LISNews Librarian And Information Science News

Courtesy of The Distant Librarian, ProQuest has bought RefWorks. While the press release says no external changes from a customer perspective, I can't help but wonder if there will be changes for those that manage the database.

This article comes to us courtesy of ALA's Library Direct e-mail. Johnsonton County is on the hunt for books to remove from its collection after removing "How the Girls lost their accents". What scariest of all is that they aren't waiting to react, they're just looking for books that are "offensive."

The Acquisitions Librarian at the Wichita Falls (TX) Public Library wants to find out what Spanish readers want; he doesn't speak the language, but it's his job to acquire Spanish-language titles. How to go about the task? Here' the scoop from the Times Record News (three names are better than one!)

teaperson writes "The myth is that Boston's cockamamie streets were laid out by cows. That story can be put to the lie at the Boston Public Library's Leventhal Map Collection, which just received a $10 million endowment from the eponymous Norman Leventhal, a 90-year-old Boston real estate developer, as well as 178 rare maps of Boston and the rest of the world. Some of his favorites are shown on Boston.com."

Soon to be retiring chef Fritz Blank, owner of Deux Cheminees Restaurant in Philadelphia, is turning over his impressive culinary collection of about 15,000 volumes to the University of Pennsylvania. Being known as a collector, Blank said he receives many volumes without asking. But he's also done a lot of treasure hunting himself, especially in used book barns. Among the titles that the Penn library will acquire are An Illustrated Guide to Shrimp of the World, The All-American Cookie and Country Scrapple: An American Tradition (for which Blank wrote the introduction).

"Some of the most astounding pieces that I found were just laying there in a cardboard box for 50 cents," Blank said.

Penn librarian Lynne Farrington is still taking inventory.

"At this point, I just know it's huge," said Farrington, curator of printed books for the university's Rare Book and Manuscript Library. More from the AP.

cjovalle writes: "Here's a scary story I first encountered at librarian.net... Apparently, either code or human error caused one copy of every item in a PSU library ordered since May 2001 to be reordered when someone attempted to update the system to daylight savings time. I hear stories about ILS's fairly often (not allowing deleting without losing everything, using different keys to do the same thing depending on the screen, other usability issues), but nothing like this! Are there other troubling stories out there?"

After thirty years of making the questionable available, Loompanics Unlimited is shutting down. This may be your last chance to stock your library shelves with books like Backyard Meat Production , Prison Killing Techniques , and The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories at 75% off. They no longer carry the most famous of their titles, but you can actually buy The Anarchist Cookbook at Amazon now, despite the author's objections:

...I wrote to Lyle Stuart Inc. explaining that I no longer held the views that were expressed in the book and requested that The Anarchist Cookbook be taken out of print. The response from the publisher was that the copyright was in his name and therefore such a decision was his to make -- not the author's. In the early 1980's, the rights for the book were sold to another publisher. I have had no contact with that publisher (other than to request that the book be taken out of print) and I receive no royalties.

Cabot writes "CBC is reporting that Canada's top medical researchers may be left scrambling to find research journals as Health Canada slashes the department's library staff and scientific journals by more than half.

Health Canada plans to cut the science library budget by 50 per cent and reduce staff members from 26 to 10 at the department's six libraries over the next three years. Four of the libraries are located in the Ottawa area."

Cortez writes "With DVD in AV such a growing part of library collections the venerable VCR has fallen in action - insert somber drum-roll here. Can we store them next to the Sony Beta tapes? http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1103/p12s01-almo.htm l "Today we're officially saying farewell to the VCR," a company spokeswoman said. While others say that's a bit premature, the evidence keeps piling up. Last summer's megahit "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith" was just released for sale in DVD format only. No VHS version will be available. Other recent films that earned at least $25 million at the box office and are also being sold this fall only on DVD include "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," "Herbie Fully Loaded," "Sky High," "March of the Penguins," "The Brothers Grimm," and "Dark Waters." "Within 12 months or so, or sooner than that, we must expect that new [movie] releases will be exclusively digital," predicted Crossan Andersen, president of the VSDA, in a state of the industry speech last July."

Karl Bridges writes "Now available for free: An Excel spreadsheet designed to handle serials budgeting. Basically you put in your titles and prices by LC classification -- with publisher/call number/etc. You can then select items to cancel/add using a drop-down menu (yes/no). The totals are then automatically tabulated to show where you are e.g. total amount saved, total amount saved by call number. Basically this allows you to do "virtual cancellations/virtual additions" to model the effect of serials changes on various subject areas.
Could also be modified (or used as is) for other things like book orders. If nothing else a useful example of using the SUMIF function in Excel.
Not a complicated project, but since I already went to the effort of doing this why not share???

Download at http://www.uvm.edu/~kbridges/
Feel free to modify. If you like this please send me an email at karl.bridges@uvm.edu"