Saturday, October 31, 2009

Booksellers hit back at plans for libraries to sell books

Culture minister Margaret Hodge's suggestion that libraries should link up with internet bookseller Amazon greeted with outrage.

by: Alison Flood



The culture minister Margaret Hodge's suggestion that libraries should start selling books as well as lending them has been greeted with outrage by embattled booksellers.


Speaking yesterday at the public library authorities conference in Bristol, Hodge outlined the terms of a consultation process due to begin later this year, saying that with less than 40% of the UK's population using libraries she was "all in favour of pushing our thinking to the boundaries, and testing ideas to destruction".


Highlighting the "worrying statistics" that books borrowed have fallen by 41% over the last ten years, and that there have been 63 library closures since Labour came to power in 1997, Hodge said yesterday that the challenge for libraries was "all about getting whatever the library equivalent might be for 'bums on seats'". "If we make our service popular; if we ensure it is well and widely used, it will be much more difficult to chop it when times are tough," she said.


Hodge also told librarians to consider how private giving to libraries could complement public sector funding, harking back to Scottish American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who supported libraries in the UK and the US in the 19th and early 20th century.


With library tickets issued to every newborn baby, home delivery internet lending services and loyalty cards also on the table she suggested that librarians should forge links with the internet retailer Amazon.


"Yes, I am thinking about how LoveFilm or Amazon work. What is it about their way of doing things that generates such popularity, wide usage, such customer delight and satisfaction?" she asked senior librarians. "How about a tie-in with Amazon: You've borrowed the book, now send a brand new copy to a friend."


But the chief executive of the Booksellers Association, Tim Godfray, said today that he was "very concerned" about her proposals. "We will be making representations to the returned minister of culture," said Godfray, who is writing today to protest to Hodge about the plans.


The library campaigner and former managing director of Waterstone's Tim Coates also rejected Hodges' suggestion, saying that "in no way should a library try to turn itself into a bookshop". Fellow campaigner and former director of Faber Desmond Clarke agreed. "It was an idea which came up 25-30 years ago and failed dismally," he said. "Why would anyone visit a library and want to buy a book when they could get it for free?"


Coates admitted there were ways in which libraries could consider selling books, but only on a small scale – for example to children learning to read – and never when there is a bookshop nearby. "If it's an extension of the function of the library, and is carefully thought out and not attempting to be a bookshop at all, there are ways in which it could be done," he said. With falling DVD rentals leaving a hole in library balance sheets he could understand "why people would want to do it," he continued. Figures may be falling across the library sector, but the minister "has to take some sort of responsibility for that".



From: the Guardian

Friday, October 30, 2009

Librarian forced to resign over fees

by: Ashley Singh

South Boston, VA - It's an amazing show of support for a former librarian in South Boston, forced to resign two weeks ago for waiving some overdue fees.

Hundreds have signed a petition to support Woodson Hughes, and on Tuesday, lots of people came out to show their support for him.

On Tuesday, the library board met at the Halifax Library in a small room, a room that was packed, with a line to get inside that stretched out the door. Most there said Hughes, the former Branch Manager, deserves his job back.

Hughes was a librarian in Halifax County for 22 years. He says he was recently forced to resign, for waiving fines. He never expected the town to rally behind him.

"I was just a person who managed a library in a small town in Southside Virginia. I certainly never expected anything like this. Never," Hughes said.

In September, library director Rhonda Griffin sent an email to staff saying a total of $1,400 in fines had been waived in a three month time period. One patron even had more than $80 waived.

Hughes says he did waive some fines for people who couldn't afford it, the elderly who couldn't get to the library to pay, and those with troubles.

"I tried to uphold the policies of the library to the best of my ability and I also tried to help the patrons to the best of my ability," Hughes said.

Ron Miller was so upset after hearing about what happened to Hughes that he resigned as president of the Friends of the Library funding group.

"When the library dismissed Woodson I just didn't feel like working hard to support a library that would do what it did to somebody like that," Miller said.

Anne Raab, who has been collecting signatures, says she has 300. And says there are still more forms out there.

“I cannot imagine him doing anything to bring discredit to the library, he loves the library,” Raab said.

“Leaving such a place in the best of circumstances would have been difficult. Leaving so abruptly was just ten times more so,” Hughes said.

Griffin says fees should only be waived in extreme circumstances.

The email she sent out to staff says continuously waiving fines for one person is the same as embezzlement.

from: wset.com

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Manga library planned for Japan

A Tokyo university is planning to open a library to promote serious study of Japanese manga comics.

The proposed Tokyo International Manga Library will house two million comic books, animation drawings, video games and other cartoon industry artefacts.

It is hoped the new library will open by early 2015 at Meiji University.

"Manga has been taken lightly in the past and there has been no solid archive for serious study," the university's Susumi Shibao told AFP.

"We want to help academic studies on manga as part of Japanese culture," she added.

It is anticipated that the library will be made available to researchers and fans from Japan and abroad.

Initial plans include the opening of the Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subculture at the end of this month.

It will feature the late manga critic Yoshihiro Yonezawa's collection of 140,000 comic books.

Woodblock prints

Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning film Spirited Away is a classic example of anime - animation based on manga styles.

Outside Japan, manga comics are mostly associated with science fiction and fantasy, but manga also encompasses a much wider range of genres - from high literature to soap operas.

Their characteristic style descends from the popular woodblock prints common in the 18th and 19th centuries known as ukiyoe, which often featured humorous depictions of Japanese urban life.

The former Japanese government had set aside 11.7bn yen ($128m, £78m) for a museum on Japanese cartoon art and pop culture to be built in Tokyo.

But the plan was axed when the administration was ousted in the elections in August.

from: BBC

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Angels are the new vampires, says Anne Rice

by: Alison Flood

Angels are the new vampires of the literary world, according to the doyenne of vampire fiction Anne Rice, who is about to launch a new series of books starring a contract killer recruited by a seraph.

Taking their inspiration, perhaps, from Milton's arch-fiend Satan, Rice and a host of other authors are plotting celestial assaults on the book shops this autumn, with angels in all shapes and sizes about to hit the bookshelves. The line-up includes Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush ("a sacred oath, a fallen angel, a forbidden love"), out later this week, Elizabeth Chandler's Kissed by an Angel (about a guardian angel) and the Carnegie medal-winning American writer Sharon Creech's The Unfinished Angel, featuring a celestial being undergoing an identity crisis.

"Being on the side of the angels, it feels much better than being on the side of the vampires. Vampires were tortured, tragic figures," Rice told the Wall Street Journal. Her novel, Angel Time: The Songs of the Seraphim, follows the adventures of Toby O'Dare, an American killer who is given the chance by a mysterious stranger (who turns out to be an angel) to go back to 13th century England to find salvation.

"Vampires for me were always like feeling grief for my lost childhood faith, being cut off from that life. I reached the point where I didn't have any more stories to tell from that point of view," explained the author, who said the angel series was "In keeping with [her] commitment to do Christian fiction in a variety of forms" since she converted from atheism back to her childhood Catholicism in 1998.

Now that she doesn't write her vampire chronicles any more, Rice said she feels "free to enjoy" the recent glut of all things vampire. "I think it's wonderful fun," she said. "When I was writing my own, I wouldn't have wanted to be influenced."

She hasn't, however, read any of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books – although she has seen the film. "I felt that it reflected the deep desire of young women to have the mystery and protection and wisdom of older men," said Rice, whose own vampire novels have featured the cruel but sensual Lestat – a long way from Meyer's abstinent vampire family the Cullens. "I think many girls mature much earlier than boys, and they are frustrated when they approach young boys for love or protection. Hence the fantasy of a wise and protective vampire coming into the life of a young girl who, of course, appreciates him in a special way."

From: the Guardian

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

'Wicked' author Gregory Maguire's new novel is free - take that, Walmart!

by: Thom Geier

As giant retailers continue their price war over books (Target just joined Walmart and Amazon in offering pre-sales of top November titles for $9 or less), there’s one new book that seems to take the trend to its logical extreme. The Next Queen of Heaven, a new novel by Wicked author Gregory Maguire, is available starting today for the low, low price of $0.00. That’s not a typo. Queen is the third title from the year-old Concord Free Press, which is giving away 2,500 copies of the book (half through its website and half through select independent bookstores) to readers who agree to make a donation “to a local charity, someone who needs it, or a stranger on the street.” (Distribution of the book is strictly first come, first served.) As a box on the paperback’s back cover explains: “When you’re done, pass this novel on to someone else (for free, of course) so they can give. It adds up.” The press claims that its first two releases have generated more than $85,000 in charitable donations to various causes.

The Next Queen of Heaven is a farcical holiday yarn set in 1999 in a fictional upstate New York town where strange events occur after Leontina Scales gets clocked by a Catholic statuette and begins speaking in tongues. Why in the world would an author as prominent as Maguire publish for free? “I admire that the books as well as the publishing model raise questions about art’s inherent value and the commodification of content,” he said in a statement. “I like knowing that this book is out in the world, helping to generate donations for great causes.”

Neither the author (nor the book designer) is paid for their work; as Concord Free Press notes on its website: “Our unique agreement with our writers…is 100% lawyer-free.” That said, all authors who publish with the Concord, Mass.-based outfit retain the rights to their works and can republish them later with conventional publishers. The first book in the series, CFP founder Stona Fitch’s novel Give + Take, is due from St. Martin’s imprint Thomas Dunne Books next year. According to Fitch, “Authors donate (voluntarily) 20 percent of all earnings from the book’s life after CFP back to the press to support our subsequent books. So in this way, we’re semi-self-sustaining, with one writer helping the next.”

Fitch says the idea for the press came to him in the wake of his experience on Give + Take, which was orphaned when his editor left the publishing house that had acquired it. “The novel is about a jazz pianist who steals diamonds and BMWs, sells them, and gives the money away,” Fitch says via e-mail. “So it was thematically aligned with the idea of a press that publishes beautiful books for free and gives them away.” Instead of shopping his novel around when his first publisher dropped it, Fitch decided to make it the Concord Free Press’ inaugural title. He’s since recruited other writer friends, including fellow Concord, Mass., resident Gregory Maguire, to publish through CFP.

It’s an intriguing idea, the free book. But I suspect that there are more than 2,500 Maguire fans out there clamoring to read his newest novel — and willing to donate a pretty substantial sum to charity for the privilege. Given the paucity of the print run, though, some may be reluctant to pass the book along to others when they’re done. Perhaps I’m just being cynical. What do you think of free books to promote charitable causes?

From: Entertainment Weekly

Monday, October 26, 2009

First black woman tipped for top French book prize

In a historic first, a black woman writer is a hot favourite to scoop France'stop literary prize next week for a haunting novel on family, betrayal and the hellish ordeal of illegal migration from Africa.

French-Senegalese writer Marie NDiaye, 42, is a frontrunner among the eight authors shortlisted for the Goncourt, the most prestigious of France's annual crop of literary prizes which is to be announced November 2.

NDiaye published her first novel while still at school, aged 17, and has since carved out a place in the French pantheon as a novelist, screenwriter and the only living playwright in the repertoire of the Comedie Francaise.

"Her voice, perfectly clear and original, rises above the chatter," wrote Le Monde of her latest work, "Trois Femmes Puissantes" (Three Powerful Women).

Like much of NDiaye's recent work, the book touches on the troubled ties between Africa and its former colonial rulers, and between blacks and whites.

Set between France and Senegal, the three-part novel weaves together the stories of women whose lives straddle the two continents and who are weighed down by family secrets, humiliations and betrayals.

Hailed as "dizzying" and "masterful", it took French critics by storm upon its release in September, shooting to the top of the book charts.

Part one follows a schoolteacher from Paris to Dakar on a difficult pilgrimage to the home of her estranged father.

The second story is told through the eyes of an African woman's French partner, who has dragged her back to a mediocre existence in France and where both their lives are clouded by demons from his past.

The third follows the plight of a destitute young woman who is forced to join the migrant route from Senegal towards the European El Dorado, a brutal illustration of what NDiaye calls "a modern-day tragedy".

Narrated in exquisite stream of consciousness, the novel is shot through with rich touches of fantasy and symbolism.

"Her language is a gateway to the mysterious world of our most secret thoughts -- the dwelling place of magic and the supernatural within each person," wrote Le Monde.

NDiaye recently co-wrote a film with French director Claire Denis, "White Material" starring Isabelle Huppert, about whites terrorised by roving child soldiers in west Africa.

But she denies she is pushing a political message.

"My books are criss-crossed by various aspects of the contemporary world. But I am not a thinker," she told AFP.

The writer's brother Pap NDiaye is a prominent French historian and campaigner for black minority rights.

She wrote the preface to one of his books, and feels France is a step behind Britain or the United States where powerful writers from ethnic minorities have emerged in recent decades, from Zadie Smith to Hari Kunzru or Kiran Desai.

"The huge majority of France's writers come from educated or bourgeois backgrounds -- a fairly small world in other words," she said recently.

"Writers here tend to be people who have been to university, who can master the complexities of the language, which may not be case for minorities."

NDiaye would be the first woman laureate of the Goncourt in a decade and the first black woman in its history.

But the soft-spoken writer refuses to be made a "symbol".

"I have never thought of it in those terms: 'black woman' and 'Goncourt'. I find it impossible to see things that way," she told AFP.

Raised by her French mother in a modest home in Pithiviers, a sleepy provincial town south of Paris, after her father returned to Senegal, she did not travel to Africa until she was in her twenties.

"I grew up in a world that was 100-percent French. My African roots don't mean much, except that people know of them because of the colour of my skin and my name," she said recently.

"I don't represent anything or anyone," she told AFP. "I have met many French people raised in Africa who are more African than I am."

While she rages at the discrimination still faced by French blacks -- in looking for jobs or housing, or being stopped by the police -- NDiaye says she has been sheltered by her writer career.

"I have always had a quite special, marginal life, the life of a writer lucky enough not to have to ask anyone for anything," she told AFP.

From: The Independent

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Librarian Trading Cards

Want a glimpse into the lives of other librarians? Well, now you can! Following the tradition of baseball, hockey, football and even bartender and roller derby trading cards, there are now librarian trading cards. As the site says: "Learn fascinating facts about librarians all over the world! Things like: what they wish more people knew about the library, the most memorable reference question, and of course, what they're reading!"

Check it out at: http://librariantradingcards.blogspot.com/

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Barnes & Noble's 'Nook' e-book reader takes on Kindle

AP

Barnes & Noble has unveiled a new electronic-book reader that will compete with Amazon.com's Kindle in a still-small arena where some see bookselling's future.

A wireless reader with 2 gigabytes of memory, the capacity to store and play MP3 files and a feature that allows users to loan out their e-books, the "nook" is available for "pre-order" on Barnes & Noble's website for $259 (£156) - the same as the recently reduced Kindle.

Less than 5 inches (13cm) wide and 8 inches (20cm) tall and weighing just over 315 grams, the company says the nook is the size and weight of a paperback book and will start shipping in November.

Author Malcolm Gladwell read from his best-seller The Tipping Point during a launch event for the device in New York. The first 10,000 people to order a nook will get a free electronic copy of the book.

Users will get free wireless access in Barnes & Noble stores, where the device will be displayed. It has a slot for adding up to 16 gigabytes more memory, a 3.5-inch colour touch screen below the page display and can store users' personal photos.

E-book readers can serve as customer retention tools as much as anything because they display only versions of books provided by the company that sells the device.

The largest US book store chain is only the latest company to enter the e-reader market, which Kindle has dominated since its 2007 launch.

Sony has sold e-readers since 2006 and plans to launch a new version with a touch screen and wireless downloading capability via AT&T in December.

Smaller companies IREX Technologies and Plastic Logic also plan to offer e-readers soon.

So far, e-readership is small.

"Only 8 per cent of the US adult population bought one e-book in 2008," and most read them on PCs, said Michael Norris, senior analyst at research firm Simba Information. "So it's a device that is extremely important to everyone except 92 per cent of American adults."

Still, the niche is growing fast in an industry that is slumping. Forrester Research
predicts 3 million e-readers will sell in the US in 2009, and twice as many in 2010.

From: The Independent

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Wal-Mart, Amazon Trade Price Cuts on Books

by: Patricia Murphy

Wal-Mart has launched an online price war with Amazon.com. Some popular hardback books are being marketed for around $9 on both retailers' websites. The price war is making book selling increasingly difficult for brick and mortar chains and independents.

From: NPR

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

A brain signature for literacy

Not Exactly Rocket Science covers a fantastic study on how the structure of the brain changes as illiterate adults learn to read and write. The research was conducted on rather a novel group of participants. Most were ex-members of guerrilla forces in Colombia that had recently put down their weapons to re-integrate into society.

Colombia has a sizeable program to rehabilitate ex-paramilitary 'reinsertados' that includes social support and education, as many have never attended school. As the researchers note, this sets up an interesting natural experiment:

"After decads spent fighting, members of the guerrilla forces have begun re-integrating into mainstream Colombian society, introducing a sizeable population of illiterate adults who have no formal education. Upon putting down their weapons and returning to society, some had the opportunity to learn to read for the first time in their early twenties, providing the perfect natural situation for experiments investigating structural brain differences associated with the acquisition of literacy in the absence of other types of schooling or maturational development."

The researchers, led by neuroscientist Manual Carreiras, recruited a group of ex-paramilitaries who could read less than five simple words on a Spanish reading and writing test, and compared them to a similar group who learnt to read and write from an early age.

The research team used MRI scans to compare differences in brain structure between the two groups to allow an insight into how brain anatomy changes to accommodate reading and writing.

While it is possible to do this with children, it is almost impossible to separate out which are the brain changes due specifically to acquiring literacy and which are just part of the massive changes that constantly take place as children develop.

The images above show the areas of the brain (in orange) where the structure of was significantly different between literate and illiterate adults.

Rather neatly, these are also areas that have been identified in brain activation studies of reading and writing, and are known to be associated with visual perception, processing word sounds and dealing with the meaning of words.

Subsequent analyses showed that pathways the angular gyrus, a key language area, across each hemisphere were less developed in illiterate adults and were less active when the participants were asked to name objects.

A brilliantly innovative study, a good write-up from Not Exactly Rocket Science and perfectly timed for my arrival in Colombia.

Link to NERS on guerrilla reading.
Link to summary of scientific paper.


From: Mind Hacks

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Yann Martel's Letters to the Prime Minister

Every two weeks over the past two years, author Yann Martel has been sending Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper an inscribed book, along with a personal letter. Martel has documented each of the books sent and the letters he's written on the web site, www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca and has vowed to do this for as long as Harper is Prime Minister.

Martel says he's not trying to educate the Prime Minister, rather he's seeking to "make suggestions to his [moments of] stillness", an idea that came to him after feeling snubbed by Harper during an invited visit to the visitors' gallery in the House of Commons.

"I know you're very busy, Mr. Harper. We're all busy. But every person has a space next to where they sleep, whether a patch of pavement or a fine bedside table. In that space, at night, a book can glow. And in those moments of docile wakefulness, when we begin to let go of the day, then is the perfect time to pick up a book and let someone else, somewhere else, for a few minutes, a few pages, before we fall asleep."

Recent cuts to arts funding leads Martel to believe that the PM doesn't read much literature and some people call Martel rude for his attempt to introduce more literature into the Canadian leader's life. Martel insists that what an elected leader reads is extremely important.

"Once someone has power over me then, yes, their reading does matter to me, because in what they choose to read will be found what they think and what they will do."

Whether or not Harper has actually read any of the books is not known but Martel has personally benefitted, "It's been a wonderful rediscovery of books for me...It's forcing me to read things not for my own pleasure but for Mr. Harper's potential pleasure. It means I'm reading quite widely."

Martel's letters and list of sent books have now also become a book published by Random House's Vintage Canada, What is Stephen Harper Reading? Books gifted to the Prime Minister include such titles as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

From: abebooks.com

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Don't read that! The secret lives of book banners

by: Julia Keller

My childhood was a bloodbath.

The blood stayed safely confined within the covers of books, but still: I relished gore. I ate up stories of serial killers and ax murderers and remorseless poisoners. I couldn’t get enough of gun-toting hoodlums. Supernatural creatures, such as the vampires that currently flit and hover over pop culture, did not intrigue; my passion was strictly reserved for true crime, for the real-life roguery that imperils our every step — or so one might think, from these lurid accounts.

My obsession worried my mother, who feared she had hatched a monster. One day, while I was busy toiling in a fourth-grade classroom at Geneva Kent Elementary School in Huntington, W.Va., she went into my room and gathered up my true-crime stash. I returned home, discovered the theft and confronted her: What had she done with my precious books?

“I threw them away,” she replied with an infuriating calmness.

Oh, the outrage! Seething, I resolved then and there to run away from home — Alaska sounded nice — and get a head start on my destiny, which involved the establishment of a detective agency.

What especially rankled was that my mother’s fears had been wrongheaded: I didn’t identify with the killers. I identified with the cops, the sleuths who cracked the case. I wanted to solve the crime — not perpetrate it.

That day marked my first encounter with banned books.

I probably don’t need to point out that my mother’s efforts were utterly counter-productive, that her prohibition only made true-crime books seem even more alluring.

Human nature, for all of its rumored complexity, is a simple thing: Tell us we can’t have something and we suddenly want it more than we’ve ever wanted anything else in our lives. Put something out of our reach and we grope and strain and pant for it with all of our might.

That truism, however, cuts no ice with those who try to ban books. Or maybe it cuts too much ice. Maybe it’s a veritable hull of the Titanic, in ice-slashing terms, and they simply don’t care if their efforts end up bringing more attention, not less, to the books they fear — because it’s not really about the books. Maybe it’s just about bullying, about telling other people what to do. Deep down, I imagine, book banners don’t really want to ban any books; they want the world to acknowledge their beliefs and convictions. The books to which they object just happen to constitute a handy stage for the dramatization of their manifestoes.

This week marks the 28th annual return of Banned Books Week, an event sponsored by the organizations that enable our nation’s literary culture to thrive: the American Library Association; the American Booksellers Association; the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the Association of American Publishers; the American Society for Journalists and Authors and the National Association of College Stores.

Additionally, Banned Books Week is endorsed by the Library of Congress Center for the Book.

In 2008, reports the library association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 500 attempts were made to rid libraries of books that some people didn’t like and thought others shouldn’t like, either. And those were just the reported tries; many more incidents are not recorded. The books that have faced challenges include consensus classics such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and newer books such as the “Harry Potter,” “His Dark Materials” and “Gossip Girl” series. The complaints are predictable: profanity, sexual content, anti-religious sentiments.

The groups that keep Banned Books Week front and center want to remind us that freedom of reading, like freedom of speech, is crucial to a democracy. Books are worth fighting for. The release of the annual list of controversial books is a great opportunity to renew our commitment to unfettered access to books.

Books don’t kill people; people kill people. In other words, I didn’t become the ax murderer that my mother feared I might. And if I had, I don’t think we could’ve blamed the books. As it was, I outgrew my true-crime fetish, eventually tiring of the dreariness of violence and mayhem. I moved on to space travel. That dream of a detective agency in Alaska never materialized.

The dream about the jaunt to Mars? Check back with me later.

You never know. Thanks to the books I read, I believe that anything’s possible.

From: PopMatters

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Nobel Literature Prize Awarded to Herta Mueller

By: Neda Ulaby

Herta Mueller, the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in a tiny German community in Romania. Her village was suffocating and insular, but Mueller recently told Swedish television that she felt like an outsider in the rest of Romania, too. Even speaking made her aware of her differences:

"Of all these languages that I have borrowed, not even one belongs to me — not the one from home, not even the Romanian. None belongs to me, and that's why there is such an impulse in me to write," she said.

Mueller began writing as a young intellectual under the regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. She was shadowed on the street, fired for refusing to inform on co-workers, and arrested. A friend committed suicide under similar pressure.

Bridget Haines, who edited a book about the author, says the effects of living in Romania remained with Mueller, even after she fled to Germany at the age of 22.

Haines says that when Mueller's first review was published, Mueller bought 20 copies of the newspaper because she didn't realize how easy it was to make photocopies: "In Ceausescu's Romania, photocopiers were only owned by the secret service. You weren't allowed to copy anything."

Mueller writes poetically about very grim things — exile, oppression and the horrors of Nazi Germany, Soviet gulags and Eastern European dictatorships.

Her most recent book, Atemschaukel, draws from her mother's memories of a Soviet labor camp. The hero is a teenager who darkly observes that getting deported to such a camp will at least get him out of his "thimble of a town where all the stones have eyes." Five years later, he's released into a busy town where he could be stopped and interrogated at any moment:

I have packed myself into silence so deeply I can never unpack myself in words. I just pack myself differently each time I speak.

Mueller's own experiences have led her to stand up for newer refugees fleeing to Europe from all over the world: "Why has it always been in this world that people should leave their countries and others are the ones committing the crimes?" she asks.

As for her own status as a refugee, she has returned to Romania, but only as a visitor: "One never comes back the same way," she says. "Once you leave under such circumstances, you become a different person."

Selected Works In English
The Land of Green Plums
The story of five young people in Ceausescu's Romania. Having left their impoverished villages for university in search of education and camaraderie, their hopes are dashed as the friends betray themselves and each other.

The Appointment
A Romanian clothing-factory worker is summoned by Ceausescu's police. Her crime: sewing notes into the linings of men's suits bound for Italy. "Marry me," the notes say, with her name and address.

Nadirs
Part autobiography, part poetry, this reflection on life in communist Romania follows a young woman who escapes rural isolation only to find chaos in the city.

From: NPR

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Kindle Still Won't Ignite in Canada

by: Marc Lostracco

Now ranked as Amazon's best-selling product, the Kindle has been a remarkable success in the American marketplace, possibly signalling that e-book readers have reached a tipping point. The devices can download books wirelessly without being tethered to a computer, and text is displayed on a reflective electronic paper screen, which isn't backlit and uses very little power. The Kindle has been available south of the border for more that two years, and in a press release late yesterday, Amazon announced the rollout of their iconic e-book reader in more than a hundred countries. While consumers in places like Botswana, Sri Lanka and Mongolia are now about to order the thin white tablet, however, Canadians are - again - left twisting in the breeze.

Canada is notorious for being tardy to the technological party, for a variety of reasons ranging from convoluted broadcast contracts to patent issues to domestic business practices. Probably the most notorious example of this involves Apple's lustfully coveted products: we were a year late with the iPhone and the iTunes Music Store, Skype was available on the iPhone in every country except ours (until last month) and we still can't buy high-definition movies on iTunes. As for television, it's taken decades of negotiation to finally get HBO and Nickelodeon channels in Canada, although the "Canadianized" versions are merely brand licences and don't always include identical content to their American counterparts.

So: back to e-books. The Kindle boasts 60% of the American e-book market, with Sony bringing up most of the slack. The attractive Sony Reader is actually available in Canada right now (and finally became Mac-compatible last month), but they are unable to download books wirelessly. DRM-wrapped e-books downloaded from Sony's service can also only be viewed on a Sony device, and vice-versa with Amazon.

For now, Amazon is remaining mum on why Canada has been shut out of the international launch. A message on Amazon's Kindle page states, "We are curently unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle content to Canada. We are working to make Kindle available to our Canadian customers as soon as possible."

The delay could be due to publishing contracts, although that seems unlikely since e-books are already available domestically. Because the Kindle uses GSM networks to download its product internationally, Amazon could also still be in negotiation with Rogers. It's not necessarily a matter of retail inventory either, since Kindles aren't destined for the Best Buys of the world (international customers have to order directly from Amazon and have the e-readers shipped from the United States).

The lack of the device in the Canadian marketplace seems unusual since Sony, Indigo, and book publishers like Penguin and Random House have moved to fill the gap with their respective electronic offerings, despite a clear demand for the Kindle. Clearly, it's a matter of "when" rather than "if," but in the meantime, Amazon.ca at least helpfully sells some Kindle product: screen protectors and charging cables.

CORRECTION: This article originally insinuated that the Sony Reader could only display content purchased from Sony's e-book store. It has been clarified to explain that this only pertains to DRM-wrapped content. Both e-book readers can display a variety of text and image formats, but not each other's protected product.

From: Torontoist

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Boy Lifts Book; Librarian Changes Boy's Life

Produced for Morning Edition by Vanara Taing. The senior producer for StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo.

Olly Neal grew up in Arkansas during the 1950s. He didn't care much for high school. One day during his senior year, he cut class — and wandered into the school library.

As he told his daughter, Karama, recently, he stumbled onto a book written by African-American author Frank Yerby. And the discovery changed the life of a teenage boy who was, in Neal's memory, "a rather troubled high school senior."

The book was The Treasure of Pleasant Valley — and it had an alluring cover, especially for a teenage boy.

Neal remembers it being "risque — a drawing of a woman who appeared to be wearing something that was basically see-through. But the symbolism was really great for me at that age of 16."

There was just one problem: If Neal took the book to the checkout counter, he was sure that the girls who worked on the counter would tell his friends.

"Then my reputation would be down, because I was reading books," Neal said. "And I wanted them to know that all I could do was fight and cuss."

Finally, Neal decided that he ought to steal the book, in order to preserve his reputation. So he did.

A week or two later, Neal had finished the book — so he brought it back to the library, careful to replace it in the same spot he had found it.

"And when I put it back, there was another book by Frank Yerby," Neal said.

"So I thought, 'Maybe I'll read that, too.' So I took it under my jacket," Neal said.

"Later, I brought it back, and there was — by God, there was another book by Frank Yerby. So I took it."

He read four of Yerby's books that semester — checking out none of them.

But Neal's sneaky behavior turned out not to have been so sneaky after all.

Attending his 13-year high school reunion, Neal ran into the school's librarian, Mildred Grady. She had seen him trying to steal The Treasure of Pleasant Valley years ago.

"She told me that she saw me take that book when I first took it," Neal said.

"She said, 'My first thought was to go over there and tell him, boy, you don't have to steal a book, you can check them out — they're free.'

"Then she realized what my situation was — that I could not let anybody know I was reading."

Grady told Neal she decided that if he was showing an interest in books, "she and Mrs. Saunders would drive to Memphis and find another one for me to read — and they would put it in the exact same place where the one I'd taken was."

So, every time Neal decided to take a book home, the pair would set off to the city to find another book for him.

"You've got to understand that this was not an easy matter then — because this is 1957 and '58," Neal said. "And black authors were not especially available, No. 1. And No. 2, Frank Yerby was not such a widely known author. And No. 3, they had to drive all the way to Memphis to find it."

But the women's efforts paid off: Neal went on to attend law school and later became a judge,
retiring as an appellate judge of the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

When Grady died, her son asked Neal to tell everyone gathered for her funeral the story of how the librarian nurtured his reading habit as a teenager.

"I credit Mrs. Grady for getting me in the habit of enjoying reading, so that I was able to go to law school and survive," Neal said.

from: NPR

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Print management in libraries: friend or foe?

Sarah over at the LibrarianInBlack blog has an interesting post about charging for prints in libraries.

She says:

"The Tech from the Non-Techie blog featured an interesting article, “Educate Don’t Alienate,” giving voice to something I think many library staff feel: charging for printing and setting up complicated print management systems causes grief for the customer, grief for the library, and does it really save the library any money? The author, Beth Tribe, proposes not charging for printing and instead educating the rare offender who prints out his/her entire thesis eight times.

Philosophically, I am a proponent for eliminating all charges in libraries whenever possible, including late fines, print charges, copy charges, and not investing in expensive systems to track these minor charges and alienate our customers in doing so. I understand the arguments that some library services are “extra,” or “not basic,” and that taxpayer money shouldn’t go to Mr. Public’s 800 color copies of his retirement party flyer or 17 late children’s books. I also understand that these are “revenue streams” that might be hard to convince a city or county governing body to abandon. At the same time, I argue that the investment of staff time, technology infrastructure created to handle these small charges, and bad customer service (including people who just don’t ever come back to the library) outweighs the money we potentially make back.

If you’re thinking about this yourself, just lay out a quick and simple cost-comparsion between resources gained from each of these services at your library and resources spent. You might be surprised to find that the difference in what you’re gaining with the current method isn’t as big as you thought it was.

OK, now everybody–argue with me."

Check out the original post to see comments.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology

by: Roy Tennant

It's not insulting to say that those who run libraries tend not to know all that much about technology. A very different set of skills are needed to run an organization, and those skills do not often come packaged along with technical knowledge and experience. But administrators need to know some specific things about technology in order to do their jobs well, so here is my list:

1. Technology isn't as hard as you think it is. At least compared to years ago it isn't. Any reasonably competent library technologist can take a server from scratch to a fully-functioning web site in a day. And with services like Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), you don't even need hardware to get a site up and going in no time. Quite literally, you can go from nothing to a fully-functional LAMP stack (operating system, web server, database, and programming language) as well as any of a number of free content management systems (e.g., Drupal) in less than a day. Sure, there are some things that are still quite time consuming and complicated (e.g., writing software from scratch), but many of the basic services are today quite easy and fast.

2. Technology gets easier all the time. I recall a time not all that long ago when installing software on Unix was a royal pain. You would need to download the release, then configure it, then compile it. And if you hadn't already installed required software dependencies (other applications this application needs), then you'd have to do those first. Now installing applications and any required dependencies can be as simple as a one-line command (e.g., "sudo apt-get install X"). Plus, there are now projects like Bitnami that have pre-packaged complete technology stacks that can take you from scratch to fully-functional in a variety of applications in no time at all.

3. Technology gets cheaper all the time. I rent a server from a service provider, and have for years. Recently when I filled my disk drive I realized that I could pay the same amount per month but upgrade to a server with twice the RAM and more than twice the amount of disk space. Just keep breathing and what you can buy for the same amount of money gets better all the time.

4. Maximize the effectiveness of your most costly technology investment -- your people. As technology itself falls in price per unit, your staff is likely to get more expensive. So pay attention to what is required to make the most effective use of them. This means getting them the training and resources they need to do their job well. I can't believe how many administrators skimp on hardware and make their staff make do with inadequate amounts of RAM and processors when they are the least expensive part of the equation. Believe me, you do not want your most expensive resource sitting around waiting for your least expensive resource to boot up.

5. Iterate, don't perfect. Librarians seem to love perfection. We don't want to put any technology out for the public to use until we think it is perfect. Well, we need to get over ourselves. Savvy tech companies know the path to success is to release early and iterate often. One of the major benefits of this is that your users can provide early feedback on what they like and don't like, thereby providing essential input into further development. Do not be afraid of a "beta" or "prototype" label -- people are now accustomed to such, and it can provide the necessary "cover" to being less than perfect.

6. Be prepared to fail. The twin to our tendency toward perfection is our fear of failure. But just like the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of progress, so is our fear of failure. Innovative organizations know that they will throw many things against the wall and only some will stick. But you don't usually know ahead of time which ones they will be, so you need to experiment, try things out, and see what works. This means you must be prepared for some experiments to fail. Just learn what you can and move on.

7. Be prepared to succeed. Hardly any technology success can be truly successful without a set of associated non-technology efforts to support it. Full administrative support that is communicated throughout the organization is essential. Publicity is often key, to alert your user community to a new web site or tool. Don't make the mistake of implementing a technology well but fail to get it out the door properly.

8. Never underestimate the power of a prototype. Prototypes are simple implementations of a new site or service that can help demonstrate what a fully-developed site or service would be like. Since many of us find it difficult to imagine a new site or service from a text description, prototypes can spark understanding in a way that few things can. Also, they tend to be much easier and faster to put together and can provide enough learning opportunities so that if you decide to support full development, the result will be more effective than it would have been otherwise.

9. A major part of good technology implementation is good project management. Many technology projects are not as simple as just installing an application -- often the process is a long and complicated one that requires developing an implementation plan, a schedule, and coordinating with other affected individuals and departments. Therefore, many technology projects require good project management to be successful. Keep in mind that your best technologist may not be your best project manager -- this is why using teams is often the best implementation strategy for anything beyond minor projects.

10. The single biggest threat to any technology project is political in nature. In the end, technology is the easy part. What's difficult is the people part. That's why your role, as library administrator, is the single most important role in any technology implementation. Are you willing to throw your political support behind it? Are you willing to invest the resources required to make it a success? Will you marshall the entire organization to support, promote, and use this new site or service? If not, simply don't bother. If yes, then welcome to what will likely be a successful project.
This is my list, and I welcome your comments on what would be on your list, or if you prefer, arguments about where I went wrong. Effective use of technology in libraries is too important to not get right.

From: TechEssence.info

Google Streetview Goes Live

by: Sean Marshall

The Toronto Star reported earlier this morning that Google Street View is now live in the Toronto and Hamilton areas. This also includes all of the inner-ring suburbs such as Mississauga, Brampton, and Markham. The images appear to be taken during the spring and early summer of this year, and as promised, people’s faces and license plates are blurred. What I found surprising was that the Google cars covered just about every street in Toronto, not just the major arterials.

But not only Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo are up; many other cities such as Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary (including the entire Trans-Canada Highway as far west as Lake Louise), and Vancouver are also live.

From: Spacing Toronto

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Queens Borough Public Library vs. Sirsi Corporation

Perspective and Commentary by Marshall Breeding

The Queens Borough Public Library, one of the largest and busiest libraries in the United States, has filed a major lawsuit against Sirsi Corporation, which currently does business as SirsiDynix. The lawsuits relates to the Library’s procurement of the Horizon library automation system from Dynix Corporation, which was subsequently acquired by Sirsi Corporation. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court Eastern District of New York on July 2, 2009. An initial conference is currently scheduled for November 2, 2009.

The complaint lists 10 demands:
"WHEREFORE, the Library demands judgment against Defendants as follows:

i. With respect to the Library's First Cause of Action against defendant Dynix for breach of contract, awarding the Library compensatory damages against Dynix in the aggregate amount, not less than $5,000,000, plus reasonable attorneys fees, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial;

ii. With respect to the Library's Second Cause of Action against defendants Dynix and Sirsi Holdings for unjust enrichment, awarding the Library compensatory damages against Dynix in the aggregate amount, not less than $5,000,000, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, fees, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial;

iii. With respect to the Library's Third Cause of Action against defendants Dynix and Sirsi Holdings for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, awarding the Library compensatory damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000, plus reasonable attorneys fees, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, fees, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial;

iv. With respect to the Library's Fourth Cause of Action against all Defendants for fraud, awarding the Library compensatory damages against Dynix in an amount of not less than $5,000,000, and punitive damages in an amount not less than $10,000,000, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, fees, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial;

v. With respect to the Library's Fifth Cause of Action against all Defendants for violation of New York State General Business Law § 349 awarding the Library (a) damages as provide by law, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial; and (b) reasonable attorneys pursuant to General Business Law § 349(h);

vi. With respect to the Library's Sixth Cause of Action for breach of the Guaranty against defendant Sirsi Holdings, awarding the Library compensatory damages against Sirsi Corp. in an amount of not less than $5,000,000, plus reasonable attorneys fees, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, fees, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial;

vii. With respect to the Library's Seventh Cause of Action for tortious interference against defendant Sirsi Corp, awarding the Library damages against Sirsi Corp. in an amount of not less than $5,000,000, and punitive damages in an amount not less than $10,000,000, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, fees, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial;

viii. With respect to the Library's Eighth Cause of Action for fraudulent conveyance against all Defendants, awarding the Library judgment setting aside the fraudulent conveyances of the assets and/or imposing a constructive trust over such assets to satisfy any judgment entered in this action;

ix. With respect to the Library's Ninth Cause of Action for breach of express and implied warranties against defendants Dynix and Sirsi Holdings, awarding the Library compensatory damages in an amount of not less than $5,000,000, together with accrued and accruing interest, costs, fees, the final amount of which shall be determined at trial; and

x. granting to the Library such other further and/or different relief as to this Court may deem just and proper."

Keep in mind that at this point none of the claims made in the complaint have been proven in any court. While a lawsuit of this magnitude may be interesting news, the real story will happen as it works its way through the legal system.

From: Library Technology Guides

Monday, October 5, 2009

The Dewey Dilemma

Library journal currently has an article about library systems that have ditched Dewey and lived to tell the tale, as well as library systems who have tried mashup options, and a variety of other combinations.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

5 Reasons why you should have gaming at your library

“We’re pleased to have Justin Hoenke, Teen Librarian at Cape May County Library guest posting for us this week. -Peter Bromberg

This past month, my library (Cape May County Library) was named the first place winner of the New Jersey State Library’s video contest “Solving Life’s Problems.” The video follows a timid young boy named Trevor whose family cannot afford to buy him the latest video game system. Instead, his family takes him to his local library where he quickly becomes a fan of the weekly game night program. In turn, Trevor and his family become regulars at the library. (So regular that Trevor now gets high fives from the librarians!)

Needless to say, I’m super proud of our staff (Lisa Alderfer, Technology Librarian and Mike Trout, Technology Assistant) for putting this video together. It clearly shows the many ways a library can be there for its patrons if we just take that extra step. But video games…in the library? I always get quizzed about how odd this idea seems by friends, family, and library patrons. I tell them that the answer is simple…we’re a public library and the public wants video games so…we give them video games! In 2008, video games sales topped $21 billion dollars(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28682836). Now I’m no expert with money, but that seems like a lot. Enough that we librarians should take notice.

If you’re on the fence about video game programs or circulating video game collections in your library, here are five reasons why you should just go for it.

1. Welcome to the 21st Century!
Video games are part of the new media. Corporations are using video games for product placement. Movie stars are starring in their own video games. That old cliche of video games making kids lazy and unsocial can be thrown out in the trash. Video games help people learn how to solve problems, develop hand/eye coordination, and now with games such as Wii Fit, provide exercise. Please check out all of your excuses at the door thank you very much.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where video games are a relevant source of information and media. If you choose not to have any kind of video games in your library, you’re living in the past.

2. Gaming builds community.
Since my library (Cape May County Library) initiated our Game Night program in January 2008, we have seen around 20-30 teens attending our weekly Game Night program. Looking at this crowd, you see a wide range of personalities; the hardcore gamers, the metalheads, the anime teens, and many more. Over the past year, I’ve watched all these personalities mix, mingle, and become good friends. Teens have told me that because of our Game Night program they now have more friends at school. This is what the 21st century library is all about…building community. The public library of the 21st century should bring together all sorts of people and provide them with the stuff they want.

3. You will see all sorts of new people in your library.
My desk is situated about 30 feet from our entrance. I get to see a number of folks stopping in the library on a daily basis. They’re usually the same people, but since we got our circulating video game collection things have changed. I see a lot of new faces coming in every few days to get a new game. Once they find out I’m the one buying the games, I become sort of a pseudo celebrity. The cool thing about this story? These are people I’ve NEVER seen in the library before. Just think of all the patrons that are out there that are not interested in books. This is one way to reach them.

4. You couldn’t ask for an easier way to get teens interested in the library.
I call video games the “gateway drug for getting reluctant teens interested in the library.” It almost seems too easy. Have video games and they will come. That’s it. As I said in #2 above, every week I see a wide range of personalities mixing it up for two hours over Rock Band. These teens started out just coming to our game nights. I casually introduced them to our other teen programs and all the teen books and graphic novels we had. I didn’t beat them over the head with this other stuff…instead I just said “Hey, take a look at this other cool stuff.” Slowly but surely the teens were coming into the library on non game nights. They were checking out books. They were coming up to my desk and requesting new books. As a matter a fact, they helped initiate a new collection of video game strategy guides in our teen room.

Now, our teen circulation is through the roof. All of our teen programs are very well attended. And it all started with video games in the library.

5. The initial cost may be high, but the return investment is priceless.
Wow. That was such a cliche line. I’m sort of proud of myself for writing it. Anyway, video games cost a lot of money. Playstation 3 games regularly go for $59.99. Ouch. Especially in a time when so many libraries are getting budget cuts. Here’s something to think about though; You’re not plopping down all this money for nothing. You are creating life long library users. These patrons will see that and they’ll become supporters for your library. They’ll be the ones to fight for you in the future if you face budget cuts.

Are you also gaming in your library? If so, comment below and share what is working best for your library.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions:Twitter: http://twitter.com/justinlibrarianFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/justinhoenke

from: Library Garden