In the UK Today: Lapdances = Yes, Libraries = No

We paraphrase, but according to The Daily Mail, the United Kingdom is going to hell in a hand-basket. Recent valuations have shown that while lapdancing clubs, drive-through restaurants and betting shops are up (1150, 53 and 39 per cent, respectively since 1997) the number of public libraries, police stations and post offices have been greatly reduced in the same time period.

The changing face of Britain under Labour has been laid bare in a modern Domesday Book.

It shows how traditional pubs, post offices and libraries have gone by the wayside.

In their place bookmakers, nightclubs and supermarket chains have flourished.

The piece does a lot of political finger-pointing without offering much in the way of solutions. But any time we see a trend that indicates libraries are threatened, we need to take note, take stock and think about what needs to be done differently.

The danger, of course, is that we wake up one day and wonder what happened. Libraries are currently under threat in many parts of the world, quite often for no reason beyond ignorance combined with short-term cost-cutting. The simplest way to help is clear: make sure you use your own local library and let the decision makers in your community know that you do. Libraries are an irreplaceable community resource: we need to both cherish and guard them, no matter where we live.

Library Industry Anticipates Record-Breaking Conference

The library industry is gearing up for the 2009 ALA convention, this year to be held in Chicago on July 9th through the 15th. This year’s conference is anticipated to be a record-breaker. From Library Journal (who is definitely in a position to know about such things):

There is joy among those who have the funds to go to Chicago for the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference, July 9–15. Every librarian knows there is nothing better than a Chicago gathering, with the city's wonderful haunts, museums, restaurants, and fine memories of past conferences. Despite the economy, and maybe because of early signs of recovery, we expect record-breaking attendance.

Library Journal also offers up their annual “Picks and Pans” for the conference as well as a very solid guide for every of this important date on the library calendar. LJ’s coverage is here. The ALA conference Web site is here.

Obamas Will Preside Over National Book Festival

The First Couple will be honorary chairs of the National Book Festival, to be held in Washington, D.C., at the National Mall on Saturday, September 26th.

Sponsored by the Library of Congress, this will be the event’s ninth year celebrating “the joys of reading and lifelong literacy,” according to an event press release.

“We are delighted that the President and Mrs. Obama are committed to bringing this inspirational event to people of all ages nationwide,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “The National Book Festival has become a true American institution. It is a joyous and very popular celebration of books and reading in the Washington, D.C., area.”

About 70 authors, poets and illustrators representing all branches of literature will be housed in themed pavilions throughout the site. Visitors to the festival will be able to meet authors, get books signed and take part in a large number of reading and library promotional activities. As well, the Library of Congress Pavilion will showcase “cultural treasures” and offer information about library programs.

Held on the National Mall between 7th and 14th streets, the annual event is open to the public and free of charge. It sounds like a terrific day.

Potentially Toxic Children’s Books Stir Controversy

While a story in The Washington Post adds little new to the ongoing discussion about the lead content of pre-1985 children’s books, it offers a very good overview of where the matter stands now as well as how concerned parties are feeling.

In case you’ve missed the story thus far, here are the bare bones:

Legislation passed by Congress last August in response to fears of lead-tainted toys imported from China went into effect last month. Consumer groups and safety advocates have praised it for its far-reaching protections. But libraries and book resellers such as Goodwill are worried about one small part of the law: a ban on distributing children's books printed before 1985.

Boiled down: the legislation represents a disaster for book resellers and especially for libraries for whom it means replacing a significant portion of their children’s collections. At a time when budgets are already being slashed to ridiculous levels, the news just couldn’t be worse.

Part of the controversy, though, stems from the very core of the matter. Realistically, no one wants to poison kids and no amount of money saving is worth that. On the other hand, just how poisonous are the books in question? Is the risk significant enough to register. Some experts don’t think so:

“On the scale of concerns to have about lead, this is very clearly not a high priority,” said Ellen Silbergeld, a MacArthur scholar and professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University who is considered one of the leading experts on lead poisoning.

“It doesn't take a tremendous amount of intelligence to figure out what the highest-risk sources of lead are,” Silbergeld said. “This is a way of distracting attention from their failure to protect children from the clear and present dangers of lead. I think this is just absurd, and I think it's disingenuous.” She said that toys, poorly made jewelry and other trinkets were cause for much more alarm.

The Washington Post piece is lengthy and it’s here. January Magazine’s earlier coverage of this story is here.

Book Celebrations Should Go On Forever

Wow: do I ever feel like a dope. Library Lovers Month is nearly over and it just this minute sunk in that the future is now.

On the one hand, though, I have a good excuse: I love libraries all the time. On the other, well... even though there’s only a few days left in February, you still have time to party. Here are a few links to help out with that.

And on a related and ever so important note, Canada’s 25th national Freedom to Read Week runs from February 22nd until the 29th. (I know: I’m a little slow on the uptick on that one, as well.) From the Freedom to Read Web site:

Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, Freedom to Read Poster 2009 books and magazines are banned at the border. Books are removed from the shelves in Canadian libraries, schools and bookstores every day. Free speech on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read.

Some really great support material (like the nifty poster at left and much more) can be found on the Web site.

Because it’s never too late to celebrate books, literary freedom and libraries. We need to do it all year ‘round.

Library Vandal Gets Time

Librarians take note: there are times when justice is done. From BBC News:

A wealthy businessman who stole and defaced pages from priceless books in the British and Bodleian libraries has been jailed for two years.

Hakimzadeh was smuggling a scalpel into the libraries, then removing portions of rare works, taking them home and placing them in his own copies of the same works.

Police found the altered editions along with several loose pages in the library at his home.

The 10 British Library books he admitted damaging were valued at £71,000 alone. Experts say he had defaced a total of around 150 books.

A map worth £30,000 was cut out of one of the books.

The BBC piece is here.

Overdue Books Could Lead to Death of Library

According to a reference librarian at the Maury County Library in Tennessee, the 5000 books missing from the their collection could ultimately lead to the library having to close.

Those missing books, along with overdue fees, are costing the Maury County Library $136,000.

“That's a third of our budget there,” said Southern. “If we could get that in, that's a third of our budget.”

The moral of the story? Librarian Southern would like everyone everywhere to make a New Year’s resolution to take their overdue books back before they don’t have a library to take them back to.

The story is here.

Library Woes Impact Community

Like a lot of people with a harsh book jones, I love libraries and I’m even pretty crazy about librarians. So when you hear about a library enmeshed in a steep political mess, it can’t help but make you sad.

The Greater Victoria Public Library in the British Columbian capital city has been seeing strike action that included various slow downs of services beginning in September 2007. On February 18th of this year, library workers were locked out.

The strike is now -- finally -- resolved and library doors will open tomorrow, but through the many months of closure, one really positive thing came out of the struggle: according to The Business Examiner of Vancouver Island, the strike had a tremendous impact on the community. People missed their library. Many of them in ways they hadn’t anticipated. One could even go so far as to say that, for some people, the library being closed for so many months had a negative effect on the lives of many members of the community. Sad as that is, it’s good to hear.

At a time when some conversations around libraries question the validity of book lending institutions in century that some people view as potentially bookless, it’s good to have proof of the thing us booklovers already know: books matter. Libraries are necessary and important on more levels than casual observation might imply. Long story very short: libraries rock. We need them. For more reasons than we maybe even know.

Dirda on Manguel

This is special. A treat.

The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda reviews Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night. The book has been out in Canada for the last couple of years, and is published there by Knopf. It was published in the US last month by Yale University Press.

Both Dirda’s review and the book itself are lovely:

The Library at Night -- a series of essays on what one might call the Platonic Idea of a library -- reveals some of its author’s intellectual range and magpie learning. Manguel can cite ancient scholars from Alexandria, tell anecdotes about half-mad bibliomanes such as Aby Warburg (founder of the Warburg Library, devoted to “the afterlife of the ancient world”) or Peter Kien (the doomed hero of Elias Canetti’s Auto-da-Fé), describe the bookshelves in the blind Borges’s apartment, analyze the architecture of Florence’s Laurentian Library (designed by Michelangelo), outline the various methods for organizing and cataloging books, and discuss the sad history of censorship or the tattered and secret volumes shared by the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. The man has clearly, as Samuel Johnson might say, turned over half a library to make his new book.

The full review is worth reading and it’s here.