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September 9, 2008

News

New Plan Will Save Long Beach Main from Closure
The October 1 scheduled closure of the Long Beach PL’s Main facility might not happen, thanks to a new plan that would trim two full days and additional hours off the facility’s schedule along with layoffs of 19 FTEs to save $1.8 million in the city’s budget. The proposed closure was met with fierce opposition by the public and the local press. » » »

Penguin Launches eSpecial Program
Publisher Penguin has launched a new eSpecials program that will offer ebook components as separate downloadable items for sale. eSpecials launched simultaneously with the paperback release of Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence and is offering the book’s new epilog as a $5 download. Penguin eSpecials will have their own logo like all other Penguin ebooks, be available in formats including Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle, and Adobe Acrobat. » » »


Rowling Wins Copyright Suit
J.K. Rowling has emerged triumphant in her copyright suit to squash the publication of Steven Vander Ark’s The Harry Potter Lexicon (RDR Books). U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson permanently blocked the release of the book in its current form, saying it would cause Rowling irreparable harm as a writer. He also awarded Rowling and co-plaintiff Warner Bros. $6,750 in statutory damages. Undaunted, Vander Ark next month is releasing In Search of Harry Potter, a travelogue based on Rowling’s series. » » »

Backtalk: Three Years After Katrina
Ronald Gauthier, the former manger of the New Orleans PL’s Martin Luther King branch, who fled the city after Katrina, says that the system and the city remain in dire need of help. The recent near miss of Hurricane Gustav is a frightening reminder that all that has been rebuilt remains in jeopardy and there’s still much work to be done. » » »

Blogs


LJ Insider by Norman Oder
McCain Campaign Slams Bogus List of Books "Banned" by Palin, but Questions Remain
The John McCain/Palin presidential campaign has denounced a bogus list of books VP ... Read On »


In the Bookroom by Michael Rogers
Fall Films in Print
Was reading Entertainment Weekly’s Fall Film Preview issue (there’s... Read On »


In the Bookroom by Wilda Williams
When the Drilling Stops, There Will Be Oil?
"Drill, Drill, Drill, Here and Now" In the bizarro, alterna... Read On »


LJ Insider by Norman Oder
Alaska Newspaper Reprints "Library Censorship" Article
Adding somewhat to our understanding, but clearly not satisfying partisans on both ... Read On »

LJ Talks To

David Pietrusza
As our tumultuous election year enters its final phase—with more tension and drama than many predicted—LJ reviewer Karl Helicher, director of Upper Merion Township Library, King of Prussia, PA, discusses Pietrusza's (l.) new book, 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon. The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies, which looks back at another race. » » »

Wyatt's World

Get Your Vamp On

  • Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur (Dell)
  • Moon Called by Patricia Briggs (Ace)
  • Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson (Berkley)
  • Tall, Dark & Dead by Tate Hallaway (Berkley)
  • Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (Ace)

    For more on Collection Development, click here

    Review

    Grogan, John. The Longest Trip Home: A Memoir.

    Morrow. Oct. 2008. c.352p. ISBN 978-0-06-171324-8. $25.95. AUTOBIOG

    Über–best selling author Grogan (Marley & Me) recounts growing up devoutly Catholic in a “Shangri-La by the shore” outside Detroit, beginning with an idyllic childhood in an unsanctimonious, loving household full of friends, swimming, and stealth cigarettes. During a comparatively tame (for the late Sixties) adolescence, replete with making out, beer, and shooting off fireworks, Grogan realizes, “There could be either one God who loved everybody the same, or no God at all.” So begins a religious estrangement that is paired with major guilt over disappointing his parents (he often lies to them to spare them heartache) .» » »

    —Douglas Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Hartford

     

    Highlights

    Collection Development—“Mormonism”: A Perfect Storm
    Mormonism, or more accurately the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has received a lot of bad press in recent years, and Provo City librarians Suzanne Huff and Laura Wadley offer 37 works covering scripture, doctrinal overviews, contemporary views, and history along with a number of web resources that offer a more accurate representation of the faith. » » »

    LJ Reviewer Profile: Bob Lunn
    A fiction reviewer for a decade, Bob has been a government documents librarian, a reference librarian, and a fiction/literature librarian, finding himself today as an audiovisual librarian at Kansas City Public Library in Missouri. Come say hello. » » »

    Immigrant Nation
    With immigrant population rising steadily, libraries need to stock an ever-widening variety of foreign-language materials, but where to get it? Librarians offer a weighty list of resource suppliers of many tongues from Albanian to Vietnamese. » » »

    RA Crossroads No. 7: Julia Quinn’s Romance Novels
    For great battle-of-the-sexes banter, Neal Wyatt jumps from Julia Quinn’s The Viscount Who Loved Me and It’s in Her Kiss to Lauren Willig’s The Seduction of the Crimson Rose and Mary Balogh’s Slightly Scandalous to the Cary Grant/Rosalind Russell screwball comedy His Girl Friday and more. » » »

    More To Learn from Lincoln
    With 2009 marking Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial, the 16th president will be getting a lot of attention. One might think that all facets of his life already have been mined, but five new books by top scholars show that there’s still much to study of this fascinating man. » » »

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    POLL
    My library views immigration as an opportunity to gain new patrons
    Yes, we have new programs and collections
    Somewhat, we have added to our collection
    No, we haven’t made changes to serve non-native residents
    No, immigration is not an issue in our community

    View Previous Poll Results

    Best Sellers

    Fiction
    10. Book of the Dead Patricia Cornwell
    11. The Quickie James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge
    12. World Without End Ken Follett

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    Nonfiction
    10. Beautiful Boy David Sheff
    11. The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama
    12. Into the Wild Jon Krakauer

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    Job of the Week

    Library Director
    The Board of Trustees of the Greenwich Library seeks an energetic and collaborative leader to take this outstanding Library to its next level of organizational excellence and become one of the premier public libraries. View More
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