LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Story at Wired.com about Jay Walker's library. You have to see the pictures of this.

I saw a list of these endangered words on LIS News, but the article accompanying it is interesting: public figures are actually trying to promote these words to see if "throwing a pebble in the pond of language really can generate ripples."

PegasusNews via Latina Lista brings us a story about one librarian in Dallas providing educational opportunities relative to Tejano music. Carolina Martinez is working on a community information to share what Tejano music has contributed to not only Texas but also the music industry.

From The Enquirer in Cincinnati:

"In a case that has befuddled police officials, a Columbus man has been charged with crawling under a table at a library on University of Cincinnati’s campus, spraying a substance from a syringe on a woman’s shoes and then photographing them."

50th Anniversary edition of Kik-Step.

All the talk about how libraries are losing the younger generation is apparently just that...talk. A survey done by Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the biggest group is actually Generation Y, the 18-30 year olds. While they may no longer be using the library for what we would call "traditional" reasons, they are using the library.

Time flies; we're due for yet another look back at the year's top library-related stories.

A federal judge today struck down parts of the new U.S.A. Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to acquire corporate records using informal secret demands called national security letters.

The law allowed the F.B.I. to force communications companies, including telephone and Internet providers, to turn over their customers records without court authorization and permanently to forbid the companies from discussing what they had done. Under the law, enacted last year, the ability of the courts to review challenges to the ban on disclosures was quite limited. Today's New York Times reports: Judge Marrero wrote that he feared the law could be the first step in a series of intrusions into the role of the judiciary that would be the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.

According to a report from the Justice Department's inspector general in March, the F.B.I. issued about 143,000 requests (big number there)through national security letters from 2003 to 2005. The report found that the bureau had often used the letters improperly and sometimes illegally, case in point, the letters served to Connecticut's Library Connection.

Porter Anderson writes of the all new NEA, their avoidance of giving grants that cause controversy, and instead are promoting programs such as "Big Read," the town that reads together. There up to 117 cities so far with an expected 400 next year, as well as four international programs that will start up in the next year. Exciting to see the government promote reading, and its the NEA to boot.

Search-Engines writes "Following revelations that a high-ranking member of Wikipedia's bureaucracy used his cloak of anonymity to lie about being a professor of religion, the free Internet encyclopedia plans to ask contributors who claim such credentials to identify themselves. But, he said, if people want to claim expertise on Wikipedia, they ought to be prompted to prove it. If they don't want to give their real names, they shouldn't be allowed to tout credentials. Had that policy been in place, Wales said, Jordan probably would not have gotten away with claiming a Ph.D. in religion http://physorg.com/news92507189.html"