The Seattle Public Library, one of the crown jewels of "The Emerald City" will be closing its doors, both real and virtual, for an entire week beginning Monday, August 31. The fact that one of the most book-friendly cities in the United States cannot keep its libraries open due to lack of funding is distressing in the extreme, and does not bode well for other municipalities.Nationwide, public libraries are being used more than ever according to the American Library Association. The trend is evident at the San Francisco Public Library which reports increases of 30% in customers, and 15% in...
Fighting Crime One Book at a Time
We are very pleased to welcome Nancy Mattoon to Book Patrol with this, her first post. Nancy will be walking the library beat, covering news, issues, and human interest stories from the stacks with her thirty years of experience and perspective as a librarian.As librarians are well aware, even in the book world no good deed goes unpunished. Getting the right book into the right hands seems innocent enough—until it isn’t. Headline hungry scribes sometimes seek to link books and crime; the permanent stain on “The Catcher in the Rye” after being found in the possession of both Mark David...
Banned Books Week Coming Soon
Banned Books Week is scheduled for September 26th- October 3rd, 2009.Every time we think that banning books in the United States is a thing of the past, we are sorely reminded that there are still many who believe that removing books from book stores and library shelves will make the social issues that the books represent go away and that the world will be a better place.The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is fighting the good fight for retailers.“The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression is the bookseller's voice in the fight against censorship. Founded by the American Booksellers...
Book Do’s and Don’ts For the 21st Century
Sad that it has come to this but signage has now been created to prevent those whose experience with books is severely limited from making serious, life- or book threatening gaffes when in their presence.The signs are appropriate for libraries, book stores, reading rooms, or general household use, and delightfully capture the current, confused book zeitgeist.It is unlikely that ebooks will ever require warning signs beyond a Magritte-ish This Is Not a Book poster. Kindles, however, may need an additional caveat, the Do Not Taunt This Book alert with image of Jeff Bezos wagging his finger at us.
Eye-Opening Secrets From the World of Librarians
Sometimes the posts just write themselves. Here, for instance, I’ll let Kathleen Low, authoress of Casanova Was A Librarian (2007), tell the story in her own words, from her website; I can’t top this hot copy.Please provide your own wisecracks in the appropriate spots within the text; I’ve bitten my tongue so often I might as well just swallow it along with some sauerkraut and a Dr. Brown’s Cel-Rey soda.“They’ve been killed by angry mobs, knighted, and even canonized. Some have gained fame or infamy as politicians, inventors, revolutionaries, notorious lovers and even saints. In ancient Rome they were literally...