Library Stuff

“His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman is leading a call for writers to be “paid fairly” when their ebooks are borrowed from libraries, after investigations found they may be losing out twice over on digital loans. Pullman takes over from PD James as president of the Society of Authors in August, and is spearheading the body’s campaign on ebook library loans. Not only are authors not paid by the government when their ebooks are borrowed from libraries – they are paid around 6p per loan when physical books are borrowed, but digital titles are not yet part of the agreement – the Society has also found that publishers may inadvertently be underpaying authors for ebook loans, meaning they may be losing up to two-thirds of the income they would have received on the sale and loan of a physical book.” (via Guardian)

“The rumble in Round Lake is over. As its first order of business, a newly appointed seven-member Board of Trustees held an emergency meeting Wednesday night and unanimously voted to reinstate longtime librarian Theresa Marchione to her job with back pay. “Come on back, Theresa,” said Bill Ryan as sustained applause from the audience filled Village Hall. Marchione, a familiar face at the Wesley Avenue facility for decades, had been terminated for shutting down the library 40 minutes early on May 29 because of a tornado warning. A powerful twister touched down later in nearby Vischer Ferry.” (via Times Union)

“Seattle is a great book town. And also a great biking town. So it should comes as little surprise that Seattle now given us a mobile, people-powered public library that’s wheeled about town by pedaling librarians. “Librarians on bicycles are traveling to several outdoor events across the city with a custom-built book trailer that can carry 500 pounds of materials and display 75 books at a time,” Library Journal reports this week. Last month, Mayor Mike McGinn helped inaugurate the summer pilot program by biking from the city’s Central Library to an elementary school with books and a team of librarians in tow.” (via latimes.com)

“Confusion and anger over a major, secretly brokered deal between Library and Archives Canada and a private high-tech consortium heightened Wednesday amid damage-control efforts by archive officials who say the deal is a good one. Details of the project, revealed late Tuesday by the Ottawa Citizen, would see Library and Archives hand over millions of publicly-owned books and documents to Canadiana.com which, in exchange, will get a 10-year exclusive licence to sell it in sophisticated digital format.” (via Ottawa Citizen.

“With financial backing from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Slice Bookshelf joins a crowded library of social reading sites Thursday. Like Shelfari, LibraryThing and GoodReads, Bookshelf promises “a fun way to discover and share books with your friends” on the Web. After several months of preliminary testing, the Web site officially went live Thursday morning. It’s the latest offering from Slice, a Palo Alto, Calif. Internet company whose flagship app helps consumers keep track of their online purchases.

via Washington Post)

“The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), the nation’s oldest organization for law librarians and related professionals, has awarded its 2013 New Product of the Year Award to continuing legal education provider and publisher Practising Law Institute (PLI) for the company’s new eBook library Discover PLUS. The Association will present the award in Seattle during the organization’s 106th Annual Meeting and Conference in July.” (via PRNewswire)

“ARL [Association of Research Libraries]  has published Research Library Issues (RLI) no. 282, which features articles on ARL library budgets over the past two years, subscriptions to journal collections from large publishers, and the impact of the changing roles of librarians on reference staffing. A pre-publication version of the article about journal bundles was released earlier this year.” (via Academic and Research Libraries Section Blog)

“A branch of the Baltimore County Public Library opened in Owings Mills and it has that gaseous, exciting new building smell of cellophane, and carpet remnant. All the books are new: so glossy, so brand-spanking, so fresh that when you open them they rustle. Getting my paws on them would be like plundering the New World or, my version of it. I’ve never experienced a library like this: scrubbed, suburban. The walls were emphatically white. All the libraries I’ve known have been scruff-beige, smelled like wet newspaper, leather, and other people’s hats; all their books have been signed out a thousand times and bear evidence of that experience in accidental dog ears, pen strokes and coffee drips. Old city libraries. College libraries. In other words, shrines.” (via Book Riot)

“The coffers are so drained at the Brooklyn Public Library that eight branches with busted air conditioners were forced to shut down on one scorching day earlier this month. Three of those branches double as city-designated cooling centers, where seniors and others are instructed to chill out during the summer’s most unbearable stretches. They are part of a growing list of 60 libraries in the system — including the central branch — that require a total of $300 million in repairs for crumbling roofs, broken boilers and aging computers and furniture.” (via NY Daily News)

“After working at the Oakland Public Library for more than 15 years, branch manager Pete Villaseñor has grown accustomed to kids hanging out in the library all summer long. For some, the library serves serve as ad hoc day care while their parents are at work. For others, the library is a safe place to escape the streets. Many kids show up in the morning and stay all day—but few have food or money to buy a meal. Eating summer lunch at the Elmhurst Branch of the Oakland Public Library. (Photo: Sharon McKellar) “During the summer, kids used to ask me for money,” Villaseñor said. “They wanted to go buy a burrito or tacos. Sometimes they’d ask me for food.” (via KQED News Fix)