Wednesday, July 2, 2003

Booksellers cranky over Laura B.'s CBS Early Readers Club. Booksellers were initially pleased with the team-up of First Lady Laura Bush and CBS to create a series focusing on literacy and children's literature on the network's Early Show. Host Harry Smith joins Mrs. B once a week at the White House, where a specific title is featured and read. Nice, eh? Nice if you're Amazon.com, where viewers are urged to visit and donate books to literacy efforts. Monica Holmes, President of the Association of Booksellers for Children, wrote to CBS, expressing her dismay over the exclusive promotion of Amazon.com. The sting was made sharper after the inaugural book, Book! Book! Book! featured on the June 25 segment, was returned by a Bush staffer to the independent bookstore where it was purchased. Apparently, the White House had a difficult time tracking down the 2001 title, but found it at the Alexandria, VA bookstore, A Likely Story. The store issued credit, but wondered why the White House didn't donate the gently used book to a library. More here from Publishers Weekly [LISNews.com] 7:19:48 AM

	Thursday, June 26, 2003

A discussion on LM_NET in the last few days has centered on educating school administrators about school libraries and what we librarians bring to the school. One resource referred to is a website with a good overview of the problem and some solutions. Some of the posters are indignant, and rightly so, I believe, that it is necessary for us to teach our principals what they should be learning when they first become educators. I believe that much of our problem starts at the university level (or certification area level) when administrators are learning what their role is in the school. Nothing teaches them for the most important element of a school's success--the heart beat--the library. Study after study after study can be done and they will always report that with strong libraries, students succeed. However, no one except librarians and those interested in studies are reading these reports. [Shonda B.] 8:54:53 AM

	Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Library Group Launches New Subscription Management Tool. InfoToday reports that: "The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries launched GOLD RUSH (http://grweb.coalliance.org), a new tool to help librarians manage subscriptions to electronic resources... Source: Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries" [Darci Chapman: InfoMage in Training] Someone needs to create something like this for the little libraries. No school library can afford this program, but we really need a tool for managing our online databases. When a student or teacher wants a specific article, or wants to search only a specific journal, it's so difficult to tell which database to find it in. This has been bothering me for a couple of years, so maybe I should create the solution myself. Hmmm. 6:45:06 PM

	Friday, June 20, 2003

New Library Weblog. Mrs. Rabbitt's Bookbag - "Charlotte Rabbitt, Youth Services Librarian Peterborough, NH Collected musings, quotes, links, information, book reviews and suggestions dealing with children, books, libraries and librarians." (No RSS Feed) - (via my referrals) [Library Stuff] 7:53:15 AM

	Monday, June 16, 2003

"I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way." -- Franklin P. Adams, journalist A great quote for librarians, from the ASCD SmartBrief of June 12. 6:16:03 AM

	Sunday, June 15, 2003

Adventures in Downloading Haydn. On the iTunes online music service, classical music is easy to buy but hard to find. By Anne Midgette. [New York Times: Technology] I just have to post this article, even though it only narrowly fits in the parameters for this blog as I have them defined in my head. All the way through reading it, I wanted to shout at the author, and at the iTunes people, in frustration. Why didn't they ever think about talking to a music librarian? Do they think no one has ever had to catalog music? Argh! 7:06:49 AM

	Thursday, June 12, 2003

Ninety-one Percent of Librarians Say Shift from 'Information Gatherer' to 'Information Consultant' is Key to Success. You can take a look at some of the results published in the news release. Note: This survey was sponsored by LexisNexis. [ResourceShelf] Looking at the title of this article, it seems that it applies to school librarians as well. I think a change in the way we see ourselves and our role is crucial, and I'm not sure it's happening as quickly as it should in schools. This article, though, is about special librarians and information professionals in the business world. It's actually kind of fun -- and perhaps revealing -- to try and read it as if it were written about schools. "Now that most employees have Internet access on their desktops, information professionals are forced to justify their positions constantly." 7:30:12 AM

Sad State for School Librarians in Wisconsin. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel All types of information professionals are having job issues these days. This article reviews the sad situation for school librarians in Wisconsin. Shirley Reis a librarian hits the mark when she notes that part of the blame must be placed on the librarians themselves. From the article, "Librarians historically have not been attuned to public relations, and I think that's our biggest downfall," she [Shirley Reis] said. "Because we sit in our little library cubicles and check in our books and don't tell people about the important work we do." [ResourceShelf] 7:25:59 AM

© Copyright 2003 Deborah Wells-Clinton. Last update: 8/18/03; 7:41:01.