American Libraries Direct October 22, 2008

The e-newsletter of the American Library Association (ALA):

Selected Higllights:

Kareem PSA generated $900,000 in library publicity
Throughout Library Card Sign-up Month in September, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar could be seen and heard speaking out about the value of owning a library card. As honorary chair, Abdul-Jabbar donated his time and image to the creation of print and radio public service announcements. Print PSAs (right) were placed by ALA in such national publications as Entertainment Weekly, O, The Oprah Magazine, and USA Today, generating $900,000 in donated advertising space on behalf of libraries….

Library use rises as economy falls Haverhill (Mass.) Public Library Assistant Director Susan Katzenstein said the library is usually “an incredibly busy place.” But nowadays, “our usage is through the roof.” The Haverhill library is not alone. Across the region, local public libraries are reporting a surge in use, a trend officials tie directly to the economic hardship many are facing….
Boston Globe, Oct. 16
Margolis hired as New York state librarian The embattled former head of the Boston Public Library has been hired as the New York state librarian and assistant commissioner of education in Albany. The state board of regents confirmed the appointment of Bernard A. Margolis at an October 21 meeting. Margolis spent 11 years as president of the Boston library system before he was ousted last year by Mayor Thomas M. Menino….
Boston Globe, Oct. 21
ACRL’s Informed Learning ACRL has released a new publication titled Informed Learning. Written by noted Australian learning theorist Christine S. Bruce, it provides a unique perspective on helping students become successful learners in fluid and fast-moving information environments. Bruce has created a powerful and extensive examination of how information literacy and disciplinary learning can coexist….

New Presidential Records Act signed President George W. Bush signed the Presidential Historical Records Preservation Act of 2008 (S. 3477) into law October 13. The act establishes a matching grant program for the preservation of historical records of former presidents whose archives are not maintained in federal depositories. The legislation culminates years of effort by Virginia legislators and the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, Virginia….
Staunton (Va.) News Leader, Oct. 21; White House, Oct. 13
Telecom immunity law challenged in court The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a constitutional challenge of a law that gave legal immunity to telecommunications companies cooperating with the Bush administration’s domestic wiretapping program. The brief filed October 16 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco argues that the FISA Amendments Act denies telecom customers their rights without due process of law, since they’re subjected to warrantless surveillance….
Information Week, Oct. 17
New media player allows spoken-word search EveryZing, a media indexing company, is launching its own media player that lets people search for spoken words within videos. The new video player, called MetaPlayer, uses technology the company already has in its ezSearch and ezSEO products. On sites that support it (the first announced is the Dallas Cowboys site), users will be able to type in a query in the video player and see where the term entered comes up; they can then jump to that spot….
Webware, Oct. 22
How to limit a search by date Phil Bradley writes: “One of the problems with searching for material in a specific date range is that it’s hard for a search engine to know exactly what is required. For example, if you add the date limit ‘last 3 months,’ that doesn’t necessarily mean ‘new’ pages that have been created in the last three months-if a search engine finds a page written 5 years ago that they’ve only just included in their database, that could be included as a new page. However, there are a few places you might go.”…
Phil Bradley’s Weblog, Oct. 19
Click here to see this entire issue in html format.
_________________________________________ Thanks to Philip Y. Blue Senior Law Librarian at the New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library for contributing this information.