here are 13 essential tools for an organized, noise-free experience.”...
TechCrunch, June 30; Twitter Blog, June 29

Get out the vote, 1972
The University of South Florida Tampa Library’s Special Collections Department put together a video podcast (8:30) featuring documents from the 1970s and set them to music using an old 45-rpm record (complete with PSAs) created by the Mason Proffit country-rock band as an effort to get out the vote in 1972—shortly after 18-year-olds were enfranchised. USF Tampa Special Collections Assistant Librarian Andrew Huse mined the ephemera in the library’s collection of the papers of U.S. Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.) to supplement the music....
YouTube, June 9

Where the hell is Matt?
Cory Doctorow writes: “Matthew Harding spent 14 months visiting 42 countries in order to produce ‘Where the Hell is Matt?’, a video (4:29) featuring Harding (and anyone else he could rope into it) doing an incredibly silly, high-energy dance in some of the most breathtaking scenery around the world. This may be the best four minutes and 29 seconds of your week.” It has absolutely nothing to do with libraries, but it’s incredibly infectious. (The high-resolution version is preferred, if you have the bandwidth.)...
Boing Boing, July 1; Vimeo, June 20

For news of ALA Annual Conference, see AL Direct’s special post-conference issue, to be emailed Monday, July 7.