Steve Lawson (libraryland's Lucian?) has delivered a one-act play that does a remarkable job of distilling some of our profession's recent dramatic episodes. It's got it all: satire, intrigue, and all the relevant background you might need to get up to speed in case you've been, you know, actually doing some work instead of following the blow-by-blow of all the latest dust ups.

It of course touches on the Annoyed Librarian's sole authorship of the most recent issue of the Journal of Access Services, and the AL's being hired to blog for LJ (including some of...Read More

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Journalists could play a role that librarians long have (or should have) played, according to Bree Nordenson's article "Overload: Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information," in the November/December issue of the Columbia Journalism Review (test not online).

She writes:
Moreover, the flood of news created by the production bias of the Internet could, in the end, point to a new role for journalistic institutions. "We're expecting people who are not librarians, who are not knowledge engineers, to do the work of knowledge engineers and librarians," says Jonathan Spira, CEO and chief analyst for the business research firm Basex and an expert in information overload. In other words, most of us lack the skil...Read More

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I missed the Brooklyn Public Library's annual gala last night, but LJ's coverage of the state's planned $20 million in library cuts was a topic for conversation.

"It's not like libraries are over-funded!" Soledad O'Brien, master of ceremonies, told the New York Observer. "It's not like, ‘Trim the fat off those libraries!' Those are cuts that are going to be very much felt." 

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The New York Times has an advice column, Social Q's, and yesterday, advice-giver Philip Galanes resorted to a tired librarian stereotype to make a point.

He was responding to a questioner who asked how to deal with a neighbor who complained about noise: "I hate to break it to you, Jenny Joplin, but your next-door neighbor isn’t necessarily a music hater or ready to settle in for an evening of “Golden Girls” reruns. She may simply dislike your taste in music, or prefer to rock out — and this may be hard to believe — when she chooses. It’s also possible that she’s a crusty old librarian, but none of these explanations matter a whit, really."

It's also possible that it's time to retire phrases like &quo...Read More

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As mentioned in the story on OCLC and the recently-released WorldCat records use policy, there have been some strong reactions from within the cataloging community and beyond.
Without doubt, the most creative of those reactions has got to be the Declaration of Metadata Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Metadata is essential to all Users, and that the Creation of Metadata endows certain inalienable Rights, that among th...Read More

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The Italian publishing company FMR on December 1 will donate a copy of its newest art book, Michelangelo: The Learned Hand, to the New York Public Library. The publisher is creating 99 copies of the book, which measures18” wide by 28” tall, and features on the cover (left) a bas-relief replica of Michelangelo’s La Madonna della scala, carved from Carrara marble and set on silk velvet from the Nole Textile Workshop. It’s valued 100,000 euro, or $130,000

The book will be on view in the Bill Blass Catalog Room from December 2–8. It will then enter th...Read More

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The Cedar Rapids Public Library is on the long road to recovery from a devastating downtown flood
in June and, according to the St. Joe News, heartland bard Garrison Keillor, host of the radio show Prairie Home Companion, sent a large donation. 

Also the Czech Republic delivered $44,700, part of package worth $583,780 (or 10 million Czech crowns), most of which went to the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

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Well, we've all heard about people, especially library staffers, holding their weddings at a library. Well, in September, Adam Novitt, director of the Pelham Library, MA, and longtime employees of the nearby Forbes Library, Northampton, got married at his workplace and held his reception at his former workplace, according to the Forbes Forum blog..

"So many of the guests, many of whom had never been to Forbes, were enchanted by the beauty of the space and the charm of the old building," stated the blog report.

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The merger of the Minneapolis Public Library into the Hennepin County Library  occurred nearly a year ago, but, as Star-Tribune editorial writer Lori Sturdevant explains, a crucial piece won't happen until December 1, when the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library is absorbed into Library Foundation of Hennepin County.
 
It wasn't a given. Th...Read More

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See LJ's complete Sarah Palin and Libraries coverage.

No, it's not fair to say that, as president, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin would burn books. But that hasn't stopped the wags behind the PalinAsPresident web site, who've produced a site that is surely entertaining for many of those who question Palin. 
...Read More

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Someone just might choose to take a picture of herself topless for an online advertisement. Blogger Library Goddess describes how the episode reached an even more troubling end.

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Novelist Linda Lappin (Katherine's Wish) wrote us this charming "postcard” from Rome she thought you might enjoy, about an old English poetry library once located in a remote Sardinian outpost. Posted here in full:

The Lost Library of Villa Webber: Postcard from the Maddalena Archipelago 
    For centuries, the “Grand Tour” brought writers and artists down across Northern Europe to Italy. Among the great writers inspired by Italian antiquities, art treasures, and landscape were Montaigne, Goethe, Sterne, Dickens, John Keats, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Edith Wharton. The itinerary of the Grand Tour touched the pulse points of Renaissance and Baroque culture: Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples—with a jaunt to ...Read More

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