Arab library school grads still looking for work

Association head urges recent granduates to upgrade their skills and seek work in the private sector.

 

You can get masterpieces for free!

A new federal grant program called “Picturing America” is making 40 great American works of art available free to school and libraries.

 

Library Week: Library romance, history and humor

A Washington-area page looks at library history from Roman times to the present.

 

Can I get an “amen”?!

Beginning this week, Bay Area patrons can get the chance to win fabulous prizes by telling a consortium of area library systems called Free2 what libraries have done for them.

David Talbot, founder of Salon.com, said he has always been “free2wander” at Bay Area libraries. Talbot pursued his “career as a journalist, researching and writing articles and books – and even doing the deep-well information drilling I needed to launch my own media business. Libraries are writers’ temples!”

 

Library funding falls with other social services; gaming still packs ‘em in

“We find that a lot of teens who come to the library to use games end up coming back to the library to use other services,” American Library Association President Loriene Roy said today. Roy spoke with the Associated Press on the eve of the release of the association’s annual State of America’s Libraries Report.

 

Hooligans

This is a post I started writing after an incident two years ago at the library where I work, the Ashland Public Library in Ashland, Mass.

Hooligans, ruffians, miscreants, rapscallions, scalawags and ne’er-do-wells.

With regard to the people I’m going to talk about, I prefer these archaic words to the harsher ones some other people might choose. I cannot bring myself to refer to the young people I’m going to talk about as “punks,” even if I once proudly wore that mantle myself. I list the words in the title of this blog entry because quite a lot happened tonight at the library. Our gang of troubled boys and girls made a lot of mischief. We threw a large group of them out at around 6:00 p.m. Of course, they snuck back in now and then and left us many signs that they had stopped by for a visit. They slid a TV Guide under the door. Inside was a piece of paper with a picture of three naked women doing sexually explicit things to each other.

At about 7:30 p.m., the fire alarm went off. We checked around to see if there was a fire. A fireman came by about five minutes later and found that someone had pulled the fire alarm by the main exit. There was also a flower on the floor with petals scattered around, and cookies in a waxed paper container. A closer look in the lobby area revealed that someone had also rearranged the letters on the directory so that they now spelled the following obscene messages:

FUC YO MOMMA HOE

YOUNG SEX COLLECTION

I don’t believe in karma, but this almost converted me. I once stood and watched as a friend did a similar thing to a sign at a gas station. This is what the sign said before my friend removed the “F”:

HELP WANTED

ALL SHIFTS

I also pulled a fire alarm once, at a much, much, much, much, much larger place. I am trying to remember what I felt like when I did those things. I felt powerless, ignored and unwanted, and angry because of it. I made dumb choices to try to get people to pay attention to me. If those feelings come back to me, I try to do something constructive about it, like writing, playing music or calling a friend. I also hope the people I may have hurt can understand and forgive me if I took out my aggression inappropriately. I have already forgiven the kids who did these dumb things tonight.

 

ebrary to offer free stuff for a year

To celebrate National Library Week next week, the Silicon Valley firm will offer librarians as well as library science faculty and students free access to its Library Center.

 

Florida patrons urge funding restoration

In tough economic times, library use goes up, a Charlotte County official said.

 

Fired librarian fights back

Fired after reporting a patron viewing child porn to police, a librarian near Fresno, Calif., responds to her former employer’s charges against her.

 

Another oldie but goodie

Detroit-area libraries luring teens back

Video game competitions at Michigan libraries draw teen crowds, boost circulation.