Contents
U.S. & World News
ALA News
AL Focus
Booklist Online
Anaheim Update
Division News
Round Table News
Awards
Seen Online
Tech Talk
Actions & Answers
Calendar

First Lady Laura Bush discusses plans with American Libraries
In an exclusive interview at the White House March 19, First Lady Laura Bush told American Libraries that she would definitely play a role in the establishment of her husband’s presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The first librarian ever to be First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Bush also talked about how her profession influenced her own initiatives and will continue to do so when President George W. Bush’s term ends next January 20. An American Libraries Focus videocast (21:52) as well as a transcript of the interview with Laura Bush are available on the AL website....

Memphis mayor announces closings of five library branches
Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton announced March 18 that the city will close five library branches for reasons of efficiency and economy. The closings, along with those of four community centers, will save an estimated $1.5–$2 million annually. The closings of the Cossit, Highland, Poplar-White Station, Gaston, and Levi branches were recommended in an efficiency study released last April....

Spokane moms win state funding for school libraries
The advocacy of three determined Spokane women has resulted in the first-ever state-level support for school libraries in the state of Washington. A compromise budget passed March 12 includes $4 million, which breaks down to $4.09 per student, for the 2008–09 academic year to maintain and improve library materials, collections, and services, Lisa Layera Brunkan of Fund Our Future Washington told American Libraries....

Polls open in ALA elections
The polls for the ALA 2008 elections opened March 17, with online voters receiving electronic ballot information between March 17 and 19, while paper ballot packages were mailed between March 17 and March 24. The last time for returning the ballots is April 24 at 11:59 p.m., Central time. Election results will be announced May 2. The 2008 ballot meets all applicable W3C accessibility standards and can be read by common screen readers for people with disabilities....

Serving non-English speakers in public libraries
A newly released ALA study provides information about library services and programs developed for non-English speakers, including effectiveness of services, barriers to library use, most frequently used services, and most successful library programs by language served. Some 78% of libraries reported Spanish as the priority #1 language for which they develop services and programs; Asian languages ranked second in priority at 29%. Find the full report (PDF file) online....

Tales from an Emerging Leader
Jessica Trujillo, an ALSC-sponsored 2008 Emerging Leader, writes: “When I was young, the term ‘leader’ sent chills down my spine; as a young adult, my mental picture of a leader was some guy with slicked-back hair in a power suit, wheeling and dealing—the kind of person who would put an old lady out on the street, in the cold, while it’s raining. But my ideas of leadership became more nuanced as I gained more life and career experience. So when I saw the advertisement for the Emerging Leaders Program, I thought this might be an opportunity to gain more skills at becoming an effective leader.”...
ALSC Blog, Mar. 21

National Library Week video: The reference desk
“How do you undo nerve gas?” “How do you make rope out of human hair?” “Would you mind checking out this rash?” These and other burning reference questions are answered in this National Library Week (April 13–19) homage (1:55) to the 7.2 million questions answered weekly by the nation’s public and academic librarians. Starring Chicago improv comic Shad Kunkle, and shot at lovely Morton College Library in Cicero, Illinois. The animated introduction is available as a separate video (0:21) that can be downloaded and incorporated into your own NLW productions....

Digital Anaheim
Browse through some 2,000 photos of historic Anaheim, California, in this digital collection hosted by the Anaheim Public Library. These unique local history resources have been organized for easy browsing by Anaheim residents, scholars, and history buffs throughout California and the world. The categories on this web page are based on the Anaheim City School District’s local history curriculum for third grade classes....
Anaheim (Calif.) Public Library

Shop and restaurant map (PDF file)
Use this map to find out what dining, car rental, and business facilities are located near the Convention Center and the Disneyland Resort. Note that the Tourism Information Center at 1500 S. Harbor Boulevard offers discount tickets and coupons....
Anaheim Convention Center

PLA National Conference in the news
Melissa Brechon, director of the Carver County (Minn.) Library System, appeared on KSAX-TV in Alexandria March 22 to discuss the role of technology and free internet access in public libraries. Brechon also referred to the PLA National Conference taking place this week in Minneapolis....
KSAX-TV, Mar. 22

Romance Readers Advisory at PLA
Michael May writes: “I thought I’d try something different for my first preconference session, so I attended Romance Readers Advisory 101. I sat in the back row with the other three guys. More than 64 million Americans read romance novels last year, and romance accounts for about 25% of all library circulation. Romance author Elizabeth Boyle summed it up nicely: ‘We need romance novels. Dreaming big makes you a better person. If we all believed in happy endings, the world would be a better place.’”...
PLA Blog, Mar. 26

PLA needs your data
The Public Library Data Service Survey for the 2008 statistical report is currently underway. Since its beginning in 1988, the PLDS reports have been used extensively by the press to understand the public library and its environment. If your library has not received information on completing this year’s survey, please contact Virgil Varvel. The deadline is April 9....
PLA Blog, Mar. 20

LITA offers three workshops in Anaheim
LITA is offering three full-day educational workshops on June 27 at ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. The topics are library-wide IT proficiency, datagrid technologies and libraries, and getting started with Drupal....

FOLUSA-ALTA author tea
Join Friends of Libraries USA and ALTA for this traditional author event featuring authors Jacqueline Winspear (right), Ron Carlson, Christopher Reich, and Rick Wartzman talking about their current and forthcoming books. A book signing will follow the program, with some books given away free and others available for purchase at a generous discount. Visit the FOLUSA site for other events....

College & Research Libraries preprints
ACRL is now offering preprint articles from College & Research Libraries online. The addition of preprint articles gives the C&RL editor the ability to release important research articles online prior to publication in the print journal. All preprint articles have been accepted for future publication in C&RL....
ACRL Insider, Mar. 21

IRRT international librarians orientation
The International Relations Round Table is hosting an orientation for overseas librarians coming to the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, June 27, 4:30–6:30 p.m. Attendees will be able to learn about conference transportation, the ALA Exhibit Hall, and the meanings of the many ALA acronyms. They can also meet mentors and representatives from ALA’s many divisions and round tables who will help them get the most from the conference experience....

LAMA seeks “Best of Show” entries
Give your outstanding public relations material the publicity it deserves by entering LAMA’s annual “Best of Show” awards competition. Sponsored by the Swap & Shop Committee of LAMA’s Public Relations and Marketing Section, the competition recognizes the very best in public relations materials produced by libraries during the previous calendar year....

Tom Wolfe to receive Carl Sandburg Award
Author and journalist Tom Wolfe has been selected to receive the 2008 Carl Sandburg Literary Award, presented annually by the Chicago Public Library Foundation and the Chicago Public Library in honor of a significant body of work that has enhanced public awareness of the written word. The award will be presented at an October 15 fundraising dinner at the Harold Washington Library Center....
Chicago Public Library, Feb. 26

Kids vote for Children’s Choice Book Awards
Since 1975, the Children’s Book Council and the International Reading Association have sponsored Children’s Choices, where publishers submit some 700 titles to be evaluated and voted on by 10,000 children throughout the school year. This year, CBC is opening the contest up to children across the country. Kids can cast their votes for favorite books, author, and illustrator at bookstores, school libraries, and online through May 4. Winners will be announced during Children’s Book Week, May 12–18....
Children’s Book Council

StoryTubes 2008 national contest
Kids across the United States in Grades 1–6 are invited to participate in a national contest. They can make a two-minute video about their favorite book, upload it to YouTube, go to the StoryTubes website, and submit a link to the uploaded video using the contest entry form before April 20. The four winners in each genre category will win $500 in books and select a school, library, or educational association to receive $1,000 in books....
StoryTubes

Warrants allege Sacramento Public Library scheme
Arrest warrants were issued March 25 against two former Sacramento (Calif.) Public Library officials and the wife of one of them on grand theft and bribery charges stemming from a lengthy corruption probe. The case involves “tens of thousands” of dollars in alleged kickbacks and $650,000 in taxpayer funds paid out in an overbilling scheme, court and investigative documents state. Sources said the arrest warrants name three people facing charges of grand theft and bribery: Dennis Nilsson, of Folsom, and Sacramento couple James Mayle and Janie Rankins-Mayle....
Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, Mar. 26

Judge allows queries on Clinton document release
One day after federal archivists released 11,000 pages of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s schedules during her time as first lady, a federal judge March 21 allowed a conservative group to question the National Archives about the process of dealing with requests for more documents. U.S. District Judge James Robertson authorized a lawyer for the conservative group Judicial Watch to question the archives about why it processes some requests before others. Judicial Watch is seeking Clinton’s telephone logs....
Los Angeles Times, Mar. 20

Middle school to keep challenged book
The book Alice on Her Way by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor will stay in the library at Icicle River Middle School in Leavenworth, Washington, but with checkout restricted to students who have parental consent, the Cascade school board unanimously decided March 24. The board accepted the recommendation of a six-person review committee, which said the book contains intense sexual content, but is also beneficial for some older middle-school students....
Wenatchee (Wash.) World, Mar. 25

Library, union upbeat on ending lockout
A sit-in at a library board meeting was averted March 25 only after the library’s chief executive officer assured outraged patrons that some progress is being made in a labor dispute that has shut all branches of the Greater Victoria (B.C.) Public Library. “Things are moving along,” CEO Barry Holmes told a group who wouldn’t leave a meeting at the Broughton Street branch when the board wanted to close the meeting to the public. The union and employer are expected to meet later this week....
Victoria (B.C.) Times Colonist, Mar. 26

Retired judge may mediate Tulare library dispute
Retired Judge Kenneth Conn could act as a mediator between fired Lindsay branch librarian Brenda Biesterfeld and Tulare County (Calif.) Board of Supervisors. County lawyers sent a letter to Biesterfeld’s attorney stating that supervisors do not agree that she was fired because she reported a library patron for viewing child pornography at a public computer. The letter also asks whether Biesterfeld wants Conn to act as mediator....
Visalia (Calif.) Times-Delta, Mar. 26

Library addition made out of dirt
The new wing under construction at the Sublette County Library in Pinedale, Wyoming, represents a groundbreaking project for the community, literally. The $5-million addition is being built out of dirt, or, more specifically, rammed earth. The first-ever rammed-earth public building in the nation will complement Pinedale’s decade-old library when the expansion project is completed in March 2009....
Casper (Wyo.) Tribune, Mar. 24

Friends of lost photos
The internet has created a thriving community of people who have found a calling in rescuing the thousands of orphaned photos that surface in dusty attics or estate sales, and trying to reunite them with family or friends or anyone who can identify them. For Jan Zwicker, who oversees the Waltham (Mass.) Public Library’s local history collection, identifying orphan photos has a practical purpose. WPL owns more than 5,000 historical photos, in subjects that include architecture and local social clubs, and Zwicker said they are among the library’s most sought-after resources....
Boston Globe, Mar. 20; Waltham Public Library blog, Mar. 5

Determining age-appropriateness
Picking books appropriate in theme and reading level is an art rather than a science, librarians and educators say. The nonprofit National Council of English Teachers, which issues guidelines for selecting materials for English classes, has another description for the process: problematic. The task has been complicated because today’s children are exposed to more difficult themes earlier than ever and are often assumed to be emotionally maturing faster, too....
Washington Post, Mar. 24

Library filter law moves through Alaska House
Alaska’s public librarians may soon be required to make sure kids aren’t looking at pornography. On March 20, the House State Affairs Committee passed 4–3 a bill that would cut state funding for public libraries that don’t prevent patrons under 18 from looking at sexually explicit material on library computers—either by using internet filter software to block offensive websites or by having computer screens watched by library staff....
Juneau (Alaska) Empire, Mar. 21

St. Bonaventure donors default on library funds
Paul and Irene Bogoni, philanthropists from the New York City area, had pledged $2 million for an addition to the Friedsam Memorial Library at St. Bonaventure University in Allegeny, New York, to house more than 9,000 rare books and manuscripts. The addition is 75% complete (right) and scheduled to open in the fall, but the Bogonis informed the university in October they didn’t plan to pay the remainder of their pledge. Because defaulting on the gift would jeopardize the use of their name on the library addition, the Bogonis decided to sue the university....
Buffalo (N.Y.) News, Mar. 20

School board could resume library funding fight
The Kanawha County (W.Va.) school board is not satisfied with changes the state legislature made to a library funding bill during this year’s session and may take the issue back to court. Board members say they don’t think the legislature corrected a library funding inequity....
Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail, Mar. 21

New Jersey school librarian keeps job
Parents and teachers in Freehold Borough, New Jersey, may breathe a sigh of relief. The school district’s lone librarian was restored March 20 in the $19.6-million proposed budget. At a March 3 school board meeting, district officials had proposed eliminating the position of district library media specialist, a job held by Joan Murphy, who would have taken a teaching position. But parents and teachers packed the meeting to protest the cut....
Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, Mar. 20–21

An inside look at the Wikipedia office
The new headquarters of one of the world’s most popular websites is 3,000 square feet of rented space in San Francisco furnished with desks and chairs bought on the cheap from eBay and Craigslist. With about 300 million page views a day, the site could be worth many hundreds of millions of dollars if it sold advertising space. It doesn’t. Wikipedia’s business plan is, basically, to hold out a tin cup whenever it runs low on funds, which is very often. (However, they just were given $3 million by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.)...
Los Angeles Times, Mar. 10; Washington Post, Mar. 25

Belchertown library ghost eludes hunters
After a night-long stay with cameras and other equipment, the team from the Sci-Fi Channel’s Ghost Hunters reported to custodian Jacques J. Benoit that they had no evidence of spirits in the Clapp Memorial Library in Belchertown, Massachusetts. But the Ghost Hunters team suggested that Benoit carry a camera with him and continue to try to document that he can see the ghost of 19th-century librarian Lydia Barton in a corner of the building where her desk used to be....
Springfield (Mass.) Republican, Mar. 23

Widgets and widgetry for librarians
Aaron Schmidt writes: “You don’t need a spell from Hogwarts to make exciting multimedia appear on your website. It isn’t magic—it’s RSS and JavaScript. Thanks to the power of Web 2.0, we don’t need to understand the intricacies of these two fabulous and geeky topics. The Web has sorted all of it out and made it easy for us to use. All you need to know to use the tools listed here is that after some (easy to do) customization, you’ll see a little bit of code to copy and paste into your website, blog post, or blog’s sidebar.”...
Multimedia and Internet @ Schools, Mar./Apr.

Three tech giants to promote open standards
Yahoo has agreed to work with Google and MySpace to promote a common set of software standards to make it easier to create applications for internet social networks, the companies announced March 25. The companies said they are forming a nonprofit OpenSocial Foundation to promote the OpenSocial software standards that Mountain View-based Google announced in October....
San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, Mar. 26

The best USB keys
Eric Griffith writes: “If you’ve been relying on some piddling 16MB USB flash drive with a USB 1.1 connection for transporting data from work to home, you should realize that mere portability doesn’t cut it. You want speed and space to grow. Today’s USB keys are all USB 2.0–ready and boast capacities as high as 32GB—with high prices to match. The sweet spot is 4GB. There you’ll find reasonably priced USB keys with worthwhile extras and all the space you need (for now).”...
PC Magazine, Mar. 20

Alternative file formats for digital masters (PDF file)
The Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, Netherlands, has published a study on the usefulness of JPEG 2000, PNG 1.2, Basic JFIF 1.02, and TIFF LZAW formats for storing the master files for its digitization projects. Currently, master files are stored in the popular uncompressed TIFF file format, but 650 terabytes of storage space will be necessary to store 40 million files in this format. Desired image quality, long-term sustainability, storage capacity, and functionality had to be taken into account....
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Mar. 8

Entering exotic characters into blog posts
Bill Poser writes: “If you’ve already got the text that you want in Unicode, the problem with getting it into a blog post is probably that your blog software, like Movable Type, gags on non-ASCII characters. To overcome this limitation, you need to replace your Unicode text with HTML numeric character references. For example, instead of directly entering the Unicode for ‘lower case e with acute accent’ é, you enter é. This consists of the Unicode codepoint in hexadecimal 00E9, with the prefix &#x and the suffix ;.”...
Language Log, Mar. 22

Kaplicky defends Czech National Library design
Jan Kaplicky has been on Czech television to defend his futuristic Czech National Library, winner a year ago of an international design competition. Though the design won fair and square, Kaplicky has found himself and his library at the eye of an intensely political storm, since Prague’s mayor, Pavel Bém, came out against it in October. Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek is for it, and President Václav Klaus is located “somewhere in the middle.”...
Building Design, Mar. 14

Citizen sues RIAA for racketeering, fraud, and spying
An Oregon woman is suing the music industry trade association in a case that could force the group to reveal how it targets people in its campaign to curb illegal downloading and sharing of music online. Tanya Andersen, who claims the Recording Industry Association of America’s antipiracy campaign threatens and intimidates innocent people, has filed a new complaint accusing record companies of racketeering, fraud, and illegal spying. Filed March 14 in U.S. District Court in Portland, the complaint seeks national class-action status for other people allegedly victimized by the industry’s campaign....
eSchool News, Mar. 25

Illustrator wins Bush Library contest
A medical illustrator from Dallas who spends his days drawing body parts and molecular structures has won the Chronicle‘s George W. Bush Presidential Library design contest. Lewis E. Calver, an associate professor and chair of biomedical communications at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, beat out 120 other contestants with his beautifully drawn and carefully thought-out “Hole in the Ground” design....
Chronicle of Higher Education, Mar. 26

Making library schools smarter
Andrea Mercado writes in the new journal Conversants (a limited-run, open-access journal about participatory networks that launched March 21 as a joint project of the Information Institute of Syracuse and the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy): “Library school curricula need to change so that instead of constantly struggling to catch up with technology trends and innovations, librarians can stay on the bleeding edge, and even innovate in the field. My dream lineup of required classes would include local technology and new media specialists as adjunct instructors.”...
Conversants 1 (2008)

LC launches historic baseball resources website
The rich holdings of the Library of Congress include many items that document the history of baseball and Americans’ fascination with the game. LC has just launched a new Historic Baseball Resources page that features player profiles, historical news and events, collection guides, and presentations. The LC Digital Reference Team will also host a web conference, “Batter Up! Baseball at the Library of Congress,” on April 4 at 2 p.m. Eastern time, through the Online Programming for All Libraries site....
Library of Congress, Mar. 24

Author Name Pronunciation Guide
So how do you pronounce “Jon Scieszka” (right), author of The Stinky Cheese Man and the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature? The Author Name Pronunciation Guide, a free website, can tell you. Created by TeachingBooks.net in January 2007, the site has grown to feature hundreds of authors, including many winners of the ALA Youth Media Awards....
TeachingBooks.net

Music circulation in decline
Bryan Borzykowski writes: “Unfortunately for the thousands of Canadians who borrow music from the library, the days of flipping through a library’s CD collection could be numbered. The problem right now isn’t that libraries don’t want to offer their patrons alternatives to the physical CD—it’s that there’s no easy way for them to provide digital music. Libraries aren’t in the business of developing software and licensing albums from record labels, so they have to turn to another company, like Ohio-based OverDrive, to do the dirty work.”...
Maclean’s, Mar. 19

E-book licensing and sales
Matt Buchanan writes: “If you buy an old book, CD, or DVD, you can turn around and loan it to a friend or sell it again. The right to pass it along is called the first-sale doctrine. Digital books, music, and movies are a different story though. Four students at Columbia Law School’s Science and Technology Law Review looked at the particular issue of reselling and copying e-books downloaded to Amazon’s Kindle or the Sony Reader, and came up with answers to a fundamental question: Are you buying a crippled license to intellectual property when you download, or are you buying an honest-to-God book?”...
Gizmodo, Mar. 21

OverDrive to distribute MP3 audiobooks to libraries
Digital book distributor OverDrive will expand its catalog of downloadable audiobooks to include titles in MP3 format without DRM. Borders will be the first online bookstore to offer them. Following the Borders retail launch in May, a limited selection of OverDrive MP3 Audiobooks will be added to OverDrive’s library network. These audiobooks will be compatible with nearly every MP3 player and mobile phone on the market, including iPod, Zune, iPhone, and Creative Labs products....
OverDrive, Mar. 19

Senate confirms National Museum and Library Services Board nominees
The U.S. Senate confirmed four presidential nominees to serve as members of the National Museum and Library Services Board March 13. The board advises the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent federal agency that is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s museums and libraries. The new board members are Mark Y. Herring (right, Winthrop University Library), Julia W. Bland (Louisiana Children’s Museum), Jan Cellucci (NCLIS commissioner), and William J. Hagenah (Chicago Horticultral Society)....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Mar. 20

If it quacks like a librarian
Rachel Singer Gordon writes: “I’ve been disturbed for some time about the vehemence with which we emphasize the divide between MLS librarians and everyone else working in libraries. Dean Giustini’s recent post on the Google Scholar Blog decrying Library Journal’s decision to honor paraprofessionals with Movers & Shakers awards and asserting they don’t have the right to call themselves librarians simply reinforced what I hear when talking to groups of paraprofessionals or when surveying people for my books: Many non-MLS library workers are unappreciated, undervalued, and ignored.”...
The Liminal Librarian, Mar. 20

Bookplate collecting basics
Lew Jaffe writes: “Bookplate mania in America and England peaked from 1890 to about 1920. That’s when the really great collections were formed. Most of them were either dispersed or absorbed into other collections. Today, if there are 200 bookplate collectors in the United States I would be very surprised. People often ask me where to find bookplates, so I thought it might a good time to write about building a collection.”...
Collectors Weekly, Mar. 19

Online bookseller partners with libraries on discards
Mishawaka, Indiana–based Better World Books distributed more than $470,000 in proceeds from its Library Discards and Donations Program to hundreds of city, county, and university libraries in 2007, providing library systems with resources to pay for basic operations, staff salaries, and acquisitions. The online bookseller collects discarded and donated books from more than 900 libraries nationwide, resells them through 18 online marketplaces, and returns a percentage of net proceeds to participating libraries....
Better World Books, Mar. 18

The traveling James Joyce Library book bag
What do Antarctica, Paris, Krakow (right), Munich, Prague, and Belfield have in common? The University College Dublin James Joyce Library book bag, of course! The library’s Reader Services Department urges patrons to take photos of their book bag in far-flung places and submit them to the Book Bag Blog. Best photo of the year will win a fantastic prize....
UCD Book Bag Blog

Harvard and institutional repositories
Walt Crawford writes: “The biggest news since my last Library Access to Scholarship column should have been formal passage of the NIH policy as a requirement for NIH-funded research—but that may be overshadowed by the actions of Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Harvard’s action may indeed be a ‘game-changer,’ as the saying goes. This time I’ll focus on two things: the Harvard mandate and institutional repositories.”...
Cites & Insights 8, no. 4 (Apr.)

ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, June 26–July 2.

Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns) will be an Auditorium Speaker, Tuesday, July 1, 8–9 a.m.

Mark your calendars: There are only eight weeks remaining until National Library Legislative Day, May 13–14. Each year, hundreds of library supporters come to Washington to talk with their members of Congress about the needs of their libraries. NLLD is a two-day event featuring advocacy and issue training sessions, talks from Capitol Hill insiders, and a visit to Congressional member offices on Capitol Hill.

There’s still time to apply for the ALA Annual Conference stipend supported by the YALSA Unity Diversity Initiative. Deadline is March 31.