Now that The New York Times has picked up the story the odds have increased that this nightmare is closer to ending. The exposure can do nothing but help the cause.William Yardley's piece Timber (and Its Revenues) Decline and Libraries Suffer addresses the ongoing tragedy in this Southern Oregon County which closed all 15 of its libraries due to lack of government funding back in early April.On May 15th residents of the county head to the poles to raise their property taxes so they can reopen the libraries. A similar measure last November was rejected by the voters and "experts...
Google the Bookseller
It was bound to happen.Word from the London Book Fair is that Google is going into the book business. By year's end they will launch two book related initiatives that will further alter the book landscape.What's in store:A book rental program that will let you rent the content of a book on a weekly basis.andA book retail program that will allow users lifetime access to the texts they purchase.They are not attaching the cursed e-book tag to either project.Michael Cairnes, who was at the Google sessions at the London Book Fair, has the scoop in his blog post titled "Google...
The Space Cowboy Wants a Space Library
"Everywhere where humans are I think there should be a library," is what Charles Simonyi told a Moscow news agency before he became the world's fifth space tourist.Simonyi, a billionaire who has already changed the world once by bringing Microsoft Word and Excel into our lives, packed two books to add to the Space Station Library.The books:Goethe's "Faust" which he declares "is a part of our literary heritage. It belongs to all of humanity and it deals with man's relationship with the universe and man's relationship to science"and "the moon is a harsh mistress" by Robert Heinlein that Simonyi says...
The Real Presidential Libraries
In 1822 John Adams, our second president, bequeathed his library to the town of Quincy, MA. In 1894 after living in six different locations the library came to rest at the Boston Public Library. They just staged the exhibit John Adams Unbound. It was the first time his library of 3,500 volumes was together for public view. It was the culmination of a three-year project by the Boston Public Library to catalog, preserve, digitize and provide access to Adams's extraordinary library."There is an outstanding online component which includes an audio tour of the exhibit and many highlight from the library.Some...
Now The Fear and the Copycats: Security Alerts at Eight Libraries in the Wake of Viginia Tech
The Engineering Library at the University of Minnesota was one of 8 buildings evacuated after a typed note was found. No mention of what the note said.University of Maryland at College Park: e-mail stating that a bomb was “in a book in a library.”Library at the University of Texas at Austin: Threatening note found. No mention of what the note said. It was the 5th note found on campus since the Va. Tech shootings. This is where George Bush lived when governor of Texas.West Port High School in Ocala, Florida. Someone found a handwritten note in a book drop. A...