Claremore Progress - Editorials - Library Access

Claremore Progress - Editorials - Library Access

We have to admit a little confusion today.

For many years, we observed the political and rhetorical battles in the Oklahoma Legislature. We were led to believe that Republicans stood for local control and smaller, less-coercive, less-paternalistic state government. So it was surprising last week when we learned that in the second session of the first GOP-controlled state House of Representatives in 80 years, Republicans sounded like the Democrats of old.

The late George Wallace apparently was right about there not being a dime’s worth of difference between the parties.

Seemed so last week.

The issue was about accessibility to children of adult theme materials.

We didn’t realize the smaller government, local-control minded GOP Legislature knows better than the people in local communities. But that is what they said.

There is no obvious reason that we can find that the Legislature should usurp local library boards in 77 counties with a politically appointed board — the Library Material Content Advisory Board — as provided by Rep. Sally Kern’s House Bill 2158.

Local people, as far as we can tell, have been doing an exceptional job for 99 years. One size does not fit all.

Republocrats promise to take away state funding if materials are not isolated their way. Do librarians tuck offensive materials under the circulation desk or do they build the equivalent of gun cabinets? Will the Content Advisory Board set construction standards and send funds, too? What happens if the people of Carnegie or Hollis or Marlow don’t like the standards set by an Oklahoma City- or Tulsa-dominated state committee?

Lawsuits. What a waste of time and money. The truth is we have too much of this dictatorial, coercive, paternalistic interference from Congress. Maybe we need an initiative petition that says anytime the Legislature usurps local control, no funds shall be appropriated for legislative retirements.

The reading issue is one in which families must take the lead and not default responsibility to some Big Brother government standard. Because each family is different and each child reaches intellectual maturity at different ages, families must decide appropriateness without government interference. ...

Business 2.0: Google patents free Wi-Fi - Mar. 28, 2006

Found this via Fark
Business 2.0: Google patents free Wi-Fi - Mar. 28, 2006: "More evidence has emerged that Google is getting ready to blanket the U.S. with free Wi-Fi, as Business 2.0 senior writer Om Malik reported last year. Now, the company has filed for three patents related to offering wireless Internet access. Search Engine Roundtable points out that the patents all have to do with serving up advertising through a wireless Internet connection maintained by a third party, whose brand Google would include in the presentation of those ads. Sounds a lot like Google's latest plan to unwire San Francisco, where it has teamed up with EarthLink (Research). By teaming up with partners who would build the actual Wi-Fi infrastructure, Google (Research) could complete a nationwide Wi-Fi network much more quickly than if it had to build it itself."

CJR March/April 2006 - The Predictable Scandal

Here's an interesting article about the publishing industry and the truth.
CJR March/April 2006 - The Predictable Scandal:

Joyce Johnson, a longtime book editor, writing teacher, and memoirist, told Patrick Reardon of the Chicago Tribune, “In a good literary memoir, you’re basically rendering the essence of the experience. Whether someone is called Jane or Susan, who cares?” On other occasions, Johnson has urged memoirists to “exercise imagination.”

Yet the abandonment of accuracy, of evidence, indeed of truth, is not a case of memoir exceptionalism. Though there are distinctions between the various examples, works of history and narrative nonfiction, such as Edmund Morris’s Dutch and John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, freely reveled in similar liberties, doing little damage to the authors’ literary standing and commercial appeal. One can only assume that some editors, publishers, and literary agents privately despair about their profession’s abdication of the entire concept of nonfiction. But only a scant number of them have been willing in the wake of the Frey affair to say so on the record.

One need only compare book publishers’ evasions and justifications to the reactions of news organizations that have been faced with transgressions similar to Frey’s. The disclosures that Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley fabricated elements in their articles led to the fall of the top editors of The New York Times and USA Today, respectively. Both newspapers conducted extensive, penetrating self-examinations to determine what had gone wrong and how the failures could be kept from occurring again. It is inconceivable, hilariously implausible, that The Washington Post would reissue Janet Cooke’s invented portrayal of an eight-year-old heroin addict because it was so well-written and touched on a “larger truth.” Yet very interestingly, some of the same reporters who have been defrocked — David Brock, Michael Finkel, Blair — have been welcomed by the publishing industry with six-figure book contracts. Fame and notoriety, which ought to be antonyms, have become synonymous...

MMISchools.com: Free Resources: EBSCO’s History and Reading Web-based Resources

MMISchools.com: Free Resources: EBSCO’s History and Reading Web-based Resources: "EBSCO Publishing has launched two free Web-based resources for school libraries: History-It's Happening! and It's a Reading Rave!

History-It's Happening! for middle and high school libraries focuses on North American history and special events such as Women's History Month. The site models EBSCO database searches; students can begin their research here or browse key primary source documents, historic video footage, speeches, selected articles and Web sites about notable women and men from Canada and the U.S. The site also includes suggested reading information from NoveList focusing on history in fiction. A section for librarians and teachers offers suggestions for using the site, search tips, and teacher guides.

It's a Reading Rave! helps young adults find articles from a favorite magazine, explore literature with the help of NoveList, and use other interactive reading resources. The site includes two interactive Flash Web components, a librarian portal, and a 'main wing' for young adults. The librarian portal offers tips and tools to promote reading resources. The 'main wing' for young adults features School Tools, Recommended Reading, Cool Links to quality sites, Fun Facts, and a trivia quiz."

National Library Week | April 2-8

Change your world @ your library

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries – school, public, academic and special – participate.

In the spirit of the National Library Week theme for 2006 (Change your world @ your library) -- I would like to know what books have changed your world. In fact let's turn this into a contest and the winner will have their life changing book donated to the library of their choice, by me. So here's the rules:

• Think about all the books you've read. Pick one that has changed your world.
• Post the title and author of the book in the comments area. Also, include a reason as to why this book changed your world. (This can be as brief or lengthy as you want).
• If you have a particular Oklahoma library that, if you win, you like your life changing book donated to then include the town and name of that library.
• I will choose the winning entry based on my librarian training and will then purchase the winning title myself and donate a copy of it to the Oklahoma library of your choice. If you do not specify which library then I will pick an Oklahoma library myself -- my choice will be based on OCLC holdings.

If you have questions be sure to shoot me an email!

I want to be a librarian

Found this via LISnews. A little techno tune called I want to be a librarian.

I'm sure it will become a classic -- just like Cursor Minor's Library, Jonathan Rundman's Public Library album, Library Song, or many of the Bibditties at the Laughing Librarian.

Donna Norvell Oklahoma Picture Book Award

The Donna Norvell Book Award honors a book that has made a significant contribution to the field of literature for children through third grade. Wild About Books by J.Sierra is our first award winner. Read more about this new picture book award on the OLA website. This award is a librarian’s choice award and is selected by the librarians who are members of the Oklahoma Library Association’s Sequoyah Book Award Committee.

Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study [printer-friendly] | The Register

Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study [printer-friendly] | The Register: "Nature magazine has some tough questions to answer after it let its Wikipedia fetish get the better of its responsibilities to reporting science. The Encyclopedia Britannica has published a devastating response to Nature's December comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica, and accuses the journal of misrepresenting its own evidence.

Where the evidence didn't fit, says Britannica, Nature's news team just made it up. Britannica has called on the journal to repudiate the report, which was put together by its news team.

Independent experts were sent 50 unattributed articles from both Wikipedia and Britannica, and the journal claimed that Britannica turned up 123 "errors" to Wikipedia's 162.

But Nature sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children's version and Britannica's "book of the year" to others, and in one case, simply stitched together bits from different articles and inserted its own material, passing it off as a single Britannica entry.

Nice "Mash-Up" - but bad science.

"Almost everything about the journal's investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading," says Britannica.

"Dozens of inaccuracies attributed to the Britannica were not inaccuracies at all, and a number of the articles Nature examined were not even in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The study was so poorly carried out and its findings so error-laden that it was completely without merit...."

Library Cafe & WiFi - TCCL

Wireless Access available @ Tulsa City County Library System.
Coffee, Internet, reference & readers advisory and story time:
The Café area at the Hardesty Library,TCCL is now a wireless hot spot!
Located in south Tulsa at 93rd & Memorial, it is one of several hotspots in the area.
According to MetroFreeFi, Tulsa is number ONE on their list of Free WiFi Hot spots in Oklahoma.

Characteristics of Schools, Districts, Teachers, Principals, and School Libraries in the United States: 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey

Characteristics of Schools, Districts, Teachers, Principals, and School Libraries in the United States: 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey: "The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) is the nation’s most extensive sample survey of elementary and secondary schools and the teachers and administrators who staff them. This report introduces the data from the fifth administration (2003-04) of SASS. It is intended to give the reader an overview of the SASS data for the school year 2003-04 through tables of estimates for public, private, and BIA-funded schools and their staff. For example, one of the findings from the data is that 77 percent of public school districts required full standard state certification in the field to be taught when considering teaching applicants. Also, 82 percent of all public school teachers reported having 4 or more years of full-time teaching experience. These highlights, and others in the report, were not selected to emphasize any particular issue, and they should not be interpreted as representing the most important findings in the data. They are simply examples of the kinds of data that are available in the 2003-04 SASS. In addition, complex interactions and relationships have not been explored."

Update on HB 2158

Thanks to June L. for this update

According to the Oklahoma Legislature website, HB 2158 has been assigned to the Education Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Members are listed below.

Sen. Stratton Taylor, District 2, Claremore - Chair
Sen. Daisy Lawler, District 24, Comanche - Vice Chair
Sen. Cliff Aldridge, District 42, Choctaw
Sen. Randy Bass, District 32, Lawton
Sen. Randy Brogdon, District 34, Owasso
Sen. Glenn Coffee, District 30, OKC
Sen. Mary Easley, District 18, Tulsa
Sen. Earl Garrison, District 9, Muskogee
Sen. Cal Hobson, District 16, Lexington
Sen. Clark Jolley, District 41, Edmond
Sen. Susan Paddack, District 13, Ada
Sen. Kathleen Wilcoxson,District 45, OKC
Sen. James A. Williamson, District 35, Tulsa

Slashdot | Solving the Home Library Problem?

Slashdot | Solving the Home Library Problem?: "'My wife and I have about 3,500 books. We can't find anything. All the books are in random order. We want to find a solution for organizing our books. We have a barcode scanner, but I'm not sure the best way to use it. I want a solution that is easy to maintain going forward and makes books easy to find. I also want the data in an open format. I'm think about using MySQL right now, but I'm open to other suggestions. What software do other people use to organize their home libraries?'"

See what the folks at Slashdot think...

Wired News: Archaic Sounds Reach Modern Ears

Wired News: Archaic Sounds Reach Modern Ears
:
"A California library has created an online audio time machine by archiving some of the oldest sounds ever recorded.

A few mouse clicks give way to the jubilant sounds of Billy Murray singing 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' or Ada Jones warbling 'Whistle and I'll Wait for You.' Some pieces, like 'Negro Recollections,' serve as reminders of America's deeply racist past.

Curators at the University of California at Santa Barbara's Donald C. Davidson Library have digitized 6,000 late 19th-century and early 20th-century wax and plastic cylinder recordings -- precursors to the flat record. The audio, which includes ragtime hits, vaudeville routines and presidential speeches, encapsulates history with crackles and hisses, but archivists say preserving the sounds now is vital because the cylinders are deteriorating.

'The major record companies have been neglecting this aspect of music for the better part of 90 years,' said David Seubert, director of the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project."

Library Journal - The Inevitable Gen X Coup

Lauren D. sends this library story. Thanks!
Library Journal - The Inevitable Gen X Coup: "When I look around at conferences, skim blogs, or visit neighboring libraries, I notice there are many other Generation Xers out there. Our numbers are growing, and the responsibility of librarianship will soon be ours. Are we ready for our inheritance?

For many of us, libraries have just about always involved computers. I was in eighth grade when the card catalog disappeared, and even today I take full-text databases for granted. Most of us have little experience with the “old” ways. While the current generation of library leadership has done an excellent job transitioning from a print to a digital world, it will be up to us, and our upcoming Gen Y colleagues, to continue the movement.

It would be easy to accept the traditional role of the library, but don't we want more? It is time for our generation to recognize our significance and start moving toward the path of leadership and responsibility. I think our elders are a bit nervous about leaving the library legacy in our hands, questioning our values and commitment. Yet the profession needs us, perhaps more than is imagined, to ensure that libraries remain relevant in contemporary society. Here is how we can get things started."

The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK - Local libraries don’t need ruled by a new state council

The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK - Local libraries don’t need ruled by a new state council

Not all problems can, or should, be solved by passing a new state or federal law.

That’s one lesson from the debate last week over a proposed state law to keep library books containing sexually explicit or gay themes out of the reach of children or young adults.

Unfortunately, Oklahoma House members voted 60-33 in favor of the bill, which would withhold public funding from libraries unless they segregate reading areas for children from reading areas with material deemed inappropriate. The bill also would create the State Library Material Content Advisory Board to evaluate various reading materials and rule on what is naughty or nice. Then, bookmobiles and libraries large and small would have to establish and enforce separate reading areas.

The concept of keeping sexually explicit or gay-themed reading material away from children is a good idea. Frankly, librarians and parents and teachers have been doing that for decades.

The really bad idea is creating a new state board to determine what subject matter is OK and what is not. Why is the opinion of a state library censor better than the opinion of a local librarian or local library board member? It’s not! Plus, giving the new library police the power to cut off public funding to public libraries is incredibly heavy-handed.

Local librarians and library boards decide every month what books to order and not, and whether books are for children or all readers, fiction or non-fiction, top shelf or bottom shelf. They don’t need a new state board to tell them what to do. It’s an issue of local control. Besides, whose opinion would local readers value most, that of a local resident or of a state political appointee?

The bill also ignores the physical reality that small libraries and bookmobiles have only a single reading area. Should such libraries lose what little state funding they have because they can’t afford multiple reading areas? Of course not.

This is another case where simple common sense and good judgment are much, much better than a new state law. The Oklahoma Senate should defeat the bill and bury the concept of a State Library Material Content Advisory Board into a file so deep not even the Dewey Decimal system could locate it.

OLA reaffirms their position in support of libraries

At the OLA Meeting this past Friday, the Executive Board reaffirmed their Resolution in support of Oklahoma Libraries in partial response to HB 2158.

Whereas, the Oklahoma Library Association supports the essence of democracy that citizens have the right of free inquiry and the equally-important right of forming their own opinions, and it is of the utmost importance that free access for individuals to all types of information be preserved and defended, and

Whereas, the Oklahoma Library Association supports open access to library materials, and

Whereas, the Oklahoma Library Association affirms the responsibility and right of all parents and guardians to guide their own children's use of library resources, and

Whereas, the Oklahoma Library Association supports the principle that Oklahoma libraries are an American value that supports our shared belief that empowerment of the individual results in a stronger, richer society, and

Whereas, the Oklahoma Library Association supports the decisions of local library boards to set their own access policies to library materials.

Whereas, these locally appointed library boards are composed of dedicated citizens in Oklahoma who will continue to do an excellent job for their communities, and

Whereas, the Oklahoma Library Association affirms the right of individuals to express their opinions about library resources and services, now therefore

Be it Resolved that the Oklahoma Library Association supports Oklahoma libraries and Oklahoma librarians who provide opportunities for citizens of all ages and backgrounds to become informed, literate, and culturally enriched.

Adopted by the Oklahoma Library Association Executive Board on Tuesday, May 25, 1999.

Reaffirmed by the Executive Board on Friday, March 17, 2006.

Group charges libraries filtered out Web site

STLtoday - News - St. Louis City / County: "
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a nationwide group that has been portrayed as racist, is suing four libraries in the St. Louis area for allegedly blocking patrons from viewing its Web site.

Gordon Baum, a lawyer from St. Charles who is the group's chief executive, said the U.S. Constitution protects the public's right to see his Web site.

'We don't believe we're any more to the right than the NAACP is to the left,' he said, adding that his group does not advocate violence.

The site, cofcc.org, does not feature the racial epithets commonly used by racist groups. It does, however, provide a slate of news stories about crime by blacks or immigrants. It also offers for sale a T-shirt with the words, 'White Pride,' 'Deutschland' and 'Save Our Culture.'

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that racism 'underlies' the group and that it has long had ties to politicians the law center considers racist.

Baum filed a suit in U.S. District Court on Monday claiming the Maplewood City Library, University City Public Library, Valley Park Community Library and Festus Public Library had violated his constitutional right to free speech by blocking access to the Web site. At least two of the libraries say they now permit patrons to view the site.

Baum said the suit was filed after the group checked on local libraries and wrote letters complaining to those libraries that blocked access to the group's site.

Maplewood City Library Director Terrence Donnelly sent the group a letter replying that the Internet filter service the library uses had blocked the site after tagging it as being in 'the categories of Hate and Discrimination.'"

Pauls Valley, OK, Pauls Valley Daily Democrat - Comic Relief

Pauls Valley, OK, Pauls Valley Daily Democrat - Comic Relief: "Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection receives huge cartoon donation

What is to be seen but not heard? The traditional answer is children, but so is a major gift of more than 2,000 comics books, magazines, and strips to the Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection that is housed inside the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, Okla.

Dr. Jon Suter recently donated this large collection featuring the work of Oklahoma cartoonists. A former librarian at East Central University in Ada, Suter is also a writer whose work is featured in the collection.

Dr. Suter is now Director of Libraries and a teacher of graduate classes in the liberal arts at Houston Baptist University; his courses include one on the history of comic books.

Born in Holdenville, Dr. Suter was among the earliest major collectors of comic books and strips in Oklahoma. His donation includes more than 500 magazines collecting comic strips and/or featuring articles on the history of the art form.

The more than 1,500 comic strips that will be displayed from the Suter gift include Dick Tracy, Broom Hilda, Alley Oop, Glamor Girls, and the editorial cartoons of Clarence Allen. Additional comic strips from Suter’s donation will be added at a later date.

The Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection already features the work of more than 50 Oklahoma cartoonists and their associates. TAFM currently showcases over 7,000 toys, 300 pieces of original comics art, a large selection of published comics by Oklahomans, and books and magazines on comic book and strip history."

The world's best books - Sunday Times - Times Online

The world's best books - Sunday Times - Times Online:

...I said that I wanted books that I could prove had changed, rootedly, the lives of people all over the land — people on trains, people at airports, people in clubs and pubs, women who were still campaigning for equality and enjoying the long-awaited acknowledgment of their right to orgasm, men who week in week out played, watched, celebrated and discussed a game so beautifully and simply constructed it remains a masterpiece of socio-leisure architecture, those who hold religious truths to be self-evident and those whose conscious and unconscious lives have been readjusted by the revelations from the Galapagos Islands, the industrialists and financiers who ride and lubricate international capitalism calling on the market and free trade as its two true parents, those whose lives are devoted to seeking freedoms which were given such a lead in the abolition of the slave trade, those who go to the moon, put on the light, send a fax, vote in a democratic country, fight for their rights; those whose daily lives and the reach of whose minds and ambitions have been transformed by books which set off a shot that rang around the world. Or words to that effect...

TWELVE BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Principia Mathematica (1687) by Isaac Newton

Married Love (1918) by Marie Stopes

Magna Carta (1215) by members of the English ruling classes

Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) by a group of former English public-school men

On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin

On the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1789) by William Wilberforce in Parliament, immediately printed in several versions

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft

Experimental Researches in Electricity (three volumes, 1839, 1844, 1855) by Michael Faraday

Patent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine (1769) by Richard Arkwright

The King James Bible (1611) by William Tyndale and 54 scholars appointed by the king

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith

The First Folio (1623) by William Shakespeare

So my question is: under a certain piece of legislation being discussed by the Oklahoma Legislature how many of these would be judged as having sexually explicit or homosexual themes?

Boing Boing: Marvel Comics: stealing our language

Boing Boing: Marvel Comics: stealing our language:

Marvel Comics is continuing in its bid to steal the word 'super-hero' from the public domain and put it in a lock-box to which it will control the key. Marvel and DC comics jointly filed a trademark on the word 'super-hero.' They use this mark to legally harass indie comic companies that make competing comic books.

A trademark's enforceability hinges on whether the public is likely to associate a word or mark with a given company -- in other words, when you hear the word 'super-hero,' if you think 'Marvel and DC,' then Marvel will be able to go on censoring and eliminating its competition.

One way of accomplishing this dirty bit of mind-control is by adding a ™ symbol after the word 'Super-Hero.' That TM lets the world know that you claim ownership over the word it accompanies. If you can get other people to do it, too, eventually you may in fact get the world to believe that the word is your property -- and then, it becomes your property.

Interestingly -- the Oxford English Dictionary shows an early use of "super-hero" in 1917 "‘CONTACT’ Airman's Outings 211 'The *super-heroes of the war'". This happens to be a magazine -- of the non-comic book variety. So perhaps DC and Marvel didn't create the word/concept?

Senators renew call for .xxx domains | CNET News.com

Senators renew call for .xxx domains | CNET News.com: "On Thursday, two Senate Democrats, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana, introduced a bill called the 'Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006.' The 11-page measure would require the U.S. Department of Commerce to work with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that oversees domain names, to develop plans for a domain name system that would house material deemed 'harmful to minors.'

That material, according to the bill, includes any 'communication,' image, article, recording or other 'obscene' matter, including actual or simulated sexual acts and 'lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast.'

'By corralling pornography in its own domain, our bill provides parents with the ability to create a 'do not enter zone' for their kids,' Pryor said in a statement."

Another solution to those library books - Our Tulsa World

OkieDoke points to this library thought over at Our Tulsa World.

Another solution to those library books - Our Tulsa World: "Set up a fund to gather donations to use for bookfines and check these books out and forget where you put it. Use the fund to pay the library fines and do it over and over. It's doubtful that they would keep replacing them very quickly."

The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK - Enid library officials concerned about bill

The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK - Enid library officials concerned about bill:

Enid library officials are concerned about a bill that passed the Oklahoma House Wednesday establishing a statewide board to check libraries for material with gay or explicitly sexual themes.

The bill would withhold state funding from libraries that do not segregate reading material with explicit or gay themes from reading areas for children.

It is opposed by Oklahoma Library Association.

“We’ve been watching that bill. Not only does it say the Department of Libraries cannot give funding but no other funding entity. That would prevent our local board or the city from funding this library, if it did not comply with the rules in the statute,” said Mary Shaklee, interim library director.

Shaklee said the bill would create an appointed group to determine what material young children can check out.

The group called State Library Material Content Advisory Board would develop an annual list of children and young adult materials that contain homosexual and sexually explicit subject matter.

“At this point, not knowing the particulars, I don’t know what specific materials are included. I don’t know if we even have material that fits their description,” she said.

The list will be distributed by Oklahoma Department of Libraries to every library in the state.

The advisory board would be made up of members appointed by the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the state Senate. Each would appoint two members of their legislative body, two people who are parents of a child under age 18 who reside in the state and two teachers in public or private schools in the state.

Shaklee said the biggest objection she has to the measure is the loss of local control of the library collection.

“They are asking us to accept a very small group of people who know nothing about our community to decide what material we can have and to whom it should be available,” she said. “Anytime someone seizes control of this sort, the logical question is what’s next?”

Shaklee said the library does have a process for people who find something objectionable.

“The local board oversees what we do here and the policies and approves those,” she said.

Six members of the board are appointed by the city and two by the county.

“Part of the issue is the whole idea you can take some part of the collection and put it somewhere and keep people away from it,” she said. If we move things to the adult collection, how do you keep children out of there? You can’t build a wall?”

Bill forces local libraries to move sexually explicit, gay materials

Muskogee Phoenix - www.muskogeephoenix.com - Muskogee, OK: "Marilyn Hinshaw, executive director of the Eastern Oklahoma District Library System, said the bill started when Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, was responding to complaints from local parents.

Hinshaw said the Metropolitan Library System, which is located in Oklahoma City and its suburbs, had an agreement in place to put books for young adults with mature themes on a parenting shelf.

“Oklahoma City agreed to do that,” Hinshaw said. “We thought it was all resolved. We don’t have a clue why she thought it was a problem in the rest of the state.”

...

Hinshaw said the effect of the legislation would create a censorship board.

“(The legislation) will make it necessary for a group of folks to go to Oklahoma City and go through every passage in the published material,” she said."

OLA Conference Wiki

OLA has a created a wiki for the Conference in Tulsa!

If you plan on attending the conference or want to promote your particular portion of the conference then I suggest you stop on by and create an account!

See you in Tulsa!

Keyword searching at its finest...

Everyone is searching for an answer to something online. By creating or finding information online we seek answers to our questions of existence, humanity, fears, hopes, & rights and wrongs. Essentially we all want the same thing -- security in our thoughts and in our environment.

The tools we have at our disposal are all the same...Only the logic we use to reconcile our answers are different.

Today a lot of people are searching for the information in this graphic.

Maybe we all have a lot more in common than we think...

(image is of statistical report for librarystories. keywords people used in major search engines to locate librarystories)

OFSA Library Alert - Protect Children in Oklahoma Public Libraries by Supporting HB 2158

plan2succeed.org, a website based out of New Jersey (?), sends out a call, in connection with OFSA, for individuals to support HB 2158.

Boing Boing: HOWTO make an RFID virus

For libraries that use RFID for circulation and inventory purposes you may want to look at this article via Boingboing. Seems you might be open viruses.
Boing Boing: HOWTO make an RFID virus: "Computer scientists from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam developed the first 'self-replicating RFID virus.' The idea is that the radio frequency identification tag acts as a 'vector' to infect the RFID middleware software that companies, for example, may be running as part of a system to track inventory of products."

Guess good ol' fashion barcodes aren't all that bad after all...

Sapulpa Daily Herald - Library bill brings worries of censorship

Sapulpa Daily Herald - Library bill brings worries of censorship: "The state House of Representatives has approved a measure that would withhold state funds from libraries that do not segregate reading material with sexually explicit or gay themes.

House members voted 60-33 for the bill after more than two hours of questions and debate in which opponents said the measure was a form of censorship and an unfunded mandate that would remove local control from library boards.

The measure, which is opposed by the Oklahoma Library Association, now goes to the Senate, where opponents predicted it will be killed.

“It doesn’t seem that you can legislate morality,” said Rep. Debbie Blackburn, D-Oklahoma City.

Blackburn and other opponents said an advisory board charged with developing an annual list of homosexual or sexually explicit material that must be placed in separate areas is the first step in an attempt to cleanse libraries of books some people consider offensive.

“I refuse to live under the Taliban,” Blackburn said referring to the Islamist nationalist group that effectively ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. “I refuse to live in Iran. This is America.”"

Economic Diversity of Colleges

Found this via Inside Higher Ed. Interesting data for librarians and administrators in comparing your library's parent institution with its peers.

Economic Diversity of Colleges:
"Higher education in America has become increasingly stratified, with some institutions enrolling large numbers of students from low-income families, while others primarily serve students from more privileged backgrounds. Because education is so central to upward mobility, it is important for researchers, policy makers, and the public to keep a close eye on this trend.

The data on this website show the extent to which public and private colleges and universities enroll undergraduates from various economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds. While racial and ethnic diversity data have long been available, colleges are not required to systematically collect information on students’ income levels. To help fill this gap, we have used federal financial aid information as a proxy. We hope that in the future more detailed campus-level data about economic diversity will be available to the public.

Economicdiversity.org is a project of The Institute for College Access and Success, Inc. (TICAS), which is fully responsible for its content."

Student-Affairs Officials Share Concerns and Advice at Annual Conference

Who are your college patrons? This is what one conference has concluded.
The Chronicle: Daily news: 03/14/2006:

A skilled multitasker who dreams big, thrives on stress, and calls his parents constantly. That is the profile of the modern student, as described by college officials here on Monday at the annual conference of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

At a news conference, leaders of the association discussed some of their top concerns, including the prevalence of high-risk drinking and mental-health problems among students, and the close relationships many students share with their parents, who are becoming increasingly involved in campus life and making more demands on student-affairs officials.

...

How can colleges and parents work together more effectively? Because baby-boomer parents do not expect to "let go" of their children when they start college, more colleges are developing programs and liaison offices to deal with parental concerns

...

Students in the so-called Millennial generation tend to welcome parental involvement in their campus lives. Mr. Keppler said the association recently found in a survey that current students call their parents 12 times a week, whereas baby boomers tended to call home just once a week.

Parents who intervene in their students' college experiences -- complaining about a grade or a judicial proceeding, for example -- are known in academe as "helicopter parents" for hovering over their children. Now some officials are calling the more-aggressive ones "lawn-mower parents," in reference to their attempt to run over administrators by challenging their authority...

Does this mean academic libraries need to prepare for book challenges from parents? Or perhaps there's programming they can do to help bring all of them into the library?

Sue Monk Kidd @ Tulsa City County Library

Sue Monk Kidd, best-selling author of "The Secret Life of Bees" and "The Mermaid Chair," will speak, answer questions and sign books. Saturday April 01 2006 from 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm This event will be held at Central Library second floor. This event is for adults and teens. Sponsored by Tulsa Library Trust, NoveList, Tulsa World, Barnes & Nobles and Tulsa City-County Library Staff Association Recycling Proceeds Fund

Free Resources: National Archives, Google Project to Digitize and Offer Historic Films Online

Multimedia & Internet@Schools Magazine: "Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Google co-founder and president of technology Sergey Brin have announced the launch of a pilot program to make holdings of the National Archives available for free online. This agreement will enable researchers and the general public to access a diverse collection of historic movies, documentaries, and other films from the National Archives via Google Video (http://video.google.com/nara.html) as well as the National Archives Web site (http://www.archives.gov)."

Daily Oklahoman condemns HB 2158 as well.

In an editorial on Friday, Oklahoma City's major daily spoke out against [registration required]the library bill now under discussion in the state House. Here's a representative paragraph:

We find it ironic that the bill said each policy should "reflect the contemporary community standard of the community the library is located in." In putting the bill on a path to becoming law, lawmakers are taking away such local control and substituting it with their judgment. It's not the Legislature's job to tell libraries which books to stock and where to put them. Local library boards are capable of making decisions on whether restricted access is necessary.

TCCL speaks out on HB 2158

Your one-stop site for everything relating to the Oklahoma House bill that is set to cause us all such headaches is now at the Tulsa City-County Library's website. In addition to the full text of the latest version of the bill and the referenced section on "sexual conduct", it includes a link to the library's policy statement and this marvelous quote from the chairman of the Tulsa City-County Library Commission:

The public library distributes books and other media which are broadly representative of human thought. In a diverse, pluralistic democracy not everyone will believe or like what they read. Library materials are representative of all social, political, religious and cultural points of views. Homosexuality is a reality. What would prevent other topics of reality from becoming off limits to young people who are free citizens entitled to free exercise of speech and thought?

Gay materials targeted in Oklahoma library bill | News | Advocate.com

Gay materials targeted in Oklahoma library bill | News | Advocate.com:
"Local libraries could be burdened by guidelines adopted by an Oklahoma house panel Wednesday to require materials containing sexually explicit or gay themes to be removed from general reading areas for children and young adults, library officials said. The bill, sponsored by Republican representative Sally Kern, would withhold state funds from public libraries that do not place the materials in a special area of the library.

The guidelines have been adopted by the state's two largest library systems, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but officials said small libraries may have a hard time complying. 'We're really concerned about it,' said Jeanie Johnson, president of the Oklahoma Library Association. 'The idea that we would restrict books really restricts freedoms.'

Preliminary estimates indicate it will cost $826,000 to renovate small public libraries to create special areas for the material, Johnson said. There are more than 200 public and special libraries in Oklahoma.

Bill Young, spokesman for the state Department of Libraries, said the regulations tie compliance to the distribution of library funds by the state's seven-member library board. 'We don't want to overburden smaller libraries. But we will follow the law if it is the law,' Young said.

Kern said she wants a special shelving policy to shield children from language and behaviors they are not mature enough to understand. 'It's protecting the future of our children,' she said. 'Sex is not bad. Sex is not wrong. It's the misuse of it.'

Kern said the measure will encourage libraries to ensure that parents know the content of children's books before a child reads them. She said children exposed to sexual material without parental guidance often engage in risky behavior later.

'I'm not a Nazi. I believe in free speech,' Kern said. 'But for every right we have, there is a responsibility.'"

oudaily.com - Your Views: 3-8-06 | Equality for women is still overlooked, even in America

oudaily.com - Your Views: 3-8-06 | Equality for women is still overlooked, even in America:

Today is International Women's Day.

American media pays attention to cosmetic appearances and externalities rather than political empowerment, educational equality and economic equity.

We still have men thinking they are better than women in academia even if the woman is more qualified than their lesser qualified male counterparts who blow hot air.

In traditional values, outspoken, intelligent, able women are perceived to emasculate the insecure male.

Examine Sri Lanka (previously Ceylon). That nation elected a woman as the first female Prime Minister of a democratic nation in the world.

She was Prime minister of Sri Lanka three times: from July 21, 1960 to March 27, 1965; from May 29, 1970 to July 23, 1977 and from Nov. 14, 1994 to Aug. 10, 2000 when she died.

Sadly, when she first took power there was a chauvinistic, male-dominated parliament who even stooped down to the level of saying, “If she is made prime minister, we will have to rinse her seat once a month.'

Has traditional America been any better than Ceylon was in 1960?

It is doubtful that a majority of the “she is inferior because she is a woman, she has to be a wife, cookie baker, homemaker, sperm receptacle, librarian, teacher or secretary' beliefs will ever be overcome in so-called moral-values states which have the highest divorce rates in the nation.

Will we ever elect a strong woman like Elizabeth Dole or Margaret Thatcher as president given our states' values?

— Mano Ratwatte, Price College of Business instructor

Let's see I am (or have been) 6 of the 7 things on this list...is this a bad thing or does it just mean I'll never be president?

Techies ponder how to cut through info overload | CNET News.com

Techies ponder how to cut through info overload | CNET News.com: "In today's gadget-jammed, sensory-overloaded culture, drawing and keeping a consumer's attention is more important than ever to businesses.

That's the premise here this week at O'Reilly's ETech Emerging Technology Conference, where the attention is on attention. Executives in the industry that made the gadgets that are shrinking America's attention span are here to discuss how to cut through all the info-clutter.

Focusing on what the confab has labeled 'The Attention Economy,' speakers on Tuesday repeatedly called on Internet executives and technologists to figure out what it now takes to draw consumers' focus. Sounding a bit like academics, tech executives offered deep thoughts on--and new business approaches to--overstimulated consumers. The conference itself seemed to respect the short attention span of attendees--a typical presentation lasted no more than 15 minutes, about seven minutes shorter than a TV sitcom.

There's even a name for the attention deficit disorder some fret the tech industry has created. 'Continuous partial attention,' as they're calling it, is an adaptive behavior pattern many consumers have adopted to cope with the need to multitask and boost productivity in the digital age. But it's creating an artificial sense of crisis, according to Linda Stone, a former Microsoft vice president who founded Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group.

'It's a higher art developed over these last 20 years,' Stone said to a packed audience during a presentation called 'Attention: the Real Aphrodisiac.' 'It helps us and hurts us.'"

The High Strung - LIBRARY TOUR INFO

The High Strung - LIBRARY TOUR INFO: "Last year the quirky, carefree, energetic music of Detroit’s The High Strung electrified Michigan’s teen patrons with their sunny three-part harmonies and witty, lyrical bravado. This year the furious guitars and squonking organ that accompany the band’s catchy sing-along choruses are roaming the country, headed in your direction. Hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the best new, young rock & roll bands in America, NPR’s Ken Tucker named The High Strung’s debut album These Are The Good Times as one of the Top 10 Rock Records of 2003, and the Washington Post called the title track “runner up best song of the year.” In August of 2005, in a segment touting the Library Tour, The High Strung was also featured on National Public Radio’s This American Life.

In addition to playing a full-set of their rousing Beatlesque jams, teens will get the first hand low-down about making records for major music industry labels. They’ll also get an insider’s view of creating a video for MTV and learn about touring on the road year-round all across the country. But in what’s sure to be the highlight of this first ever National Rock and Roll Library tour, at each appearance the band will solicit the audience’s help in writing and improvising a song on the spot. "

June 28: Moore Public Library, Moore, Oklahoma

Ruth Brown to be honored

LISNews scooped us on this story from Bartlesville, where the Bartlesville Women's Network is raising funds to honor Ruth Brown. Brown was a librarian who was fired during the McCarthy era for loaning books to black patrons, defying the library's Jim Crow policy.

Bonus: It doesn't look like it's had a DVD or VHS release, but Bette Davis played a character based on Ruth Brown in the 1956 film Storm Center.

Muskogee Phoenix - | 10 Questions for Jan Bryant, head librarian, Muskogee Public Library

Muskogee Phoenix | 10 Questions for Jan Bryant, head librarian, Muskogee Public Library:

"QUESTION: Generally speaking, what are some personality traits of a good librarian?

ANSWER: I think a desire to help people is critical for those who work in the public areas of a library. A library is a service agency. Our work is to link people with information or resources for the betterment of their lives. A good personality is important. Flexibility is a must. I think a love of books and reading is important for them to really enjoy working in a library. Also, they need to have an interest in the world around them. Being curious is helpful; wanting to grow and learn personally is critical. "

Muskogee Phoenix - | Librarian: Libraries are to help people

Muskogee Phoenix | Librarian: Libraries are to help people: "Her family suggested she consider working as a librarian when Jan Bryant was young. After being disappointed by the atmosphere at her high school library, she decided she didn’t want to be like that.

Bryant, 60, is now head librarian at the Muskogee Public Library. And, she’s not like that.

“They were very protective of the materials,” she said. “The whole concept of a library is to help people.”

After growing up in Henryetta, she attended classes at Northeast Oklahoma A&M. While a member of the band there, she met her husband-to-be: Paul. He played the bass drum and she played the snare.

Bryant majored in English at Oklahoma State University. Working later as a teacher led her into another encounter with bad library practice. Bryant felt like her students were not being well served.

“You can’t teach English without a library,” she said. “Students need to like going to the library and reading. That’s when I realized how critical a library was for students. In self-defense, I became a librarian.”

Starting in 1967, Bryant began taking summer classes in library science at Emporia State Teacher’s College. She started work at the Dodge City Public Library in 1973.

“When I walked in the door of a public library, I knew I had found a home.”

Bryant and her husband Paul moved to Muskogee in 1977 when they purchased the Sonic Drive Inn at 10th Street and Okmulgee Avenue. Running a business was time consuming, then she took some time to raise her daughter. But she continued to work when possible for local libraries.

As her daughter got older, Bryant had more time to return to the work she loved. In 1996, she took a job at the Muskogee Public Library as reference librarian, then became head librarian in 1999.

Bryant is optimistic about the Muskogee library and its programs.

“We’re in the first phase of an early literacy program that will have a tr"

Irish Examiner > Breaking News > Parents complain about 'gay penguin' children's book

Irish Examiner > Breaking News > Parents complain about 'gay penguin' children's book
A book about two male penguins that raised a baby penguin has been moved from the children’s section to the non-fiction section of two public library branches after parents complained about homosexual undertones.

The illustrated children’s book, “And Tango Makes Three,” is based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo.

The penguins, named Roy and Silo, adopted an abandoned egg in the late 1990s.

Two parents expressed concerns about the book last month with librarians at the Rolling Hills’ Consolidated Library’s branch in the north-west Missouri town of Savannah.

The book, written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, has since found a new home in the non-fiction section at the library in Savannah and at another branch near St Joseph.

Barbara Read, Rolling Hills’ director, said she consulted with staff at the Omaha, Nebraska, and Kansas City zoos and the zoology department of the University of Oklahoma before moving the book.

She said the experts all said adoptions aren’t unusual in the world of penguins.

She said the book was moved to the non-fiction section because it was based on actual events.

In that section, she said, there was less of a chance that the book would “blindside” someone.

American Indian Festival of Words 2006

Wilma P. Mankiller to speak at Tulsa City County Library.
Saturday March 11, 10:00 - 2:00 PM
Central Library

Share the history and traditions of North America’s native people during the American Indian Festival of Words. The free festival celebrates the contributions of American Indians through enlightening family programs. The highlight of the festival is the Circle of Honor ceremony with Wilma Mankiller.

LII in trouble. Can Oklahoma help?

The Librarians' Internet Index has just been informed that their funding will be cut by about half. For those of you who haven't used this marvelous resource, it's a very comprehensive collection of website links, annotated, organized, and maintained by librarians in California. See Michael McGrorty's Library Dust blog for his plea, much better written than my own, to do everything we can to keep LII from failing.

One option might be to convince Oklahoma to partner with LII. There are details about this on their Partner Program page. I'm not sure who we should go to on this, but surely I'm not the only one who's afraid to lose this valuable research tool?

iWon News | Living dead win Oddest Book Title award

Found this via Fark.
iWon News | Living dead win Oddest Book Title award: "LONDON (Reuters) - The living dead beat rhino horn to be named Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Bookseller magazine gave the award Friday to a self-help book on being haunted entitled 'People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It.'

In a close fight, the runner-up was 'Rhino Horn Stockpile Management: Minimum Standards and Best Practices from East and Southern Africa.'

Previous winners have been 'Bombproof Your Horse' and 'Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers.'"

The Norman Transcript - International library committee meets in Norman

The Norman Transcript - International library committee meets in Norman: "Twelve members of the Public Libraries Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, IFLA, will visit Norman today through Sunday to discuss the development and promotion of public libraries worldwide.

The committee members, who represent the countries of Canada, Denmark, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States, are in Norman on the invitation of Mary Sherman, director of the Pioneer Library System and a longstanding member of the committee.

According to Sherman, the IFLA Section of Public Libraries provides an international forum and network to develop and insure free and equal access to information at the local level. With more than 300 members worldwide, the committee is one of the largest of the 45 IFLA sections.

'Our major project over the last five years has been the development of new guidelines and standards for public libraries. We published the first edition of 'Public Library Service: the IFLA/UNESCO Guidelines for Development' in 2001 and now it has been translated into more than 20 languages and distributed throughout the world,' Sherman said.

The group will meet at the Norman Public Library, 225 N. Webster Ave., for its mid-year business meeting. While in Norman, the group will visit libraries in Norman, Moore and Oklahoma City in addition to touring the State Capitol, the Oklahoma City National Memorial, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and the History of Science Collection at Bizzell Memorial Library at the University of Oklahoma.

'This is the first time that IFLA has come to this part of the U.S. and we are happy to show them some Southwestern hospitality. The Norman library staff and the Friends of the Norman Library are hosting a dinner for them at the library. Our entertainment that evening will be a presentation by the Oklahoma Fancy Dancers. We are also planning some excursions to local malls and Bricktown to add to the fun," Sherman said.

For more information about the International Federation of Library Association and Institutions, visit the Web site at www.ifla.org."

MiGente.com - Tulsa World, Okla., Danna Sue Walker Column: Tulsa Library Trust Raising Money for New Building

MiGente.com - Tulsa World, Okla., Danna Sue Walker Column: Tulsa Library Trust Raising Money for New Building
The Tulsa Library Trust is working to raise money for a permanent home. The Tulsa Library Trust recently kicked off a capital campaign for the 10,000-square-foot building in LaFortune Park. The library will be located adjacent to the new community center, a Vision 2025 project. The library will be renamed the Herman and Kate Kaiser Library. Thanks to the foresight of the Tulsa County Commissioners and the County Parks Board, the partnership with the library will enable LaFortune Park to offer area residents a wide range of family-friendly services. The new community center will offer arts and crafts facilities, meeting rooms, a large reception hall and cultural/educational services to the recreational amenities found at the
park. The library will feature a children's area, space for 60,000 books and 25 computers. The Kaiser Library will be the neighborhood library for the students of Key Elementary and Memorial High School, and the home branch for residents in the area. The goal of the campaign is $1,650,000 to fund the costs of construction, professional services and furnishings.

ChannelOklahoma.com - Politics - Patriot Act Earns Senate Passage

ChannelOklahoma.com - Politics - Patriot Act Earns Senate Passage: "
The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to renew the USA Patriot Act, after months of pitched debate over legislation that supporters said struck a better balance between privacy rights and the government's power to hunt down terrorists.

The 89-10 vote marked a bright spot in President George W. Bush's troubled second term as his approval ratings dipped over the war in Iraq and his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. Renewing the act, congressional Republicans said, was key to preventing more terror attacks in the United States.
...
Unable to break the deadlock, Congress opted instead to extend the deadline twice while negotiations continued. In the end, the White House and the Republicans broke the stalemate by crafting a second measure that would curb some powers of law enforcement officials seeking information. Both will be sent as a package to Bush.

Here are some of the provisions the bill renews.

~ Clarifies that most libraries are not subject to demands in those letters for information about suspected terrorists.
~ Puts a four-year expiration on Sections 206 and 215, which authorize roving wiretaps and permit secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries."

News from Agape Press | Libraries' 'Parenting Collection' Policy Falls Short of Protecting Children, Group Contends

News from Agape Press | Libraries' 'Parenting Collection' Policy Falls Short of Protecting Children, Group Contends: "Libraries in the Oklahoma City-County system will now have a 'Parenting Collection,' where they will keep books on alternative lifestyles, sex, and drug use. However, Lynn Rahman of the group Oklahomans for School Accountability believes more could be done to protect children from objectionable material.

Rahman says the Commission members are 'trying to allay fears without really making an actual move.' A bigger and more effective step for the library system officials to take would be to actually move the books from the children's section, she insists, 'not just to a higher shelf, because children can take books down and they can leave them laying around on tables and everywhere else, and a parent could simply do the same thing.'

Among the 37 children's books in the Parenting Collection is King and King, an illustrated storybook featuring two princes who get married and share a kiss at the story's end. Other books in the collection address many sensitive topics, including homosexuality and premarital sex.

Rahman feels the Library Commission's policy of moving the controversial books to higher shelves does not adequately protect children since anyone who uses the book in the library could easily leave it unshelved and it would 'just be lying there anyway, in the same section.'

Besides, the Oklahomans for School Accountability spokeswoman notes, parents are wrong to think the problem of inappropriate materials is isolated to public libraries. 'The school library has just as many bad books, if not more, than the public library,' she contends."