News

University of Illinois Switches Position on Access to Obama-related Archive
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has reversed it stance on allowing conservative writer Stanley Kurtz access to a donated archive that may show the relationship between Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and former 1960s Weatherman-turned-professor William Ayers. School officials claimed the donor requested the block, but a check of their legal records showed that they do have the right to grant access to the archive of Chicago Annenberg Challenge documents. » » »

Bibliotheca Marketing Hybrid Security Gates/Self-Check
Bibliotheca has released BiblioGate and Biblio Self-Check, a new generation of self-check stations and security gates capable of reading both electromagnetic and RFID tag info. Aimed at libraries considering taking the plunge to RFID, these machines, which read both types of security tags, enable libraries to continue to operate without interruption while migrating to RFID, the company says. » » »

Politifact.com Finds Numerous Errors in Obama Book
Politifiact.com, a service of Congressional Quarterly and the St. Petersburg Times, claims that it unearthed numerous errors and falsehoods in Jerome R. Corsi’s volume Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality.The alleged misinformation includes statements regarding the presidential candidate’s relationship with his family and his stance on nuclear weapons and the military. The site further says that “a number of Corsi’s allegations have circulated for many months on the Internet, promoted by people who forward anonymous chain e-mails.” » » »

Blatant Berry: Ohio Insights
The 2008 Reference and Adult Services Conference of the Ohio Library Council offered a handful of valuable insights. Berry covers the highlights, ranging from the perfect solution to what public libraries should call people who use them, to 20 free, easy steps small libraries that can't afford technology experts can use to build and improve their web sites, to how people really view libraries. » » »

Blogs

LJ Talks To

Tom Piazza
Within weeks of the biblical disaster called Katrina, New Orleans novelist-turned-hurricane refugee Tom Piazza wrote an impassioned book-length essay, Why New Orleans Matters, that celebrated the city’s rich past and pleaded for its future survival. Now on the storm’s third anniversary, the author returns with City of Refuge (LJ 8/08), a novel that vividly recaptures the catastrophe and its aftermath through the stories of two families, the black Williamses and the white Donaldsons. The book is the 2008 selection for the One Book One New Orleans community-wide reading program » » »

Wyatt's World

Twice Told Tales—Collaborative Novels

• Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull (Tor)
• Firstborn by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter (Del Rey)
• The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Grand Central)
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Pr.)
• Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (Harcourt)

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Review

Woloshin, Steven, M.D. Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics.

Univ. of California. Nov. 2008. c.110p. illus. index. ISBN 978-0-520-25222-6. pap. $16.95. HEALTH

“How to see through the hype in medical news, ads, and public service announcements” boasts the cover of this accessible and reader-friendly book by Dartmouth Medical School faculty and researchers Woloshin, Lisa M. Schwartz, M.D., and H. Gilbert Welch, M.D. (Should I Be Tested for Cancer?). Assaulted by incomplete, misleading, and overstated health messages by the media, health journals, and pharmaceutical companies, the general public is poorly prepared in how to read the information critically, how to assess credible evidence, and how to interpret statistics.» » »

—James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York

Highlights

Future Proof Your Library
LJ tapped its Movers & Shakers for their insights on what libraries can do to better themselves and fortify against future threats. They talk marketing, flexibility, service, expertise, design thinking, openness, public trust, and far more. Their responses may be surprising—but also enlightening and motivating. » » »

Corner Office: Gale’s Sommers & Barnes
Gale Cengage President Patrick Sommers and VP John Barnes are highlighted in the inaugural installation in LJ’s new series of interviews with the leaders of companies that operate in the library field, develop products and services that libraries purchase, and interact with or impact libraries. » » »

Collection Development: Budget Decorating
Home decorating has become a growing passion for many and it need not break your bank. Virtual Reference Librarian Maha Kumaran offers 40 print, DVD, and web resources to help you beautify your home on the cheap. » » »

BackTalk: The Stat Factor
Adam Holland feels stuck in the hamster wheel of annual/monthly reports based on user and other stats. Gathering and applying statistics in general has become the bane of many librarians, and he ponders “Is this the nature of the beast, or is there any alternative that would allow librarians to care a little less about statistics while still providing high-quality services in a fiscally responsible manner?” » » »

NextGen: Moonlighting
Academic librarian Stacy Russo’s second job as a library school professor has given her the opportunity to sense the flavor of public and children’s librarian work through her students. The experience, she says, has helped her “better understand the profession in its entirety and appreciate the similarities and differences among libraries.” » » »

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