News

Long Beach Mayor Proposes Shuttering Main Library
Citing earthquake safety issues, costly repairs, and heating/cooling expenses, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster is proposing the closure of the city’s Main Library and increasing services in the system’s 11 branches. The plan would save only $1.8 million for the city’s over-extended coffers, and critics say that the branches won’t be able to handle the extra traffic and that many residents wouldn’t be able to travel to them. » » »

Queens Installs Quickie VTLS System
The Queens Library, NY, the nation’s reigning circulation champion, is the proud owner of a new VTLS system, which the vendor said was installed in record time. “Normally an implementation for a library this size takes a year or more, and it is remarkable that we were able to complete this project within six months,” said VTLS president/CEO Vinod Chachra. » » »

Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder Wins First WOLA-Duke Award
Francisco Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder (Grove) snagged the inaugural Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)-Duke Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America. The title details events surrounding the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi after he presented a report on civil rights abuses committed by the Guatemalan military during the 1980s civil war. Goldman receives a $1000 prize. » » »

BackTalk: I Love Libraries, and I’m Blind
Blind since birth, Katherine Schneider is a lifelong library user. Services to the blind have advanced light years ahead of simple Braille and audiobook offerings. With talking computers and near-instant audio editions of newspapers and even TV shows, the visually handicapped can enjoy the same information and entertainment resources as the sighted. Libraries always have been champions of these services, but they still can do more. » » »

Blogs

Wyatt's World

Books on Books

• How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard (Bloomsbury)
• Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda (Harcourt)
• How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form by Thomas C. Foster (Harper Paperbacks)
• Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry (S&S)
• How Fiction Works by James Wood (Farrar)

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Review

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Newmarket. Aug. 2008. 176p. illus. ISBN 978-1-55704-805-9. pap. $19.95. FILM

Writer/director Stephen Sommers’s Mummy series has proven a huge hit with fans. For Mummy III, however,Sommer’s has vacated the director’s chair with Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious) helming the film (he provides an introduction detailing his involvement with Sommers and producers and writers to get the film off the ground). Following Newmarket’s standard pattern, this offers a detailed folder on the film’s making, touching down on a little bit of everything—the actors, production, costumes, props, CG, art design, locations, etc., etc. M3 is set in China and the Himalayas so has a different flavor than its desert- and jungle-based predecessors.» » »

—Mike Rogers, LJX/LJ

Xpress Reviews

Xpress Reviews—First Look at New Books
Ross Raisin's Out Backward, Vivian Gornick's The Men in My Life, Patricia Mendez’s Easy Entertaining for Beginners: You Can Throw a Fabulous Party, from a Holiday Fiesta to a Romantic Evening for Two, and Jorge Ramos's The Gift of Time. » » »

Highlights

LJ Q&A: Knowledge Is Power—Gigi Sohn
The communications policy expert and president and cofounder of the library-friendly advocacy group Public Knowledge talks frankly with LJ about maintaining net neutrality, orphan works, content companies plans to control library usage, copyright reform, uninformed legislators, Google wars and scan plans, and what libraries can do to ensure their agenda is heard—and you’d better listen! » » »

RA Crossroads No. 6: Breaking Dawn Book Three in the Twilight Series
Neal Wyatt takes on Stephanie Meyer’s vampire sensation Twilight. Beginning with the series much-awaited finale Breaking Dawn, which hits shelves August 2, she springboards to other romantic paranormals from Annette Curtis Klause’s The Silver Kiss to Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of Romeo and Juliet to singers like Radiohead, Alanis Morissette, and Linkin Park featured in the series. » » »