News

FBI Seizes Two MD Library Computers; Possible Link to Anthrax Case
FBI agents last week seized two computers from Maryland’s Frederick County Public Libraries, in what is believed to have been part of the investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001 and last week’s suicide of scientist Bruce Ivins now widely believed to be the culprit. Library director Darrell Batson said the agents did not possess warrants but their story convinced him that removing the computers was important to their investigation, so he permitted the action without the legal documents. » » »

Grand County First Utah PL To Say Aloha to Koha
LibLime July 31 announced that the Grand County Public Library, UT, LJ ’s 2007 Best Small Library in America, has contracted for a Koha Classic open source solution for its ILS. The vendor said that the facility’s collection of 50,000 items will be hosted on a server on site at the library, which also contracted with LibLime for data migration and support of its Koha system. » » »

Romance Writers of America® Present Annual Awards
The Romance Writers of America® touched down in San Francisco for its annual gathering, which brings together the genre’s authors—both stars and hopefuls—for readings, signings, and discussion. The affair capped August 2 with the presentation of book awards in a dozen categories, along with bestowing the Golden Heart Awards for the best unpublished manuscripts, which serve as a barometer for the top romance authors of tomorrow. See full list of winners » » »

Rowling Releasing Wizard Fairy Tale Title in December
Get ready to burn some midnight oil—J.K. Rowling December 4 is releasing a volume of Wizard-based fairy stories called The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is mentioned briefly in HP and the Half-Blood Prince. Proceeds from the book, which will retail for $12.99 via Scholastic, are being donated to the Children’s High Level Group, a charity Rowling founded in 2005. » » »

Blogs

Reviewer's Profile

LJ Reviewer Profile: Audrey Snowdon
Humor and literature reviewer Audrey Snowdon, a children’s librarian at a branch of the Cleveland Public Library, is a broad-minded reviewer who’s covered, as she says, "everything from bathroom readers to a book on the history of copyright." She returned to her Buckeye roots to get back into ice-skating after spending a year as the director of a school library a few hours from Mexico City. She says, "The job interview was wonderful. All the interviewers gathered in a conference room in Ohio, and I, in my little Mexican apartment, with bare feet and shorts on, put them on speakerphone." Read complete profile here.» » »

Wyatt's World

Destination China

• To Live by Yu Hua (Anchor)
• Waiting by Ha Jin (Vintage)
• Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min (Mariner)
• Peony in Love by Lisa See (Random)
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Anchor)

For more on Collection Development, click here

Review

Wolfe, Thomas. The Four Lost Men

Univ. of South Carolina. 2008. 92p. ed. by Arlyn & Matthew J. Bruccoli. photogs. ISBN 978-1-57003-733-7. $21.95. F

Originally published as a 7000-word short story in Scribner magazine in 1934 and later cut by another 1000 words for the 1935 anthology From Death to Morning, Wolfe's story here is restored to its original 21,000-word length and is published in full for the first time. On the cusp of the United States entering World War I, a boy remembers his cancer-ridden father as a younger man. His parents are rooming-house proprietors, and the boy recalls the evenings when his father sat on the porch with the annual visitors discussing politics. » » »

—Mike Rogers, LJX/LJ

Xpress Reviews

Xpress Reviews—First Look at New Books
Iain Banks’s The Crow Road, Paul Austin’s Something for the Pain: One Doctor's Account of Life and Death in the ER, and Jeff Sharlet’s The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. » » »

Highlights

Collection Development: “Soccer”: The Beautiful Game
Soccer globally is the most popular sport with an estimated 240 million guys and gals playing worldwide. This collection of 40 multimedia resources, including some Spanish-language materials, includes reference, coaching/how-to, history, memoir, magazines, DVDs, and web sites. More than enough information for soccer fans and players to get their kicks. » » »

Online Databases: The Past Catches Up
In rereading F.W. Lancaster and Emily Fayen’s 1973 Information Retrieval On-Line, the first online searching textbook, Tenopir is amazed to find that the authors could give Nostradamus serious competition, as many of their decades-old predictions have come or are coming to fruition. They weren’t correct every time, but more often than not. Freaky! » » »