LISNews: Librarian Blog Since 1999

Carla Tracy, director of the Thomas Tredway Library at Augustana College in Illinois writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Shortly after I began my career as a librarian, the Web made its appearance to the general public. Even with the broad scope afforded me through my educational background, I didn't believe the Web would amount to much. I could not imagine that this unimpressive resource would shake the very concept of the library as it had been known for hundreds of years.

The shaking hasn't stopped yet. College librarians are faced with the challenge of expanding digital media and study space while reducing print media. That reduction includes withdrawing books from the shelves, which, in effect, means selling, recycling, giving away, storing off-site (for those who can afford it), discarding, or shredding texts. Suddenly college librarians, among the world's greatest lovers of books, are viewed in certain corners as book destroyers.

If a library is a growing organism, then I've felt the growing pains keenly on our campus these last few months. In leading our library staff through an effort to remove certain books used only once in the past 25 years, if at all, I stand at the head of a series of events that inadvertently sent part of a reprint collection, written in classical Chinese, to the recycling center.

More from Chronicle.com.

...Cornell University Library recently released a statement saying that they will no longer do business with publishers who refuse to let the library disclose the price they pay for what they get from those publishers: “It has become apparent to the library community that the anticompetitive conduct engaged in by some publishing firms is in part a result of the inclusion of nondisclosure agreements in contracts.

Full blog at Closedstacks.com
http://www.closedstacks.com/?p=3288

County Times GOSHEN, CT—The Goshen Public Library has received a grant from the Libri Foundation of Eugene, Ore., a nonprofit organization that donates new children’s books to small public libraries across the country through its Books to Children program.

The Libri Foundation has been serving public libraries for 18 years, and supports the concept that children who learn to enjoy reading at an early age continue to read throughout their lives, according to a press release from the library.

Library Director Barker Steinmayer said the foundation contacted the library because it had received a grant three years ago, and libraries are eligible for the grants every three years.

“When I approached the [Friends of the Library] to see if they were going to match the grant, they were excited about doing that, and we have a number of excellent nonfiction and fiction books that have been circulating,” said Ms. Barker Steinmayer.

According to the release, the library received 83 books worth more than $1,400. The library’s friends group contributed $300.

In the years since the city of Atlanta acquired more than 10,000 of Dr. Martin Luther King's personal papers, the collection has been pored over by researchers and used in groundbreaking history courses at Morehouse College. Come February, the writings of Dr. King will be fully available to the public at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. Atlanta Journal Constitution has the story.

"My hope is that more and more people understand the genius and the creativity and the scholarship of Dr. King," said Loretta Parham, Library Director. "So many recognize him as the author of the "I Have a Dream" speech and not much more. He was a whole person and there's another story to tell."

The papers came to Atlanta in 2006 after Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin led an effort to purchase them from the King family before the collection was to be auctioned at Sotheby's. Morehouse, King's alma mater, owns the $32 million collection, which was secured by a loan from SunTrust Banks. Several private donors helped repay the bank loan, a feat completed last fall. Here is the link to the collection.