Book Chase

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I wonder if Amazon’s announcement that the company has partnered with OverDrive to make it possible for Kindle-users to download books from local libraries will be the final nail in the coffin of Sony’s e-book Reader?  Amazon’s slowness in making it possible for its Kindle to connect with public libraries has been about the only good thing Sony still had going for it in the e-book-reader wars.  Now, Sony is saying goodbye to even that last advantage.

Without a doubt, Amazon is doing the right thing for its customers.  But those customers are likely in for rude shocks the first time they try to “check out” a book from their local libraries.  Even without the millions of Kindle-users in the queues, checking out an e-book has been no easy task.  It is all a matter of supply and demand – and most public libraries are already finding it near impossible to keep up with the demand for e-books.  Throw the new Kindle-based patrons into the mix, and the wait is likely to be one of several weeks for access to even a relatively popular title.

Rather than helping to shorten the wait-time for library patrons, publishers, still unsure how to deal with public libraries and e-books, are actually a big part of the problem.  Libraries face at least three challenges when acquiring e-book copies, especially copies of popular titles: high base prices vs. their very limited budgets for what are considered to be extra books; not all publishers are willing to sell e-books to libraries; and, at least one publisher will only allow its e-books to be checked out 26 times before they must be retired forever.

There is little doubt that Amazon’s entry into your public library will bring the e-book/public library business model to a crisis much sooner than would have otherwise happened, forcing publishers to take a more reasonable approach to libraries – or to concede that market to other publishers willing to grant more equitable terms.  In the short run, this will further frustrate those who enjoy the convenience of acquiring library books from the comfort of home; in the long run, it will probably help to equalize the current e-book supply/demand imbalance a whole lot sooner than expected.

We’ll be watching.

>It’s National Library Week (April 10-16) and I almost missed it again this year.  So on this next-to-last day of the national celebration of libraries, I want to add my own brief thoughts about my appreciation for our country’s public library system.

The little town I grew up in had what was basically a little one-room library that housed, by my estimation, approximately 3,000 books.  Perhaps 25% of those books were in the children’s section of the library and the rest of them were shelved in the adult section.  Some of my earliest memories of feeling “independent” pertain to hopping on my bicycle and riding the three miles to that little library where an elderly librarian always greeted me with a tight little smile.  This lady had to be won over, and that did not come quickly or easily.  Eventually, though, she began to consider me one of her “regulars” and she took an interest in what I was reading, as opposed to what I should be reading.

She made sure that I had pretty much exhausted everything on the shelves that she considered age-appropriate (and those were some pretty rigid standards in the 1950s, believe me).  Then she surprised me by saying that, if I would bring a note from home giving her the authority, she would enlist me on a reading program of her own design.  From the day I brought her that note, that librarian opened up a whole new world to me.  Suddenly, I was delving into the classics and a whole lot of relatively current adult fiction.  She did shelter me by refusing some of my choices, but she always found a substitute that made sense in the context of what I was asking to read.  All that summer, and the two that followed (ages 10-12 for me), she was my guide.

That woman, in that tiny, underfunded library, taught me to love reading.  She gave me a gift that has lasted a lifetime, one that has given me more pleasure and contentment than any gift I have received since.

I am, of course, not alone.  Here is an example of what libraries can mean to a kid, in this case, award winning children’s author Virginia Hamilton who grew up in little Yellow Springs, Ohio.  Here her husband speaks of how important a public library was to his wife when she was growing up there.

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http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=boocha01-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B004KZQK9G&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

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I love LibraryThing – no big surprise there, I’m sure, for most of you, and I’m willing to bet that many of you feel the same way.  (Those of you who are unfamiliar with the site might want to go here. I’ve been a member there since July 2006 and I can’t recommend it enough.)  What makes the site so much fun for me is the way that it blends two of my passions: books and statistics.  My love of books is probably obvious by now.  What might be less obvious, is how much pleasure I take in studying statistics, rankings, lists, and the like.

LibraryThing makes that easy to do.  For instance this is what I learned today in about five minutes of looking at the numbers there:

There are 1,315,207 members, as of this moment. 

Between them, the members have catalogued some 61,322,658 books. That’s an average of just under 47 books per user. 

Of those 61 million books, 6,004,201 of them are unique titles. 

Those same members have written a total of 476,510 book reviews and posted them to the site.

Those are the raw numbers. What really intrigues me, is the detail behind some of those numbers.

The Top 10 Most Collected Authors are: 

J.K. Rowling – 397,655 books
Stephen King – 281,299 books
Terry Pratchett – 234,221 books
J.R.R. Tolkien – 189,282 books
Neil Gaiman – 178,120 books
C.S. Lewis – 174,157 books
William Shakespeare – 150,435 books
Nora Roberts – 135,337 books
Jane Austen – 128,463 books
Agatha Christie – 126,783 books

While I’m not surprised by most of the names on the list, I do find it a bit strange to see Nora Roberts bracketed by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen. It is, indeed, a strange old world in which we live.

One other tidbit worth sharing today: of the Top 10 books most collected, numbers 1-7 are the Harry Potter novels, followed by The Da Vinci Code, The Hobbit, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yes, we as a group, have one heck of a split personality – if not much taste.

>Time for something a little different.

It seems that one UCLA student does not appreciate people talking on their cellphones in the study area of the school’s library.  Hard to argue with that sentiment – if only she had stopped there.  The young lady, unfortunately, proceeds to mock the “Asians” who have offended her.  Her YouTube “vlog” is a hit – something I suspect she now regrets.  Note: The most offensive part of the young lady’s rant is not included in this particular clip but is definitely mocked in the lyrics of the answer-song.

One young “Asian” has decided to respond, in song, to her concerns (Beware: there is at least one “F-bomb” involved here) and the rest is history.  Lesson learned?

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One Florida third-grader got more than he bargained for when he checked out Tank Girl One from his school library.  According to television station WSVN, the graphic novel is filled with scantily clad women, drinking, smoking, and sexual situations that include women with women.  The young man only read the book six times before telling his mother what he had in his backpack (that’s a joke I just could not resist).

It seems that the school ordered a book called Tank Talbot, a Guide to Girls.  The book they received from the publisher did have two of the same words in its title, but that’s where the similarity ends.

WSVN-TV has video of how the station reported the story and a written piece for those who prefer reading their news over having someone do it for them.

What concerns me about this story is the number of incompetent people who had their hands on this book before it made it into the little hands of one lucky/unlucky third grade student.  Do you mean to tell me that no one noticed that this book had a different title, or a different cover…or that it was inappropriate for an elementary school library?  Really, Hebron Heights Elementary School?  Really?

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(Photo Is Not from Isle of Wight – representative only)

Are you one of those unfortunate book lovers whose library might soon be closed due to county or state budget cuts?  Well, you might try to wake your neighbors to the threat by doing what these folks on the Isle of Wight did last weekend.

According to the BBC’s Peter Henley: 

…The latest idea on the Isle of Wight was a mass borrowing – users taking out their maximum number of books.


On the island this is a rather generous 30 titles per person, and by emptying the shelves they seem to have hit a nerve.

[...]

Now the Library service is keen to re-assure people that the libraries are still open, though it seems there are some shortages:


“While some sections, particularly adult fiction and children’s picture books have been particularly popular among protestors, there remain plenty of other titles available.” (library spokesperson)


I suspect some of those opposing closure will want to hang on to the paperbacks that they’ve liberated, just in case. On the Island they’re planning to move from eleven libraries to just two – with improvements at Ryde and Newport, an on-line and mobile service and helping volunteers to run extra services.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly how this helps the cause of library patrons, though. Is the sight of all those near-empty bookshelves supposed to shock library users into becoming more vocal in their protest of library cuts? Is it maybe supposed to remind library employees that they will be out of jobs if the shelves stay bare? Or is it more like a run on a failing bank when everybody rushes in to get some “stuff” before it is all gone?  Is it all of the above?

I suspect that the protestors have already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. People are talking about them all over the world – and, most importantly, about the potential cuts to their library system. A little pressure on public officials to do the right thing never hurts, especially when it comes from public exposure like this.

I do love the fact that these people are doing something to bring attention to the probable library closings facing the Isle of Wight.  Of course, even those wanting to do the right thing for the island can only do so much.  If the funds to keep the libraries open are not there, they are just not there.  It might be time for the island’s citizens to dig a little deeper, a case of putting their money where their library books are.

Good luck, guys.  We’re pulling for you.

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According to one Birmingham, Alabama, librarian, some big city public libraries should be off limits to children because of the indecent behavior that goes on there.  And she has had enough.  Barbara Ann Wilson is suing the Birmingham Public Library because she has been forced to work in a setting where some patrons use the internet to surf porn sites on the same library computers being used by children.  Her lawsuit claims that she received little or no support from the library manager when some of these same patrons pinched and groped her after she confronted them about their behavior.

From the ABC news site:

The library subscribes to a filtering service, according to its website. It can be turned off, however, at the request of any adult.


The library’s policy states, “The library does not control or edit what is made available or filtered out by this service.”

Click here to read the entire ABC News article (detailing the charges and possible solutions to the problem).

Not surprisingly, the ACLU has jumped in on the side of the porn-surfers but some of the group’s suggested solutions are ludicrous: providing privacy screens on each computer or placing them in a secluded area off the library beaten path.  Perfect.

Someone needs to explain to me why tax dollars should be spent on providing free porn to the homeless and those who cannot afford to indulge themselves in the privacy of their own homes.  The government is well know for its obscene waste of tax money- but this is ridiculous.

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Not Charles A. Jones

And guess what he did to kill the time…he read books.  You have to love that.

According to The Post Chronicle:

A 26-year-old homeless man was discovered living in the basement of an Ocean Township library in New Jersey. According to reports, he was found by the custodian after living in the Library for two weeks.

 Charles A. Jones Jr. is from Neptune, New Jersey. He was spotted by the custodian on August 13 around 9:10 p.m. He was spotted peeking through a basement window after hours. The custodian immediately called the police.

Not a bad life, I suppose…all the books you could ever want, plenty of time to read, and free food from the employee break room. What a deal!

>It looks like Vice-President Biden’s “Summer of Recovery” tour is fast turning into the bust the rest of us already knew was headed our way like a bat out of hell.  Sometimes, it seems, our beloved leaders are the last too know (scary as that thought is).

That’s not the case, though, for the bunch in charge of Camden, NJ, government.  They know how bad it really is out there, and they are chopping non-esential services to help control their budget shortfall.  You know, non-essential services like public libraries.   According to the MyFox, New York, website this is what is going to happen:

New Jersey’s most impoverished city will close all three branches of its public library at year’s end unless a rescue can be pulled off.

Camden’s library board says the libraries won’t be able to afford to stay open past Dec. 31 because of budget cuts from the city government. The city had its subsidy from the state cut.

The library board president says the library system, which opened in 1904, is preparing to donate, sell or destroy its collections, including 187,000 books.

Board president Martin McKernan says keeping the books around would pose a fire hazard.

I am desperately hoping that this library board president is just playing a game of “chicken” with those in charge of funding the Camden library system because I cannot imagine that a library president would ever really resort to destroying a collection of this size.  Why would the books be more of a fire hazard if the doors are locked on Camden’s libraries than they are now?  Does this guy really expect that his future budget will some day go up to a level that allows him to replace 187,000 books all at once?  Or is he a prime example of the Peter Principle…a man who has been promoted one too many times and is now in a job that demands way more competence than he possesses?

Libraries continue to take the hit for all the foolish government overspending in other areas.  This disgusting trend seems to be on the rise – and that is very, very wrong.

>That economic times are tougher today than ever before in my lifetime (and I’ve been around long enough to live through some pretty tough recessions) is beyond doubt. Frankly, I don’t see things getting much better for the average folks out there any time soon, either. In fact, I get the feeling that things will get worse before we finally turn the corner toward a real recovery some years up the road.

That’s why what this Houston Chronicle article describes does not surprise me in the least. Some bookstores are doing pretty well, others are suffering greatly. The difference? The ones doing well are primarily selling used books; the ones doing more poorly are selling just the opposite. With new hardbacks going for close to $30, on average, and quality paperbacks selling for $15, or more, is anyone surprised?

Sales at Dallas-based Half Price Books began to rise when gasoline prices soared during the summer of 2008 and again when the recession slammed U.S. consumers that fall.

Both events drove more traffic to Half Price Books’ 110 stores as Americans latched on to thriftier habits, said Kathy Doyle Thomas, the chain’s executive vice president.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Half Price Books racked up a 5 percent jump in same-store sales, which compare year-over-year revenue at stores open at least a year. Same-store sales at its 11 stores in the Houston area were up 5.6 percent.

The story doesn’t read as well at Barnes & Noble and Borders Group, as consumers shift to buying books online or reading digital books on electronic devices such as Amazon’s Kindle.

Borders has had layoffs and recently launched an e-bookstore to compete with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader.

I generally read at least 125 books a year, and there is no way I can afford to buy that many new books. So, at least 20 years ago, I settled into a plan to buy used books as reading copies and hardbacks for those books I want to give a permanent place on my bookshelves. (That does mean I often buy the same title, in different versions, two times.) The used books, including paperbacks, are often used in trades or as resales that get me a few more unread books.

I still, though, do shop for new hardbacks even though I cringe a little when I pay for them. I bought Mark Twain’s Other Woman by Laura Skandera Trombley the other day, a book about the woman who played a key role in Twain’s life during his last decade (after the death of his wife). The book sold for $27.95 and I purposely bought it from one of Houston’s independent bookstores. Add sales tax and I paid $30.25 for the thing because I want it for my permanent collection and I try to buy from indies when I’m reasonably close to one.

I suspect that books sales are in trouble and that library usage will increase at about the same pace that bookstore sales decline. Sadly, this is all happening just when local governments everywhere are slashing their library budgets.

>The fast-crumbling California economy has caused the city of Los Angeles to make a sad decision concerning its public library system. As of now, patrons of all 73 of the city’s libraries will have to get their business done from Tuesday through Saturday. Can’t make it on those days because you have to work, go to school or take care of other obligations? Not our problem, says the city of LA.

From the South Los Angeles Report:

“Children can’t wait,” she said. “A six-year-old whose parents can no longer take him to the public library because of the shortened hours may lose his reading skills over the summer. He’ll have to start all over again in the fall. And by the time he’s nine, he may have fallen so far behind that he will never catch up. That’s a tragedy, and one that the public library can help avert.”

More than 15 libraries no longer have children’s librarians, and more have no teen specialists, she said.

[...]

The closures could also impact adults, including those who are disadvantaged or out of work. “We, the public, whether we have lots of money or we have no money, we have no resources to use,” said librarian Verdel Flores. “The library is the great equalizer – it’s the great democracy-maker. Anybody can go in there and every service is free. You can learn English there, you can learn to type there, you can send out a resume, you can create a resume. The library is for everyone.” Besides the closures, budget cuts also resulted in the layoffs of more than 100 library workers, librarian Mark Siegel said, resulting in newly-built libraries lying vacant.

This is just sad. Considering all the waste and graft involved in government spending (and why should anyone believe California would be different), it is a terrible shame to see library users abused this way. Surely, the mayor can find the money to keep library doors open by cutting a bit of the useless fat in his budget. Come on, guys. You can do better than this.

>There is still hope in this crazy old world.

It seems that “hundreds of people” flocked to the brand new Walnut Creek, CA, library that opened for business yesterday and it seems to have been well worth their wait.

MercuryNews.com has the details:

After being under construction for two years, hundreds of people on Saturday came to the opening of the 40,000-square-foot, $39.9 million library in Civic Park.

After a short reception, at which Mayor Sue Rainey officially declared the library open, people flooded the three main entrances and filled each nook and corner of the place. Especially popular was the 5,000-square-foot children’s section. Storytime began about 10 minutes after the doors opened and youngsters quickly settled on the multicolored carpet.

[...]

The two-story, sleekly designed building — with a curving roof and tree branches etched into an indoor glass wall — incorporates images of nature. The curving-line design on the floor and tables simulates the flow of the city’s creeks.

Rainey said the library is the most beautiful in the state and she thanked the community for helping to make it happen. She acknowledged that the library has caused controversy; some residents think it’s too big and cost too much. But when people experience the library they’ll understand it has been worth the time, cost and effort, she said.

[...]

But for all the bells and whistles — including 94 public computers and a 65-inch television screen for video game playing in the teen section — many on Saturday quickly found a book and a good place to sit and began reading.

Imagine that. Even with all the new library gizmos, people still managed to find and enjoy the actual books.

>I’ve griped a few times about the limited number of “copies” of ebooks available from my county library system. It seems that close to 90% of the books are always checked out (and that I seldom have interest in the other 10% anyway), and getting an ebook via the library’s hold list seems to take forever. That’s why I’m happy to see this unorthodox approach to making the supply part of the equation more equal to the demand part.

From the Wall Street Journal article:

Libraries are expanding e-book offerings with out-of-print editions, part of a broader effort to expand borrowing privileges in the Internet Age that could challenge traditional ideas about copyright.

Starting Tuesday, a group of libraries led by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, are joining forces to create a one-stop website for checking out e-books, including access to more than a million scanned public domain books and a catalog of thousands of contemporary e-book titles available at many public libraries.

And in a first, participants including the Boston Public Library and the Marine Biological Laboratory will also contribute scans of a few hundred older books that are still in copyright, but no longer sold commercially. That part of the project could raise eyebrows, because copyright law is unclear in the digital books arena.

[...]

Only one person at a time will be allowed to check out a digital copy of an in-copyright book for two weeks. While on loan, the physical copy of the book won’t be loaned, due to copyright restrictions.

The effort could face legal challenges from authors or publishers. Paul Aiken, the executive director of the Authors Guild—which challenged Google’s scanning efforts—said “it is not clear what the legal basis of distributing these authors’ work would be.” He added: “I am not clear why it should be any different because a book is out of print. The authors’ copyright doesn’t diminish when a work is out of print.”

Mr. Kahle said, “We’re just trying to do what libraries have always done.”

Having to receive prior permission from a copyright owner in order to scan a book is onerous, said Mr. Blake, of the Boston Library. “If you own a physical copy of something, you should be able to loan it out. We don’t think we’re going to be disturbing the market value of these items.”

This is certain to be challenged, of course, but it is interesting to see libraries try something that challenges copyright law this way. The publishing world is changing so quickly that we might not recognize it ten years from now. Good, or bad, change is coming. Please read the Wall Street Journal article, linked above, to get the complete story. You might also want to take a look at the Internet Archive website to see what is already out there.

>At least that’s what recently released statistics about U.K. library visits seem to say. According to the numbers (as noted at Wales Online) total library visits are down or stagnant everywhere in the U.K. except for Wales:

In total, across Wales there were almost 14 million visits to Welsh libraries, an increase of 3.7% on the previous year, according to the figures released by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).

This compares with a year-on-year decrease of visits to English libraries of 1.4%, a decrease of 4.1% in Northern Ireland and a tiny increase of 0.4% in Scotland.

I’m a little surprised that library visits would be down anywhere these days considering how terrible the world economy is. Where else can so much great free stuff be found? I say free but, of course, it’s all paid for with your tax dollars – so support your local libraries before our misguided politicians decide they should be cut back in favor of another stupid government giveaway program.

Take a look at the very cleverly designed Central Library in Cardiff. The outside of the building is meant to look like a set of bookshelves:

>I think that I’m typical of most avid readers in that one of the worst nightmares I can imagine is the loss of my sight. Never does a day by without me picking up a book or two to sneak in as much reading time as I can manage. No matter what I accomplish in a given day, if I have not read at least a few dozen pages, the day feels wasted. So stories like this one from the Rome News-Tribune (GA) really make my day.

Picture from: Rome News Tribune

(The Northwest Georgia Talking Library provides flash drives preloaded with books (left) and digital players used to play them free of charge for those who can no longer read for visual reasons or who can no longer physically hold books. (Kevin Myrick/RN-T))

The program, which covers 11 counties in Northwest Georgia, provides books through the National Library Service for the blind and physically handicapped.

Delana Hickman, the local talking book library coordinator, said the books are typically for those who can no longer read regular print on books or who can no longer hold books.

“What we do is we send audiobooks through the mail on flash memory,” she said. “We have all types of books, magazines and periodicals available.”

[...]

Those who use the service are beginning to transition over to a new digital player provided by the library which takes the books, stored on a USB-type flash drive, and plays them using simple controls.

Hickman said that before the new players patrons used cassettes, which were harder to use.

Take a look at the article for more details. This all sounds so simple, considering today’s technology, but imagine what a great thing this is for people who find it difficult to read the printed word.

I think I’ll sleep a little better tonight – one less nightmare to worry about.

> Look out, American readers. Times are tough, taxes can’t be raised much higher, and libraries across the land are desperate. Well…some libraries in parts of Colorado are desperate enough to throw your sorry butt in jail if you don’t return that DVD you borrowed from them. Remember, the key word is “borrowed.” Libraries don’t give those things away just because you’d like to have a copy of your own but are too cheap to actually, you know…pay for one.

From ABC News, with Diane Sawyer, comes the story:

>As more cities across the country desperately seek ways to slash budgets, it seems that municipal and county libraries are getting hit especially hard in the process. The excuse often given for chopping library budgets is that fewer and fewer citizens use their services. Unfortunately, this becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy: cut funds, put fewer books and DVDs on the shelves, fewer people will show up. Well, duh.

One little girl in Hull, Massachusetts, has had enough of this nonsense and she is fighting back. According to Boston.com, sixth-grader Calliope Pina Parker came up with a plan to raise some cash for the library, even to rallying some local politicians to help her out:

Calliope is also an avid user of libraries, borrowing books from across the region and frequenting branches throughout the South Shore on her way to and from school, ballet, and karate practice. So it came as a particular blow when cuts in Hull not only sheared the library’s budget and hours but also cost the town its state certification last month.

“Now people from Hull can’t go to any other library,” said Calliope, whose library card is no longer welcome in most other communities.

[...]

Today she organized an all-day “readathon” of the J.K. Rowling book that started it all, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” to raise awareness about the situation and money for the nonprofit group that supports the library.

Calliope, a student at the South Shore Charter Public School in Norwell, found a location, publicized the event through e-mail, fliers, and phone calls, and organized a network of readers that extended well beyond her circle of friends.

The schedule of participants, stretching across three poster sheets at the Weir River Estuary Center, included the names of two selectmen, allowed readers to go at their own pace — some took a page, some half a chapter — and provided flexibility for drop-ins.

[...]

To maintain certification with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners — which enables local residents to borrow more broadly and allows a library to receive state aid and grants — a community must meet a number of requirements for library spending and operating hours, based on population and past funding.

Cities and towns that fail to meet the minimums can seek a waiver, and 97 of them applied this year, nearly four times the number last year and higher than at any time in the last two decades. The board last month granted them all waivers except Hull, because the library was a singled out for a cut 58 percent greater than other departments in Hull’s budget.

There you have it. Sometimes it takes a child to remind adults what is important. Well done, Calliope.

>From guardian.co.uk comes detail regarding the most popular books and most “borrowed” authors from U.K. libraries during the period July 2008 – July 2009. I’m not picking on U.K. readers -because I suspect that the results would be similar (or worse, if that’s possible) here in the U.S. – but this is sad:

The top three adult authors for July 2008-June 2009 were all Americans: the thriller writer James ­Patterson, followed by the romantic novelists Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele.

You read that correctly: 1. James Patterson, 2. Nora Roberts, 3. Danielle Steele

I don’t begrudge those folks their sales and popularity (well, yes, I am repelled by Patterson’s business model through which he slaps his name on dozens of books a year that are largely written by other writers) but it is a bit disheartening to see them atop a list of ALL writers whose works are housed in U.K. libraries.

On the other hand, read on, U.K., because I suppose that reading these guys is better than reading nothing at all.

Follow the link at the beginning of this post to see a list of the Top 250 books borrowed from U.K. libraries. You will find that three of the top four are Patterson titles and that he even wrote one of them all by himself. What a guy.

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It’s time for another feel-good story and this time around it comes all the way from the little English village known as Westbury-sub-Mendip. It seems that the villagers have adopted one of those old British phone booths, the reds one everyone remembers from the day when phones weren’t carried in our pockets. But it’s what they’ve done with it that is so cool.

They’ve created the U.K.’s smallest library. Actually, it’s a village book exchange, but, hey, that’s close enough for me – maybe even better. Details come from Mail Online:

Villagers rallied together to set up the book box after their mobile library service was cancelled.

It has really taken off,’ Parish councillor Bob Dolby told The Guardian.

‘Turnover is rapid and there’s a good range of books, everything from reference books to biographies and blockbusters.’

The phone box library is open every day for 24 hours and is lit at night. There is a regular check on it to see if some titles are not moving. These are then shipped on to a charity shop to keep the phone box collection fresh.

As someone who has started book exchanges in locations ranging from Algeria’s Sahara Desert to the tallest office towers in Houston, I have to applaud these guys. Well done, folks.

>I was hoping to find something today that would be a nice contrast to yesterday’s downer about the 12 thieves caught stealing $140,000 worth of textbooks from several Maryland libraries. I never expected to find something as perfect as this story, however.

According to Kentucky.com, sixty-four-year-old Jim Davis of Sheperdsville, KY, is in a desperate race against the clock to collect and donate 100,000 books to Kentucky libraries before his personal battle with cancer makes it impossible for him to continue.

…he was touched by a Kentucky Educational Television program about two months ago decrying the disproportionate number of high school dropouts in some Eastern Kentucky counties as well as the increase in teen pregnancies and soaring use of illegal drugs.

“If we don’t do something now to keep kids in school and give them a good education, this whole country is going to hell in a hand basket,” Davis said.

He contacted Bullitt County Public Schools and churches in that area, asking people to help him collect 100,000 books for libraries that needed them. He asked for textbooks, reference books, children’s books, anything people had on their shelves collecting dust but not enhancing minds.

[...]

Davis saw that KET documentary while recovering from rounds of radiation and chemotherapy for cancers found in his brain, lungs and hip in January.

“The doctors gave me a year to 18 months to live,” he said.

But the treatment sent the cancers into remission, he said. Follow-up CT and PET scans, however, found cancer in his neck, lower spine and stomach, he said.

[...]

Davis estimates he and others have collected 50,000 books. That’s halfway to his goal.

Although he plans to be in Powell County on Monday, “I’m not doing this for that,” he said. “This is something I can do before I’m gone.”

A lot of people, including the Barnes & Noble folks, are working to help Mr. Davis meet his goal but he’s only half way there. If anyone out there is interested in getting books to Kentucky on his behalf, please call (502) 428-6029 for details.

>College and community libraries in Maryland have lost $140,000 worth of textbooks to twelve thieves looking to make a quick buck by reselling the books to area college students.

WBAL-TV, Baltimore, has the story:

The investigation into the thefts began in July when University of Maryland, Baltimore County police discovered a large number of the books in a car. The barcodes were removed from many of them. UMBC police said they believe that more than $54,000 worth of books were stolen from the campus library.

[...]

Their cases were supposed to go to court in September, but a judge dismissed three of them, claiming that police didn’t have probably cause to stop and search the car.

UMBC police then shared their information, and the book theft investigation continued in other areas until the indictments were announced Tuesday.

[...]

“Ironically, there were books on ethics and philosophy, but largely, the bulk of the books were in the nursing field and the sciences, like chemistry,” said Mary Eilerman, HCC’s Chief of College Security.

Charging documents showed that some of those who were charged are family members.

According to the story, these guys were checking out dozens of books at a time, near the 75-book limit that some of the libraries allow its patrons. Maybe it’s me, but why should anyone be allowed to check out 75 books at a time? Are there really enough books in the library system to allow one person to walk away with 75 of them? We all know how slow some people are to return books – are they even allowed to renew 75 books for additional time?

I know there are librarians out there who see this kind of thing all the time. Please help me understand why any library would allow such a large number of books to walk out the door with one person. I don’t get it.

>Well, it seems that Maury County (Tennessee) Library patrons are going to have to use their imaginations a little more than they thought they would when they went to the library for something to read. The library is being victimized by a mystery censor with a big blue pen and a tiny little mind who is marking out all the “offensive” words in those library books.

MercuryNews.com has the details (what there are of them):

Officials believe the same person has used a blue pen to censor words in between 50 and 100 books during the past several months.

Library Director Elizabeth Potts said most of the books are mystery novels, but the vandal also targeted the “9/11 Commission Report.”

Potts said no one is forced to read the books and “if they don’t like them, they should just return them.”

Potts said the library doesn’t have the money to replace the damaged books, so patrons will to have to use their imagination to guess what the blotted out words are.

If this wasn’t so stupid, it would be funny. I am so sick of all the nannies out there who think they know better what’s good for me than I do. Come on, library system, nab this fool before more books are destroyed.

>Here we go. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, but Cushing Academy’s decision to dump almost its whole library in favor of a lavish rec room seems a little empty-headed to me. According to this USA Today article, the school junked almost all of its library books in favor of Kindles, big screen TVs and a coffee bar. Welcome to the Cushing Cyber Cafe, boys and girls:

Its 20,000-book collection was barely used, administrators say. Spot checks last year found that, on some days, fewer than 30 books, or about .15%, circulated. And it was becoming rather lonely down there.

[...]

So the venerable boarding school west of Boston — the first in the USA to admit both boys and girls — last summer undertook another first: It began getting rid of most of the library’s books. In their place: a fully digital collection.

[...]

Three big-screen TVs now greet visitors at the entrance, and the old circulation desk is now a coffee bar. Officially it’s called Cushing Cyber Cafe, but students quickly nicknamed the spot “12K Cafe” after its $12,000 espresso machine.

[...]

He concedes that the $12,000 coffeemaker has become a distraction, but he says the real idea behind the cafe was to create “a new commons, a new agora, where people in a convivial setting exchange ideas and socially interact around ideas with culture and literature at their fingertips.”

The USA Today article does a good job enumerating the pros and cons of a high school taking this approach with its school library so, if you still find yourself on the fence, you should take the time to read the whole thing. Myself, I have to wonder why these school administrators think that a bunch of students who don’t seem to be readers in the first place are suddenly going to become avid readers/users of e-books. I suspect that once the “new” wears off, they will just be watching a lot of television and getting wired on all of the expresso being cranked out by their fancy new coffeemaker.

Private schools can get away with this kind of thing as long as apathetic parents let them but if I were a student there I would hate to have my research limited to only the books available on Amazon.com.

Perhaps Cushing Academy should change its name to Amazon Academy.

>Just when you think you’ve heard it all, something like this story comes along. It seems that a patron has been checking out old, historic books and returning more than the books. I’m not kidding.

According to Denver’s Channel 7:

“Some of the bed bugs fell out of those materials that had been returned,” said Denver Public Library spokeswoman Celeste Jackson.

The infected books came from 69-year-old Denver resident Roger Goffeney. He checks out historic books, some 200 years old, and helps archive them online in an effort called the Gutenberg Project.

When he brought a few of the rare books back, bed bugs from his downtown apartment hitched a ride.

[...]

The library said the items with bedbugs were immediately quarantined and prevented from being released into circulation so they didn’t affect the public.

The library banned Goffeney three weeks ago and asked him to return the rest of the books to a secure drop.

Instead, the library said Goffeney returned the books a week later to the main book drop and reinfected the library.

The library said it had to destroy 31 books that Goffeney checked out. Now, it wants him to pay as much as $12,000 for the rare books and $6,000 for fumigation costs.

“I have no intention of paying a dime,” the retired minister said.

Unbelievable. How do you deal with idiots like Mr. Goffeney?

>This is a common story around the country. Localities decide for themselves the boundaries within which citizens wanting to use the services of public libraries must live. Then it is up to the libraries to enforce the rules. That is exactly what happened to one Pennsylvania library but staff there got more than it bargained for by enforcing the rules.

First comes the semi-funny Stephen Colbert bit about the library that supposedly recalled a 7-year-old’s library card – and then comes the other side of the story.

“Nailed “Em” by Stephen Colbert and Company

The clip is worth watching in order to understand the statement that is shown, below. (I tried to get the video embedded into this page but Blogger.com does not seem to approve of the way it is coded, so you’ll have to click on the link to see it. Please come back and read the statement when you’re done.)

Dear Reader

July 2009

A MESSAGE FROM THE LIBRARY BOARD PRESIDENT

I am compelled to write because certain entities have continued to tell a story that is not factual and this has left a number of misconceptions in the minds of people. These people, without having the facts, are making hurtful and incorrect accusations about the staff of the Memorial Library of Nazareth and Vicinity. We had a recent example of how commenting on a situation without the facts can lead people to regret their comments so let us get to certain facts.

1.Dominic Phillips has not been banned from the Nazareth Library.

2.Dominic Phillips still has a valid Nazareth Library Card. This card will continue to be valid until it expires on 12-31-09.

3.No employee of the Nazareth Library ever called the Phillips’ home and said otherwise. The message left on the Phillips answering machine was from an employee of the library branch in Palmer Township.

4.The woman in the piece on the television show The Colbert Report, Leslie Burger, is the Director of the Library in Princeton, NJ. (68 miles away from Nazareth according to Rand McNally directions).

5.The interior library pictures were taken at the Phillipsburg, NJ library.

6.Neither the Nazareth Library staff nor the Library Board were approached by the producers or anyone else connected with The Colbert Report, nor were the staff or the Board given a chance to talk with them, or present our information to them.

7.We did not draw up the library district boundaries. This is done by a bill passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor.

8.Tatamy Borough was temporarily part of the Nazareth Library as part of a State funded grant back in the 1980’s. When the grant finished, Tatamy Borough, through its duly elected officials, decided not to pay for continued participation by the Borough. This is their right and their obligation to act in the best interests of their residents as they see it. Let me opine that as these officials were reelected after this, a majority of the residents of Tatamy must have agreed with them. It is also instructive to know that Bushkill Township was also a part of that grant and those elected officials did decide to permanently join the Library.

The first article published in the Express Times was not entirely accurate. There was a second article which made some effort to correct some of the misconceptions that arose from the first. Newspapers, at their heart, attempt to inform the public. I have no doubt that was the intent of the Express Times when it ran the first article, although I would have preferred that it had waited and done more investigation so that its story did not have factual errors. However, The Colbert Report is an entertainment forum on a channel called COMEDY Central. To be candid, I am both shocked and saddened to see how may people, many with advanced education and degrees, can watch a show on Comedy Central and assume that they are being given FACTS.

Maybe if people realized the show went to New Jersey to do a story about a Pennsylvania Library, they might question why. After all, New Jersey libraries are run pursuant to New Jersey law and Pennsylvania Libraries are governed by Pennsylvania law. Could it be that librarians familiar with Pennsylvania laws and procedures might not have given the show what they wanted for their episode? I will let each person make their own judgment. What I will question is how people could be saying all of the things, with such hate and venom, when they don’t know what in blazes they are talking about.

Any person who has sent a nasty e-mail to the library or posted a nasty comment on a blog somewhere who did not know at least 5 of the 8 facts I listed above (one more than half) should be ashamed of themselves for making these comments without a factual basis to do so. Has our society really gotten that gullible that we believe what we see on a comedy television show as fact and make no effort to use any critical thinking or do our own investigation? Everyone who has enough ability to send a hateful e-mail could have checked the Library’s web site and read the membership criteria and policies for themselves. Maybe it would be a good idea for all of us to go to our own libraries and take out 1984 or Animal Farm and learn something from all of this. And the first lesson should be not everything you see on television or even in the newspaper is correct.

John Reinhart, Library Board President

>One woman in Scotland has set what seems like an unbreakable record for the number of library books checked out in a lifetime – without ever having to pay a late fee.

Louise Brown is 91 years old now and she has been checking out about six books per week since 1946. That comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 books and, amazingly, Louise has recently doubled her checkouts to twelve large print books every week.

From Mirror.co.uk comes the details:

She said: “My parents were great readers and I’ve always loved books.

“I started reading when I was five and have never stopped. I like anything I can get my hands on. I also like Mills & Boon for light reading at night.”

Louise is now partially sighted and so mainly opts for large prints books.

But she gets through them so quickly she has almost exhausted the supply at the public library in Stranraer, south west Scotland. Janice Goldie, of Dumfries and Galloway Libraries, said: “We are amazed at Mrs Brown’s achievements.

“When she first joined the library service, she was allowed to borrow six books a week. This has now risen to 12 and she always takes her full quota. The staff at Stranraer Library think she’s a remarkable lady and look forward to her weekly visits.”

Louise’s librarians would like to know if anyone can break her record. If you know of someone who has even come close, do let the librarians at the Stranraer Library (Scotland) know about it – but I doubt that they’re holding their breaths in anticipation.

(Photo is of Louise’s library)

>It is still painful to look around Galveston and remember what the city was like before Hurricane Ike devastated it in September 2008. Such massive destruction of property makes for a very slow recovery, but Galveston is making great progress in getting things as close to “normal” as they ever will be again.

This week comes the good news that the city’s Rosenberg Library, housed in a 105-year-old building, is ready to open two floors to patrons. Details are from the Houston Chronicle:

Almost 10 months after Hurricane Ike flooded its ground floor with more than seven feet of water and dealt a knockout punch to its electrical system, Galveston’s venerable Rosenberg Library will take a big step toward normality today when it reopens its second floor and mezzanine.

The areas house the bulk of the library’s collections and a 45-unit computer lab. For the first time since the September storm, library patrons will be able to check out books without 24-hours advance notice.

The Rosenberg, now 105 years old, was inundated by saltwater, which destroyed ground-floor air conditioning, telephone and electrical equipment. Executive Director John Augelli estimated repairs cost about $4 million.

[...]

The first floor, which previously housed the children’s collection and the Wortham Auditorium, likely will remain closed for at least a year, he said.

Augelli said the library had too much money invested in real estate to consider abandoning the historic structure. In years before the hurricane, the library installed a new roof and launched a multimillion-dollar project to reinforce tons of decorative stonework in jeopardy of crumbling from the building’s exterior.

Augelli said about $2.5 million of the repair cost will be covered by insurance; the rest by grants, donations and payments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Having struggled with my own insurance company for four months after Ike over how much the company owed me for a new roof, I can imagine the hassle that must be going on with the insurers of the Rosenberg Library. That makes their progress especially nice to see.

>One library seems to have found out the hard way that it had more to lose than books and computers. Fox News 44 reports on the Proctor, Vermont, librarian who took the art right off the wall…took it to auction, in fact:

A librarian in Proctor has resigned after auctioning off a valuable painting owned by the Proctor Free Library.

Police say head librarian Mary Brough admitted taking “Curly Locks,” a 26-by-33-inch Jessie Wilcox Smith painting that for years hung on the wall in a children’s section of the library. The 1912 painting was sold for $96,600 to a Massachusetts auction house.

And she thought she could get away with this? What is her husband really saying?

>Apparently, head librarians in Brooklyn do not spend much time speaking with each other about what is happening in the library system there. From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle comes the story of a library system “begging for used books” while one of its branches simultaneously places boxes of them on the curb for garbage collectors.

A concerned neighbor notified this paper last week that the Brooklyn Heights branch library had thrown out cartons of readable books of all types. While passersby scavenged through the boxes, stacked for pickup with the rest of the trash on Clinton Street, the hour was late and a rainstorm threatened.

[...]

The timing of the book dumping was especially ironic considering that the Brooklyn Public Library will host its “Great American Book Drive” on Saturday, May 16 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Central branch at Grand Army Plaza. The library has partnered with the socially conscious online used bookseller Better World Books for this event.

Is this a firing offense? I would hope so but, if not, someone needs to be demoted all the way back to shelving books for a year or so.

>The Bay Minette, Alabama, public library has suffered one of the most despicable acts of vandalism imaginable. It is not only that $650 worth of books was destroyed – it is the type of books that were chosen for destruction and how they were destroyed that makes this crime particularly difficult to stomach.

From the website of WKRG News 5 (CBS):

The Bay Minette Police Department is investigating what they’re calling one of most sickening cases they’ve ever been involved with. Somebody urinated on more than 40 books inside the public library. The books were worth 650 bucks…all of them were in the religious section. Books about Jesus Christ, Christmas and faith are covered in urine and are now worthless. Bay Minette’s mayor says the act of vandalism was vile, sickening and unbelievable.

“It was disgusting,” says Mayor Jamie Tillery. “It was an act of vandalism against the entire city. We will not tolerate vandalism of any sort.”

Librarians filed a police report and put the damaged books inside plastic trash bags. The books will eventually be thrown out.

I suspect that this was done by a young person and not an adult. Either way, though, someone needs to pay the price here, including a good dose of public humiliation to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again.

>The state of Michigan, particularly hard hit by our current Great Recession, is being forced to consider cost-cutting ideas that would have been laughed off the table just a year or so ago. There is definitely room for cost-cutting at all levels of government, despite the fact that politicians always choose to raise taxes rather than to cut wasteful spending, but what one Michigan county has resorted to strikes me as very, very sad.

From the Chicago Tribune comes this story:

Macomb County’s library, which is formally known as the Macomb County Reference and Research Center, will close May 1 to be renovated as classroom space for Wayne State University, The Detroit News reported Saturday.

The last day for people to check out materials was April 4, according to the library’s Web site.

When it reopens, no materials will be lent. A portion of the building located about 17 miles northeast of Detroit in Clinton Township will be open to the public to use computers and reference materials.

…

The library’s collection will be divided among Harrison Township and Mount Clemens. Harrison Township is getting 130,000 books, CDs and DVDs to start a volunteer-run library at the township hall.

I wholeheartedly applaud the idea of a volunteer-run library system in place of the county library but I have to doubt how long it will last and where the new books will come from when the old ones are worn out, lost, or simply out-of-date. We all know that there is enough waste, even at the county level, that can be cut so that something like this really does not need to happen.

Hang in there, Michigan. Take advantage of the 2010 local and national elections to vote out of office every single career politician you can because that’s the only message these weasels understand.

>Remember the floods that threatened the contents of the University of Iowa’s library last summer? Remember the “feel good story” that developed when dozens of volunteers showed up at the library to move the books to higher ground?

Well, guess what? Now comes news that the sprinkler system in part of the library failed yesterday, resulting in damage to about 2400 of those very same books.

Yes, truth is often stranger than fiction.

Maybe that’s why Herman Rosenblat thought he could get away with his own bunch of lies?

Original posting about the floods (June 24, 2008):

Rescuing Books in Flooded Iowa

>All of that new library technology (WiFi, automated checkout, electronic book catalogs, computers, CDs, DVDs, etc) is something we’ve all grown so accustomed to now that many of us can barely remember the days when all of that great stuff was not part of a visit to our local library.

How far have we come? Well, it’s almost a city emergency when the automated checkout system fails at libraries these days. At the very least, such a failure is worthy of a news story warning the public that their library will have a “retro” look for a while.

Story from the New Bern Sun Journal (NC):

Beach said the 126,303 library users “will have to bring their library card and sign out books just like they used to do. It’s a funny thing, going back to the way it was 25 years ago. The barcodes will have to be entered manually once we get a new server.”

Beach said library staff will be “filing cards alphabetically, like we used to, and we will have to keep a record of books coming in as they are returned until such time as we can scan them back in.”

She said the computer server is 10 years old and “we have prayed on it for a long time now. It has gone well beyond when a server should be replaced.”

…

Internet access has not been affected and will continue to be available.

But until the server is replaced, patrons can’t reserve books or access the library catalogue by computer, either at the library or remotely.

…

Beach said the situation makes this “a perfect time to become a ‘browser’ of the library shelves again, instead of browsing online and only coming to the library when you are going to pick up the book.”

“We have come to depend on technology so much,” she said. “Now we have to fall back on solutions that used to work just fine. We’ll have to remember that. I just hope it doesn’t last too long.”

Ahh, the good old days…Remember when?

>
It seems that the pilot who pulled off the miracle landing on the Hudson River on January 15th had to leave his library book behind when he abandoned his sinking jetliner. Sullenberger thought to call the Fresno State library to tell them what happened to the book and to request an extension of the time allowed for its return.

KMPH Fox 26 has the rest of the story:

You see, Sullenberger had packed the book in his luggage, which was on the plane at the time of the crash January 15th. That luggage has since been collected, with other debris of the crash, as part of a federal investigation.

Being the good patron that he is, Sullenberger called the library and asked for an extension to get the book back, or at least a waiver of overdue or replacement fees. Sullenberger had received the Fresno State book through an interlibrary loan request at a library near his home in Danville.

Fresno State took the request in stride, agreeing to forgive the overdue book, and even making plans to replace the book he checked out with a bookplate inside the cover of the copy dedicating the volume to Sullenberger.

I have to tell you that I am amazed that a man with so much happening to him in the last three weeks has the presence of mind to think about a lost library book. That says an awful lot to me about this man’s character…a true hero is Mr. Sullenberger.

>The Dallas Public Library system has come up with a plan that will make the system a few bucks richer while placing bestselling books and movies into the hands of patrons quicker than ever. The plan sets up a two-tiered system for acquiring access to the most popular, most heavily demanded, books and movies. Under that plan, patrons have a choice: pay $5 to get a copy now or get a copy for free by waiting in line with everyone else, a wait that usually runs between six and eight weeks.

According to the Dallas Morning News:

Library officials say the program is designed to eliminate or shorten wait times for people who want to borrow popular titles rather than pay hefty retail costs. Not every best seller or top-selling movie is part of the program, but many of the hottest titles ­ 28 books and 40 DVDs ­ are now available at all branches the same day they hit bookstores.

…

In Dallas, the StreetSmart program doubled in size from its launch in October through December. In total, consumers spent $10,405 on 2,081 items during those three months. Hill said revenues have covered the costs of buying extra copies of popular titles.

What do you think? Good idea or bad idea?

>Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but the Consumer Product Safety Commission has finally blinked on the requirement that all children’s books be removed from library shelves until it could be determined that they were not toxic. Now it’s up to the libraries to convince those who must be obeyed that printing ink should be exempted from such testing.

(Near miss allows library escape for now)

From a Houston Chronicle article:

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Friday that it will postpone lead testing requirements that would have put libraries at risk of liability lawsuits for loaning children’s books.

Congress tightened limits on lead levels in children’s toys as part of the Consumer Project Safety Improvement Act, following a lead paint scare from imported children’s toys. The new requirements were set to take effect Feb. 10 and carried the weight of civil or criminal penalties for distributors of children’s products, including books.

This decision, once entered in the Federal Register, will give public libraries one year to decide how to bring their collections of children’s books into compliance.

While pleased, advocates of libraries would like to see more than a postponement of the requirement.

Surely, a reasonable compromise can be reached sometime during the next year…even with the Federal Government in the picture.

>Some of you read so many books that you’ve probably jokingly been asked if you were born in a library. Well, two-day-old Sariah Trevino will be able to say that she really was born in a library, the Denver Central Library.

Her mother didn’t quite make it to the hospital but was lucky enough to be helped inside the library by some alert employees and delivered her daughter there without any complications. In fact, it sounds like everything went very smoothly.

Sariah and her mother
Photo: (THE DENVER POST | JOHN PRIETO)

Trevino was on her way to the hospital Tuesday, riding the “0″ bus, when she started having contractions.

A woman on the bus, who works at the hospital, noticed what was going on, Trevino recalled. She told the expectant mother to get off the bus at the library and used her cellphone to call for an ambulance.

“I tried to get to Denver Health,” Trevino said sheepishly. “I didn’t make it.”

Trevino said as she walked from the bus toward the library, she knew the baby was coming in a hurry.

“As soon as I started walking, I felt pressure,” she said.

Once inside the library, Trevino lay down on the floor and people inside, including library security, began to help. Trevino only had to push twice to deliver her baby girl.

Wouldn’t it be fun to tell your reading friends that you were born in a library?

>We’ve all heard about the dangerous toys imported into this country from China – along with the Chinese-manufactured pet food that seems to have killed more than a few U.S. pets a few weeks ago.

Now parents have to worry that the storybooks they hope will inspire their children to become lifetime readers may be as toxic as those Chinese toys. Libraries and bookstores across the country seem to be faced with the possibility that they will have to clear their shelves of books aimed at readers under 12-years old until those books can be checked for toxic lead paints and plastic.

According to the Mercury News:

That little-known consequence of a law passed to protect kids from tainted toys has librarians and publishers lobbying furiously for an exemption before it takes effect Feb. 10. Without a reprieve, San Jose library officials say they could be forced to close their children’s sections and send off all 700,000 volumes in them for safety testing.

…

Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August to protect kids from exposure to lead and plastic. The law followed the discovery of lead paint in imported toy trains and mounting health concerns about baby bottles and toys containing phthalates, used to make some plastics more flexible.

Lawyers for the Consumer Product Safety Commission told publishers in a recent opinion that the law covers children’s books as well as toys and applies retroactively to include library collections. All books aimed at kids under 12, the commission said, need to be tested to ensure they don’t exceed the new lead and phthalate limits.

Although publishers presented the commission with evidence they say proves books don’t pose any of the health risks to children that the law intended to address, the agency has yet to be convinced.

Applying this law retroactively to libraries and bookstores seems to me to be an impossible burden despite the fact that so many little ones keep their books in their mouths as much as they keep them in their hands. This is a tricky question but the word “overkill” does come to mind pretty quickly.

>I lived in London for a number of years during the nineties and made good use of the Richmond public library (pictured at left) located just across the Thames from my Twickenham flat and, when I needed a quick book fix during the day, I sometimes made a lunch hour run to the Uxbridge library just a few blocks from my office. But despite all my trips, and the several hundred books I checked out and took home, I never realized that the Brits have a system whereby its authors get a small royalty payment each time one of their books leaves the library.

David Barnett, in today’s Guardian Books Blog offers a little insight into just how it all works and how gratifying he finds the very idea that people are deciding to carry his books home with them:

Whether you’re Stephen King, author of countless doorstep-sized bestsellers, or Steven King, author of PublishAmerica-released volume Why Are We Here?, you’ll get the same PLR payment: 5.98p per borrowing.

If you’re a famous author you’re probably getting the maximum PLR payment possible, currently £6,600 – enough to buy a few ermine-covered yellow legal pads and a couple of gold-nibbed fountain pens for the writing of your next opus. I know a couple of mid-list writers who have occasionally earned the maximum: not a bad little earner that will pay the mortgage for a few months.

…

My PLR payment this time round? A grand £8.79. Titter ye not – although that wouldn’t buy a brand-new copy of either of my novels, it fills me with an almost heady sense of satisfaction.

Being – currently, this is the year it’s going to happen, fingers crossed, onward and upward! – not even a mid-list, not even a bottom-feeding author (as the writer of two novels, Hinterland and Angelglass, published by an independent press with no resources for advances, marketing or getting books into the major bookstores, which demand horrendous discounts), the value of the PLR isn’t in the money but in the information it provides about book borrowings.

Over the period one of my books was borrowed 69 times, while the other had 78 outings. Not figures to exercise the great men and women of letters, but good enough for me. That’s nearly 150 borrowings over a year. That means, on average, three people a week borrowed one of my novels. They might not have enjoyed them; they might not even have read them. But however tiny and unimportant to other people, the fact that someone bothered to pluck my work off a shelf, take it out and lug it home, is good enough for me.

What a great idea! I understand, of course, that someone has to pay for all those royalty checks but I actually would not mind paying a bit more tax to my county of residence in order to support something like this in the U.S. – especially, or maybe exclusively, for those authors who don’t have a prayer of ever writing a bestseller. I can easily imagine that an annual check (even if capped at something like $10,000 per author) based on library traffic could make all the difference for some writers, and that would be tax money well spent, in my opinon…something that rarely happens anymore.

>Time for a feel-good story, something we can really use amidst all the bad news that is so consistently being thrown at us twenty-four hours a day.

According to the Lake County News (California), one little girl wanted to make a difference at her local library so she raised enough money to buy eleven new children’s books for Upper Lake’s library:

Applying to Sunkist’s “Take a Stand” – its program to supply lemonade stands to community minded youth aged 7 to 12 – Miranda explained she wanted to give back to her community.

The lemonade stand arrived in late summer, after Miranda had begun her fourth grade year at Upper Lake Elementary School. Miranda asked for and received support for supplies from both Sentry Market and Hi-Way Grocery, who generously donated lemons, sugar and ice.

She also creatively handcrafted ribbon and bead bookmarks to supplement her sales and satisfy her non-thirsty patrons.

Miranda’s delicious, old-fashioned, fresh-squeezed lemonade was a satisfying surprise for those who stopped for refreshment on Sept. 13, a warm and sunny Saturday in front of the historic Upper Lake Library.

The proceeds of her effort netted $49.12 and in honor of her community spirit, the donation was matched by The Friends of the Lake County Library.

When questioned how she wanted her donation spent, Miranda emphatically responded, “More picture books and chapter books!”

This young lady’s efforts resulted in 11 new books for juvenile readers and to each book was affixed a special bookplate honoring its benefactor.

Just look at the proud smile on this little girl’s face. If that doesn’t make you feel good, nothing will.

Eight-year-old Miranda Huntley

>Robert Grandt is an educator of some 39 years experience.

He is also a very proud father.

So what’s the problem? Well it seems that Grandt’s pride in his daughter has gotten him into hot water with NYC’s Conflicts of Interest Board because he had the audacity to place copies of the new book that his daughter helped illustrate into Brooklyn Technical High School’s library. Now keep in mind that Grandt was not selling the book, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, from the display table he set up. He was giving the book away to anyone who showed an interest in it.

The New York Times has all the details of this ridiculous waste of the city’s time:

On Monday, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board announced it had settled a case it had brought against Mr. Grandt for promoting his daughter’s work. He agreed to pay a $500 fine and admit in a three-page stipulation that he had violated the city ethics code.

Mr. Grandt, who said he was an unwitting villain, was disappointed the board did not see things his way.

“There are so many things going on they could investigate,” he said in an interview, “and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”

…

Mr. Grandt said he did not envision that putting a few copies of his daughter’s book on a table or promoting it in the newsletter last spring would cross the line.

“I’m supposed to, as part of my job, display new books and encourage the kids to read new books,” he said. “So here, I displayed my daughter’s book and encouraged the kids to read it and am told that I had done something illegal.”

Trouble first surfaced in June, he said, when he was summoned to an assistant principal’s office. Representatives from the city’s Department of Investigation were there to ask about the book.

You know what? Even if this man’s daughter made a whopping twenty cents for any books purchased as a result of her dad’s efforts, who cares? Is this is all the fine folks in New York City have to worry about? If so, they must never turn on the local news.

The members of the Conflicts of Interest Board should be ashamed of themselves and rushing to give Grandt the apology he deserves. Yeah, right…that’s gonna happen.

Robert Grandt is an educator of some 39 years experience.

He is also a very proud father.

So what’s the problem? Well it seems that Grandt’s pride in his daughter has gotten him into hot water with NYC’s Conflicts of Interest Board because he had the audacity to place copies of the new book that his daughter helped illustrate into Brooklyn Technical High School’s library. Now keep in mind that Grandt was not selling the book, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, from the display table he set up. He was giving the book away to anyone who showed an interest in it.

The New York Times has all the details of this ridiculous waste of the city’s time:

On Monday, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board announced it had settled a case it had brought against Mr. Grandt for promoting his daughter’s work. He agreed to pay a $500 fine and admit in a three-page stipulation that he had violated the city ethics code.

Mr. Grandt, who said he was an unwitting villain, was disappointed the board did not see things his way.

“There are so many things going on they could investigate,” he said in an interview, “and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”

…

Mr. Grandt said he did not envision that putting a few copies of his daughter’s book on a table or promoting it in the newsletter last spring would cross the line.

“I’m supposed to, as part of my job, display new books and encourage the kids to read new books,” he said. “So here, I displayed my daughter’s book and encouraged the kids to read it and am told that I had done something illegal.”

Trouble first surfaced in June, he said, when he was summoned to an assistant principal’s office. Representatives from the city’s Department of Investigation were there to ask about the book.

You know what? Even if this man’s daughter made a whopping twenty cents for any books purchased as a result of her dad’s efforts, who cares? Is this is all the fine folks in New York City have to worry about? If so, they must never turn on the local news.

The members of the Conflicts of Interest Board should be ashamed of themselves and rushing to give Grandt the apology he deserves. Yeah, right…that’s gonna happen.

>While most people dream of retiring from the job somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65, Martha Smith has continued working for about forty years beyond those ages. She still puts in her time every Sunday at the Vinland, Kansas, library that she first started working at in 1926. The Kansas City Star has her story:

Smith is 102 now. She wears a hearing aid and needs an oversized pair of magnifying goggles to read. She has to bend over so far to walk her eyes stare straight at the ground.

Others might have retired 30 years ago. Not Smith. She still shows up every Sunday to put in her hours at the 400-square-foot, one-room library 10 miles south of Lawrence.

Sure, she took a break in 1944 to raise her only son, Edwin. But she returned in 1956 and has been there ever since.

…

She has been there so long the Kansas Department of Human Resources honored her with an outstanding older worker award as the oldest female worker in Kansas.

That was six years ago.

Ray Wilbur, president of the Coal Creek Library Association, said Smith is one of a kind.

“She’s loyal, she’s diligent, she’s always optimistic and cheerful,” he said. “What’s not to like?”

The article is interesting, but even better is the video that the newspaper has attached to it. Take a look…it will make your day.

While most people dream of retiring from the job somewhere between the ages of 60 and 65, Martha Smith has continued working for about forty years beyond those ages. She still puts in her time every Sunday at the Vinland, Kansas, library that she first started working at in 1926. The Kansas City Star has her story:

Smith is 102 now. She wears a hearing aid and needs an oversized pair of magnifying goggles to read. She has to bend over so far to walk her eyes stare straight at the ground.

Others might have retired 30 years ago. Not Smith. She still shows up every Sunday to put in her hours at the 400-square-foot, one-room library 10 miles south of Lawrence.

Sure, she took a break in 1944 to raise her only son, Edwin. But she returned in 1956 and has been there ever since.

…

She has been there so long the Kansas Department of Human Resources honored her with an outstanding older worker award as the oldest female worker in Kansas.

That was six years ago.

Ray Wilbur, president of the Coal Creek Library Association, said Smith is one of a kind.

“She’s loyal, she’s diligent, she’s always optimistic and cheerful,” he said. “What’s not to like?”

The article is interesting, but even better is the video that the newspaper has attached to it. Take a look…it will make your day.

>

Rather unbelievably, the head of a Saskatchewan library branch seems to have stolen something between $500,000 and $1,000,000 from a group of rural libraries for which he was responsible. Bruce Cameron, 65 years of age, admits to bilking the system of $500,000 over a 14-year period but others believe that he stole much more than that.

According to The Canadian Press:

“Only a person of good reputation can continue a crime like this,” said Singer. “That’s why it is such a significant breach of trust.”

Court officers placed the grey-haired Cameron into handcuffs and led him into custody.

Crown prosecutor Gary Parker described the scheme as “sophisticated and elaborate.”

He said Cameron set up a fake company called Desert Rose Books based in Carson City, Nev.

Cameron ordered books that didn’t exist, then pocketed the money.

…

Arlene Pederson, the new president of the library board, said outside court that nearly $1 million actually went missing while Cameron was employed. But officials could only prove the half million was stolen.

She said she had always respected Cameron and believed he had the library’s best interest at heart.

“To find out that he had done this to us, there was anger – extreme anger,” she said.

Cameron was fired from his job after returning from one of his many Mexican holidays in 2004, said Pederson.

What strikes me in this case, as it always does when this kind of thing happens, is why someone of authority didn’t notice that so much money was being spent with nothing to show for it. Why is it that so many businesses and government agencies fail to notice that they are leaking money until it is too late to recover much of it, much less in time to ever determine exactly how much has gone into the wrong pockets?

Rather unbelievably, the head of a Saskatchewan library branch seems to have stolen something between $500,000 and $1,000,000 from a group of rural libraries for which he was responsible. Bruce Cameron, 65 years of age, admits to bilking the system of $500,000 over a 14-year period but others believe that he stole much more than that.

According to The Canadian Press:

“Only a person of good reputation can continue a crime like this,” said Singer. “That’s why it is such a significant breach of trust.”

Court officers placed the grey-haired Cameron into handcuffs and led him into custody.

Crown prosecutor Gary Parker described the scheme as “sophisticated and elaborate.”

He said Cameron set up a fake company called Desert Rose Books based in Carson City, Nev.

Cameron ordered books that didn’t exist, then pocketed the money.

…

Arlene Pederson, the new president of the library board, said outside court that nearly $1 million actually went missing while Cameron was employed. But officials could only prove the half million was stolen.

She said she had always respected Cameron and believed he had the library’s best interest at heart.

“To find out that he had done this to us, there was anger – extreme anger,” she said.

Cameron was fired from his job after returning from one of his many Mexican holidays in 2004, said Pederson.

What strikes me in this case, as it always does when this kind of thing happens, is why someone of authority didn’t notice that so much money was being spent with nothing to show for it. Why is it that so many businesses and government agencies fail to notice that they are leaking money until it is too late to recover much of it, much less in time to ever determine exactly how much has gone into the wrong pockets?

>This is a really poor news report but it offers a video look at the “Idiot Arrested for Failure to Return Library Books.”

This is a really poor news report but it offers a video look at the “Idiot Arrested for Failure to Return Library Books.”

>Some people seem to think that the world revolves around them and that no one else could possibly be as important as they are. How else do you explain the actions of this jackass who refused to return two library books despite the numerous efforts of her local library to get them back? Did it never cross this woman’s little mind that others might want to read those books she stole from the library?

KMBC TV has the story:

Heidi Dalibor borrowed “Angels and Demons” and “White Oleander” last year, WISN-TV in Milwaukee reported.

“I said, what could they possibly do? They can’t arrest me for this — I was wrong,” Dalibor said.

Dalibor did not respond to four notices from the library, two phone calls and two letters. The library forwarded the case to the police, who issued a citation over Dalibor’s failure to return the materials or pay the fine. The citation included a court date, which Dalibor admits she ignored.

…

Dalibor paid her $170 fine and was released.

“I completely take responsibility for not paying my fine on time and not going to my court date,” Dalibor said.

Still, she isn’t planning on returning the books.

“I still have the books, and I don’t plan to return them because they’re paid for now,” Dalibor said.

If my assessment of the mental ability and attitude of this woman upsets anyone, I apologize to them…but not to her. Look at her picture if you doubt that she is exactly the jackass I call her out to be. She still doesn’t get it despite being publicly humiliated and having to pay at least five times the price of the books she stole. Yeah, she’s real bright.

Some people seem to think that the world revolves around them and that no one else could possibly be as important as they are. How else do you explain the actions of this jackass who refused to return two library books despite the numerous efforts of her local library to get them back? Did it never cross this woman’s little mind that others might want to read those books she stole from the library?

KMBC TV has the story:

Heidi Dalibor borrowed “Angels and Demons” and “White Oleander” last year, WISN-TV in Milwaukee reported.

“I said, what could they possibly do? They can’t arrest me for this — I was wrong,” Dalibor said.

Dalibor did not respond to four notices from the library, two phone calls and two letters. The library forwarded the case to the police, who issued a citation over Dalibor’s failure to return the materials or pay the fine. The citation included a court date, which Dalibor admits she ignored.

…

Dalibor paid her $170 fine and was released.

“I completely take responsibility for not paying my fine on time and not going to my court date,” Dalibor said.

Still, she isn’t planning on returning the books.

“I still have the books, and I don’t plan to return them because they’re paid for now,” Dalibor said.

If my assessment of the mental ability and attitude of this woman upsets anyone, I apologize to them…but not to her. Look at her picture if you doubt that she is exactly the jackass I call her out to be. She still doesn’t get it despite being publicly humiliated and having to pay at least five times the price of the books she stole. Yeah, she’s real bright.