Privatizing libraries

The John Trigg Ester Library is a public library held and operated by a nonprofit organization, the JTEL Inc. It turns out that the fifth-largest library system in the country is a private, for-profit operator: Library Systems & Services. Santa Clarita, California, is hiring this company to run their library system--and people are hopping mad.

Here are a few more stories about library privatization, from privatizationwatch.org:

• "San Joaquin County to consider privatizing libraries", by Ross Farrow, Lodi News-Sentinel, Sept. 14, 2010.
• "Brevard county checks out private option for libraries," Florida Today, July 20, 2010
• "Dartmouth library officials don't support privatization," by Curt Brown, Standard-Times, February 18, 2009

The American Library Association has a page on its website about privatization and outsourcing of library services, with reports from the ALA's Outsourcing Task Force, the Intellectual Freedom Committee, and some links to other resources on outsourcing.

celebrate the freedom to read!

Banned Book Week is Sept 25-Oct 02, 2010.

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted banning of books across the United States.

For the complete story, visit the American Library Association website:

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century

miss harris offers a few selections from the List:

The Call of the Wild, Jack London Banned in Italy (1929), Yugoslavia (1929), and burned in Nazi bonfires (1933).

How many of us formed our first impressions of the Yukon Gold Rush by following Buck’s adventure?

Catch-22, Joseph Heller Banned in Strongsville, OH (1972), but the school board's action was overturned in 1976 by a U.S. District Court in Minarcini v. Strongsville City School District. Challenged at the Dallas, TX Independent School District high school libraries (1974); in Snoqualmie, WA (1979) because of its several references to women as "whores."

One of my favorite movies, too.

Lady Chatterley's Lover, DH Lawrence Banned by U.S. Customs (1929); Banned in Ireland (1932), Poland (1932), Australia (1959), Japan (1959), India (1959); Banned in Canada (1960) until 1962. Dissemination of Lawrence’s novel has been stopped in China (1987) because the book “will corrupt the minds of young people and is also against the Chinese tradition.”

Ah, they fear the practice of good game-keeping...

The complete List:

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics/reasonsbanned/index.cfm

Library Lecture: Jamie Smith

Jamie will be giving the next JTEL lecture, Thursday, September 23, 7 pm at Hartung Hall on sequential art: gag cartooning, editorial cartooning, graphic novels, sequential art. For more information about the series, see the website. For more on Jamie, go to his blog.

Readers on the Run, volume 3

The 2010 Readers on the Run race is scheduled for Saturday, October 9. Pre-race check-in begins at 10 a.m. at the Ida Lane Clausen Gazebo on Village Road in Ester, across from the post office. Registration forms are available on line. We are looking for race sponsors, too! All proceeds benefit the Ester library, and get us that much closer to constructing our new library building.

Pie!

Melinda Harris has written up an article about the pie contest for The Ester Republic, and I posted it at the Friends of the Ester Library website. (I wrote a story about the 2010 LiBerry Music Festival, but haven't put it on line. It's in the September issue of the paper, too.) Bob Huebert took portraits of all the pies and put them on Facebook.