Articles Posted in Library News and Views

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At the beginning of 2007, the steering committee of OpenTheGovernment.org put a spotlignt on the importance of developing recommendations for the next administration and Congress to strengthen government transparency. OMB Watch agreed to spearhead such a project and to work with the OpenTheGovernment.org coalition and others including the AALL Government Relations Office staff in fashioning recommendations for providing a new roadmap for openness in the federal government that will in turn provide greater government transparancy, accountability and usability of government information.

The resulting report “Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda: Recommendations to President-elect Obama and Congress,” was delivered to President-Elect Obama’s transition team the day after the election. It includes more than 70 prioritized recommendations on issues relating to national security and secrecy, usability of government information, and how to create an environment for greater transparency. Those who are concerned and would like to make their own positions known can go to a special website established by OMB Watch and endorse the findings of the Report.

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“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded nearly US$7 million to fund a pilot program aimed at helping public libraries in seven states get faster Internet connections, the foundation announced Thursday. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded nearly US$7 million to fund a pilot program aimed at helping public libraries in seven states get faster Internet connections, the foundation announced Thursday”. Click to Continue.
_____________________ CIO Insider, December 19, 2008.

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Source: AALL: From the Desk of James E. Duggan, December 18, 2008.

Some welcome news is today’s tough economy, U.S. News and & World Report last week named librarianship as a “Best Career 2009.” The overview dispels the image of librarians as “mousy bookworms,” reporting that librarians have become “high-tech information sleuths, helping patrons plumb the oceans of information available in books and digital records, often starting with a clever Google search but frequently going well beyond.” Special librarianship in particular is named the field’s fastest-growing job market.

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According to libraryjournal.com, a libraries taskforce has been formed to investigate the recent OCLC policy changes regarding the use and transfer of WorldCat records.

According to libraryjournal.com:

“Taking a step likely to be welcomed by many in the cataloging community, the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have formed an ad hoc task force to study the recently disseminated OCLC policy governing the use and transfer of WorldCat records.

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According to an NBC report on MSNBC, use of library has gone “way up” during the present economic downturn; circulation is “skyrocketing”. All of this at a time when the budgets of many of these libraries are being cut..

When you go to the above link, be patient, You will first need to listen to a brief commercial before getting to the report about libraries.

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From: The New York City Bar Library December 15, 2008.

The New York City Bar has finalized an agreement with Google and LLMC-Digital to digitize the remaining print volumes of Records & Briefs in the City Bar’s collection. This project will preserve court cases from the New York Court of Appeals (1823-1929) and all four departments of the Appellate Division (1896-1940). The project will also include scanning very scarce cases from the Superior and Appellate Term courts in the mid-late 1800’s. The trial transcripts and briefs will be available free of charge from Google and in an enhanced format in the LLMC-Digital database available through the City Bar’s web site (www.nycbar.org ).

The City Bar expects to transfer 1,000 volumes per week to Mountain View, California starting this week. Other New York area libraries may also become involved in this project in order to create a comprehensive online collection of New York Records and Briefs.

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QUESTION:

What are libraries with existing Thomson West Library Maintenance Agreements (LMAs) planning to do when those Agreements come up for renewal? Responses, arranged by type of library are quite varied. All names have been removed to protect privacy but we are especially grateful to the person who both submitted the question originally and compiled the responses below:

RESPONSES:

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“About 450 librarians and library supporters rallied against budget cuts at the New York State Capitol in Albany November 18. Gov. David Paterson has proposed $20 million in cuts to libraries, which the New York Library Association says will reduce library aid for the state’s 73 library systems to a level not seen since 1993. State aid to libraries was flat between 1998 and 2006. Paterson called lawmakers into an emergency session to make mid-year budget cuts, but legislators did not take any action…”
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White Plains (N.Y.) Journal News, Nov. 18; New York Library Association

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For the Announcement check the press release at http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2008/08-190.html..

Questions have been raised as to how this might impact law cataloging. Here is a response from AAron Wolfe Kuperman at the Law Catagoging Section of the Library of Congress:

The impact on the LAW team is limited. We are renamed the “Law Section”,

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