One of the most famous and beloved libraries in the world – the New York Public Library, with the famous lion statues standing guard out front – is getting a new name: The Stephen A. Schwarzman Library.

Who is Stephen A. Schwarzman, you ask? According to The New York Times, he’s some rich guy who makes a living buying and selling things. Schwarzman is donating $100-million to the library, which is splendid and all, but does it really give him the right to recast the entire institution in his image?

Mr. Schwarzman said it was the library that proposed renaming the landmark building. “They said, ‘We’d like you to be the lead gift and give us $100 million and we’d like to rename the main branch after you,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘That sounds pretty good.’ ”

[…]

Still, the change will doubtless invite spirited commentary. Mr. Schwarzman has become something of a lightning rod for critics of Wall Street excess, especially the high-spending ways of private-equity chiefs.

The library itself has drawn criticism for some other transactions, like selling the Donnell branch in Midtown Manhattan in November to Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. for $59 million. The branch will be razed to make way for an 11-story hotel, with the library taking over the first floor and an underground level.

Slate has a regular slideshow column, and it’s always interesting. This week it tackles the architecture of libraries, and how library design has had to change since computers defeated books by a score of 6 to 2 in 1993.

The author, Witold Rybczynski, says that while a library isn’t the first place people go for information anymore, it’s still an “urban hangout, meeting place, and arbiter of information.” So library designers have to rethink the stuffy reading rooms of the past, replacing them with more flexible reading spaces, lots of computers, and, of course, cafés and shops.

Seattle’s already-famous new library looks pretty inviting, featuring an airy, Rem Koolhaas-designed space for reading.

Denver, meanwhile, settled on a reading room anchored by a massive wooden structure, which looks like a Tesla coil that shoots pure, crackling knowledge at the terrified citizens of Denver. Now that’s how to build a library.

In literary circles, there is probably no author more loathed than the U.S. thriller writer James Patterson, who freely admits to writing his books – which he pumps out at a rate of eight or so a year – with the assistance of a large stable of co-writers. Not that Patterson gives a fig. His books have sold 130-million copies worldwide, and now, according to The Independent, a survey has found that U.K. libraries lend more of his books than those of any other author.

Titles by the author were lent more than 1.5 million times between July 2006 and June 2007, an annual survey found. Such is his popularity that he has ousted the children’s writer Jacqueline Wilson from the number one spot, according to the Public Lending Right figures.

His primacy in the world of book lending is bound to reignite the debate on the “consortium style” working practices of some popular writers, where teams of co-writers help with the process of putting together a novel.

[…]
When Random House took over as his publisher last year, Patterson was referred to as a “company”, according to Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller. The publishing house also claimed that he has had more number one bestsellers around the world in the past five years than Dan Brown, J. K. Rowling, Tom Clancy and John Grisham combined. Mr. Rickett said while his collaborative way of working may be frowned upon by some, it was a more common way of working in the thriller genre.

“If you compare his way of working to other writing teams such as those in television, it’s not that unusual. He appears to have a keen awareness of brand and there’s a certain amount of cringing in this country but it is really about establishing a name that readers can trust”

From the Calgary Herald:

After a hiatus from library shelves, a controversial novel is being welcomed back into Calgary Catholic School District schools.

The Golden Compass, a decade-old novel by Philip Pullman, was pulled from local Catholic schools two months ago as a film adaptation of the story was released in theatres.

Following a review of the book – the first installment in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy – school board officials have decided to use the novel’s counter-religious themes as a teaching opportunity for Catholic students.

“There is no doubt that the text is harsh in terms of its language about organized religion and that it presents a consistently negative view of church, clergy and faith-based institutions; however, there are glimpses of light with opportunities for positive reflection,” the review stated.

Interesting that the ban is reversed only after everyone has pretty much decided the movie version’s a dud.

From the Times Colonist:

Unionized workers from the Greater Victoria Public Library were off the job yesterday to protest the suspension of a colleague, said union spokesman Ed Seedhouse.

The job action closed all nine branches for the day.

“This is in reaction to action by management, it wasn’t planned in advance,” said Seedhouse, a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 410. “One of our members has been in our opinion, illegally, but certainly unfairly, suspended for a day for taking part in lawful strike action.”

Seedhouse said the suspension is linked to a union/management dispute late last year over who would operate the Food for Fines program — an initiative launched by the union to allow for reductions in overdue fines in exchange for a food bank donation. Library management argued the union did not have the authority to waive fines, but said the program was a good idea and would be continued by managers.

Some library-related links:

• Libraries saved… outside of Chatham, Ontario, anyway (Chatham Daily News)
• Libraries doing okay… in Toronto, anyway (Toronto Star)
• Libraries doing better than ever! (Toronto Star)
• But there’s porn in the library! (The Dallas Morning News)
• Flickr to host U.S. Library of Congress photos (CNET News)

Libraries and the homeless go together like – actually, it’s hard to say, because the relationship between the two is constantly changing, and differs from city to city, system to system, and even branch to branch.

A story in The Detroit News highlights some of the realities of that relationship:

Walk inside the Skillman Branch of the Detroit Library adjacent to Campus Martius any weekday, and you’ll be awestruck by the stunning masonry work, the line of 24 computers hooked up to Internet access and the librarians armed with disinfectant, several times an hour spraying the tables and chairs inhabited by the homeless who reside there most of the day.

The battle between book-using patrons and the homeless heats up during the winter months as libraries across Metro Detroit offer free warm havens with bathrooms, Internet access and reading material.

Across Metro Detroit, libraries function as cooling centers when it’s too hot and warming centers when it’s cold, resource centers to find out about shelters and other programming, and an online portal with which to apply for Social Security, income tax refunds and other benefits that branches of government offer online.

Libraries have always been tolerant of all users, but a variety of measures – from metal detectors to more stringent security guards to case-by-case personal hygiene policies – are being put in place to keep traditional patrons and the homeless happy.

The tensions, though, may be more about perception than reality as libraries look at the homeless as another segment of the population they serve, and an important one at that.

For a Canadian perspective on the topic, see this Q&Q story from 1999. (subscription req’d)

The National Post is reporting that a settlement between the Toronto Public Library and its labour union is essentially reversing the savings from the Sunday closure of 16 of the city’s libraries, announced earlier this year.

The deal was reached after an arbitrator ruled in October that the closures were contrary to the collective agreement and constituted an illegal layoff.

The settlement provides a total of $150,651 in retroactive pay to 286 library employees denied Sunday hours between Sept. 9 and Oct. 21, according to Ana-Maria Critchley, a spokeswoman for the library.

Sunday hours recommenced on Oct. 28.

The library board expected to save $400,000 had the 16 branches stayed shut on Sundays until the end of the year.

That breaks down to a savings of $23,529.41 per Sunday or $164,705.87 for the seven Sundays the libraries were locked before an arbitrator’s ruling reversed the board’s decision.

All told, that means the closures saved the city roughly $14,000 or about $125 per library per Sunday.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, a well-known thorn in the side of Mayor David Miller, was quick to scold city council for failing to cut costs effectively.

“This is really disappointing,” said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, an opponent of the Mayor. “So many families and kids were hurt by these cuts for absolutely no need. There was no benefit.”

But the Post piece fails to mention that Minnan-Wong was one of the most vocal opponents of last summer’s proposed tax increase, which would have obviated the need for the library closures in the first place.

Still, Toronto’s problems appear to be pretty minor beside the funding crisis faced by the Windsor Public Library. The Windsor Star reports:

Taxpayers, library staff and management have reacted with dismay to news that city council has ordered the Windsor Public Library Board to make $800,000 more in budget cuts next year, without reducing hours or eliminating any of 10 local branches.

Brian Bell, chief executive officer of the library, said management is at a loss on how to achieve the goal, stating that the directive gives the cash-strapped institution next to no room to maneuver. He noted that a half million dollar cut had to be absorbed in 2005 even as the system grew from nine to 10 branches.

According to the Star, Windsor libraries are already woefully understaffed, and cuts are likely to be made to the library’s acquisitions budget.

[Bell] noted that the system averages about $1.3 million in purchases each year. Cutting back, he said may mean that rather than 100 copies of the latest Harry Potter novel, they may purchase only 28. He predicted that such resource cuts would double the number of orders on hold from 6,000 a month to 12,000. and further job-cuts would be impossible. The only viable cuts would be for acquisitions.

Many of you faithful industry watchers have probably already heard tell of the short documentary that Indigo CEO Heather Reisman commissioned earlier this year about the “crisis” in school libraries. It’s called Writing on the Wall, and while it spends a fair amount of time showing us how truly, appallingly neglected most Canadian school libraries are these days, it spends an equal amount of time trumpeting Reisman’s attempts to address the problem with her “Love of Reading” campaign. Over the past year or so, Reisman has been screening the film for publishers and politicians and anyone else who might want to support her cause, but as far as we’re aware it’s never been screened to the broad public.

Now, however, you can see it for yourself here, on Indigo’s website.

It’s fairly lengthy – more than 10 minutes long, by our estimate – but it’s worth a look, if only to see the maudlin denouement. After a straightforward – if predictably cheesy – first half, which simply documents the poor condition of most library collections and the lack of funding for teacher-librarians, the second half is like a reality TV game show. Reisman and her board pore over hundreds of school applications – they get most excited for the submissions with macaroni art and sparkles – and then we cut back and forth between two different schools that both desperately want and need one of the 10 $150,000 Indigo grants. The filmmakers actually put cameras in the two respective principals’ offices when the notifying phone calls come in, so not only do we watch and listen as Reisman informs one school of its win (accompanied by the expected tears of joy and laughter), but we also watch as one of Reisman’s monotone employees informs the other school that they have not been selected. In this latter case, the principal is alone in a gray, claustrophobic-looking office, and she nods sadly as she is told to try again next year. Ugh.

From The Canadian Press:

Ribald and X-rated, a new exhibit at France’s national library is banned to anyone under 16.

The exhibit that opened this week offers a peek at France’s long-secret library of libido, where, starting in the 1830s, librarians hid books and other documents from the national collection that they deemed dangerous for public morality. They called it L’Enfer, or Hell, and kept it under lock and key.

In 1849, library director Joseph Naudet described L’Enfer as “a hiding place … in which we lock up certain books that are very bad but which are sometimes very precious for book-lovers and have a great monetary value.”

The historic secrecy surrounding the collection only fanned curiosity about it. L’Enfer still exists today - complete with its own special classification category - though it is much easier for patrons to gain access to works from the collection.

In a related move, the National Library of Canada is considering allowing its patrons to view its long-hidden collection of lithographs showing people in various states of temperance and moderation.

And on it goes: another school board has pulled Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass from its shelves following a parental complaint – this despite the fact that the book was published more than 10 years ago, and thus has been quietly corrupting youth ever since.

From The Globe and Mail:

The Roman Catholic school board in Calgary has followed the lead of a Catholic school board in Burlington, Ont., in pulling the children’s fantasy book The Golden Compass off school shelves.

Board officials said their decision followed concern voiced by parents and recent publicity surrounding the release of a movie version of the book, starring Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman.

“Our children are exposed to a wide range of information,” said board spokeswoman Judy Mackay. “One of our responsibilities is to help them understand how that fits with their belief system and to equip them with the skills so that they understand how they can fit that into their own belief system.”

It should be noted that, though these Catholic school boards seem to have the intestinal fortitude of a wounded llama, most Catholics are not quite so easily spooked. From the same article: “Calgary Bishop Fred Henry said there are more pressing issues facing Catholics than debating a children’s fantasy novel.”

In a similar vein, Toronto Star Books editor Dan Smith wrote a brief piece about the book in this past weekend’s edition (not online), stating that: “in our practising Catholic household, The Golden Compass remains a treasured read. It spurs kids to think and question. Good. That’s what great books are for.”

Philip Pullman keeps running afoul of Ontario school boards.

In what is looking like the most effective publicity campaign ignorance can buy, Pullman’s The Golden Compass has been pulled from the shelves of school libraries in two Catholic School Boards in Peterborough, Ontario.* According to the Peterborough Examiner, “all three books in the trilogy were taken from school libraries this month after two parents complained.”

This follows hard on the heels of similar action by the Halton Catholic School board. (More details here.) A boycott of the movie version of the book is being urged by the Catholic League in the U.S.

What’s the author’s take on all this? In an interview with CBC Radio’s Writers & Company this weekend, Pullman said that “the thing they should do if they don’t want people to read the book is to say nothing about it…. If you want people to read a book, then make a fuss about it, make it controversial. Tell your children they are not to read this book under any circumstances. What is more likely to make them go to the shelf and take it down and read it from there?”

Here we go again. From the Toronto Star:

Halton’s Catholic board has pulled The Golden Compass fantasy book – soon to be a Hollywood blockbuster starring Nicole Kidman – off school library shelves because of a complaint.

Two other books in the trilogy by British author Philip Pullman have also been removed as a precaution, and principals have been ordered not to distribute December Scholastic book flyers because The Golden Compass is available to order.

“(The complaint) came out of interviews that Philip Pullman had done, where he stated that he is an atheist and that he supports that,” said Scott Millard, the board’s manager of library services.

It’s not like there’s never a valid reason to keep a particular book out of a school library – no one blinks at the fact that middle-school kids can’t sign out The Story of O, for example – but haven’t school boards been burned enough by this kind of thing to know not to do something so drastic and negative-publicity-generating without a little sober second thought?

Oh well, we’ll let you know when the book is – inevitably – allowed back on the shelves by some red-faced administrators. I’m sure their phone lines are already feeling the burn.

Joe Fiorito writes in The Toronto Star about a maddening situation at Toronto’s Don Jail. For years, Darlene Soares volunteered her time to work as a librarian at the jail – soliciting donations of books, amassing more than 2,000, and encouraging the inmates to read.

Given that many of the men in the slammer are illiterate, anything that can be done to improve their reading skills while they are captive is a good thing.

Or so you’d think.

The people who run the jail took Darlene’s room away from her a while ago; she found this out, not from jail officials, but from a maintenance man who told her she would have to move the prison library into a glorified broom closet, perhaps 6 metres long and a mere 100 centimetres wide. Darlene is claustrophobic.

Officials eventually said they wanted to use the library room to store protective vests.

Guards tried to intervene; they offered a variety of alternatives, and asked to be present when the issue was discussed in management meetings. They were ignored.

Darlene said there is an empty room built for the use of prison psychologists; it was never used and remains unused.

She quit.

“It was so disrespectful.”

She sent some of the books to shelters. The remainder have been dumped in the broom closet. A few books still circulate among the men. Darlene said, “I’ve cried oceans. I’ll never volunteer again.”

Fiorito writes that no one at the jail was available to comment. And as if the fact that the jail shut down the library isn’t outrageous enough, the fact that the room for the prison psychologists is never used, tells you a lot about what’s wrong with the correctional system. Why do we spend so much money locking people up and so little helping them rehabilitate?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a rare and very apt gift to give to the Australian people yesterday during his official visit Down Under, The Globe and Mail reports. This spring, a rare books specialist at Library and Archives Canada found, tucked into a scrapbook compiled by an eccentric 19th-century British banker, a playbill advertising a performance of three plays staged in Sydney on July 30, 1796. Presenting it at a lunch hosted by Australian Prime Minister John Howard at Government House in Canberra, Harper said:

“Now a 200-year-old playbill I think is quite a find in its own right, but what makes this one even more exceptional is that it is also the sole surviving copy of the earliest known … document printed in Australia,” Harper told the official luncheon guests. “I’m proud to return it to its right owners on this auspicious historic day when we are renewing bonds of friendship, celebrating our mutual accomplishments and vowing to work together for a better world.”

Val Ross’s Globe article went on to offer this analysis:

This was no doubt music to the ears of Canadian arts activists who have been protesting against the Conservatives’ recent $11.8-million cut to Ottawa’s cultural diplomacy budget.

And indeed, Susan Swan, Chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, told Q&Q that she thought this might bode well for the arts. “Harper deciding it’s cool to support culture in Australia is a good sign because we want to change the federal government’s attitude to the arts.”

This Quillblogger doesn’t want to rain on everyone’s optimism; I certainly hope it does mean Harper is truly supportive of the arts, but it will take something more than this gift to the Australians to convince me – more interest in or increased funding for arts and living artists in Canada, perhaps. Although, author Yann Martel did get a response from Harper’s assistant about the books he has been sending the prime minister every two weeks in a private campaign to increase Harper’s appreciation of literature.

Dear Mr. Martel:

On behalf of the Prime Minister, I would like to thank you for your recent letter and the copy of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych. We appreciated reading your comments and suggestions regarding the novel.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write.

Sincerely,

Susan I. Ross

Assistant to the Prime Minister

Remember how bookbinders and retailers used to advertise their services by posting company labels on the inside covers of books? No? Well a fellow named Greg Kindall, who runs a website called Sevenroads.org, certainly does, and he’s assembled a fantastic virtual museum of book trade labels, which you can see for yourself here.

It’s kind of shocking, when you see them all laid out in front of you, how much care and effort went into the design of some of these things. Does the book trade even have the time and/or money and/or inclination create stuff like this now?

We particularly love the label from the Book Stall in Battle Creek, Michigan, with the little roosters…

This week’s Friday photo comes courtesy of Flickr photographer Stephen Cullen. It’s a beautiful shot of the broken orb sculpture sitting outside The Berkeley Library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Now, we don’t know a lot about sculpture, but does this remind anyone else of the “under-construction” Death Star from Return of the Jedi?

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

Sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer has sent an open letter to Toronto mayor David Miller to protest plans to cut service at the Toronto Public Library. In a passionate and compelling argument, Sawyer says, in part,

What makes Toronto so special is its multiculturalism — and it is in our libraries that newcomers to Toronto learn about the city and its traditions of inclusiveness and peacefulness. When you force library branches to curtail their hours, cut back on acquisitions, and freeze hiring, you are doing severe damage to the fabric of what once was, and can again be, the greatest city in the world. I urge you and your council to find another solution — because the current one is untenable.

Sawyer has also posted the full text of his letter as a comment on this Quillblog post.

Bad news for Toronto readers: faced with the city’s budget shortfall, the Toronto Public Library board has agreed to more than a million dollars in spending cuts this year. As the Toronto Star reports, that translates into no more Sunday service for 16 branches (including the Reference Library) and also means that 14,000 items have been dropped from the library’s acquisition plans. The board also put in place a hiring freeze, delayed a new branch opening at Jane and Dundas, cut its Storyteller in Residence program, and made various internal trims.

The police services board was also asked to cut money from its budget, and according to the Star article, chief Bill Blair is balking.

Meanwhile, in this Spacing post, library board member Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler says he believes that if the money is found elsewhere (for example, if council decides to exercise its taxing powers rather than just putting off a decision), the TPL should be able to reverse the cuts it’s agreed to. Let’s hope he’s right, and that council won’t just take the “well, you’ve already decided you can live with the cuts” position.

In other news, the city of Ottawa is also facing a major budget shortfall. No word yet on ramifications for the library system there, though they would seem to be likely.

On Tuesday, May 22, the Toronto District School Board held its annual “Read to Succeed” Boys Literacy Conference at the Double Tree Hotel in Toronto. Guest speakers and performers included storytellers Dan Yashinsky and George Blake, authors Eric Walters and Aubrey Davis, rapper QTMC, and basketball-trick artist Quincy Mack. The following is a Q&A with Iago McEvenue, a grade three student at Toronto’s Dewson P.S. and one of the boys selected to attend the all-day conference. (He is also the son of a Quillblogger.)

Q&Q: So how many boys from your school attended the conference, and how were you picked?

Iago: Ten. My librarian – Ms. Bunting – picked me.

Q&Q: Why were you all picked?

Iago: Because we’re book freaks.

Q&Q: Had you ever heard of this conference before?

Iago: Not at all.

Q&Q: Did you know the other nine boys? Were they all the same age as you?

Iago: No, I only knew some of the boys. They were all different ages.

Q&Q: Where was this thing held?

Iago: We were in a big hallish, square room.

Q&Q: How many other kids were there?

Iago: The hall was full of kids; you could barely move.

Q&Q: So what was the first thing you did there?

Iago: We had to wait a little while and look at books for our library when we got to the hotel.

Q&Q: How did that work?

Iago: Our librarian was asking us questions about the books.

Q&Q: Like?

Iago: “Do you like these books?” “Do you think we should get them for the library?”

Q&Q: Got it. Then what?

Iago: We heard two folk stories and a ghost story.

Q&Q: Who was telling the stories?

Iago: It says on the paper. Some … guy. Wait, let me get his autograph…. [Digs out a piece of paper.]

Q&Q: Dan Yashinsky? What did you think of all that?

Iago: He told us a story about his grandfather. It was really funny: there was this bully, in Romania, and he told his grandfather to go and say this bad word in Romanian to his mum…. [Tells story.]

Q&Q: Dramatic stuff. So after the stories, what happened?

Iago: We went to have lunch.

Q&Q: It says here there were books for sale during the lunch. Is that true?

Iago: Yeah.

Q&Q: Who was buying them?

Iago: A bunch of other kids from other schools.

Q&Q: OK, skipping ahead. Who spoke to you in the afternoon?

Iago: This old guy … I think his name was George Blake. He did a story called “Death” that was really good.

Q&Q: What else happened?

Iago: We saw QTMC, and a famous basketball trickster. [Lists the numerous tricks performed. This takes a while.]

Q&Q: What did that have to do with literacy or reading?

Iago: It was just entertainment.

Q&Q: So did other librarians talk to you? Did any booksellers talk to you?

Iago: No.

Q&Q: So you heard stories, and saw basketball tricks, etc., then what?

Iago: We each got to pick one book for the library, but then Ms. Bunting tricked us and gave them to us.

Q&Q: Then what?

Iago: We went home.

Q&Q: Did your librarian talk to you after?

Iago: Yeah: “How was it? Did you like it?” And we all said, “Yes.”

Q&Q: And did you like it?

Iago: Yes.

Design Edge Canada reports that with the opening of a new main branch building, the North Vancouver District Public Library has revealed a new logo. The blue logo is meant to represent the library’s various collections. “Matt Warburton of Emdoubleyu Design in Vancouver created the new circular logo with its three book-shaped panels. In addition to books, the panels can also represent a line of monitors, CDs or video tapes, which are also available at the library.”

The logo is currently being used on new library cards.

Thirty letters that Ernest Hemingway wrote to Marlene Dietrich between 1949 and 1959 will be revealed to the public on Monday, The New York Times reports. Donated by Dietrich’s daughter, Maria Riva, the letters, which complement 31 letters from Dietrich to Hemingway already in the the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, paint a portrait of a friendship, but also of a romantic love that was never consummated.

The article provides a few tantalizing excerpts from the letters, such as this from Hemingway:
“I can’t say how every time I ever put my arms around you I felt that I was home.” He begins another: “What do you really want to do for a life work? Break everybody’s heart for a dime? You could always break mine for a nickel and I’d bring the nickel.”

This week’s Friday photo comes courtesy of the London Public Library, which has started its own Flickr account for the library’s various branches. (The photo above is from the Pond Mills Branch re-opening party.) It’s a great idea for any library, but especially for one with a number of scattered branches.

Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

This week’s Friday photo comes courtesy of Flickr photographer Anne the Librarian, who took this shot from the teen section of the famous Seattle Public Library while in town for the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting. (We know, we know: this isn’t Canadian, and there isn’t even a book in sight, but isn’t the Seattle library cool enough to override those concerns?)

Every Friday, Quillblog highlights a recent photo from our new Quill & Quire Flickr Pool. Have you recently attended a book reading, library event, or author appearance? Have some interesting book-related pictures you want to share? If you’ve got photos of the Canadian book scene, we’d love to see them. Send them to us or sign up through Flickr and submit your images.

There are still a couple of days left in Freedom to Read Week, which we should probably mark now more than ever, what with an Ontario school getting worked up about Snow Falling on Cedars and librarians in the U.S. fretting about a single appearance of the word “scrotum” in a kids’ book. (In a related story, they’re also looking closely at the books of this “Balzac” character.)

Upcoming events include a series of discussions at the Saskatoon Public Library, a marathon reading from banned books in Calgary, and a lecture on censorship at the University of Toronto. You can see all the details here.

* Yup, Quillblog likes that headline too much to stop now.

Shelfari, which launched in October last year, is another website aimed at developing a book-sharing community. Similar to LibraryThing, which Quillblog previously discussed here, Shelfari allows members to put their personal libraries online.

The platform is a virtual shelf displaying the front covers of the “shelfarians’” libraries, and browsers may search by title, author, ISBN, or subject. Members may build a friends list, and the site even suggests other people to contact based on reading taste. The largest library is currently held by shelfarian “amoxcalli” who has 6,993 books.

The latest news in book banning is courtesy of some U.S. school librarians who are refusing to carry the Newbery award-winning The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. The librarians are in a tizzy about Patron’s use of the word “scrotum” on the first page of the book, which is for 9- to 12-year-olds.

In The New York Times article, one librarian seems more concerned about teachers’ embarrassment if they have to provide an anatomy lesson … because who wants a teacher to impart knowledge? But how likely is it to come up anyway–at that age, won’t most kids ask their friends before turning to an adult?

Gelf Magazine, in an amusing rebuttal, has posted a list of other children’s books that contain “the word.” (Thanks for the tip, Bookslut.)

For further discussion of naughtiness in children’s and YA books, be sure to check out the January/February issue of Q&Q, on stands until Feb. 25, which has articles addressing swearing and teenage sex, though no scrotums.

There’s still a lot of love being felt for LibraryThing, an online way to snoop at people’s bookshelves. The website recently got a mention on Guardian writer Sam Jordison’s blog and on Bookninja.

On LibraryThing, you upload titles to create a catalogue of your personal library and may rate or review the books on your list. Your profile may be open to the public, allowing other users to browse your online bookshelves. The website allows you to find other people with similar reading habits, or people to mock for their poor reading choices.

As Q&Q Omni reported in May 2006, the Victoria-based Abebooks bought a 40% stake in the site with the aim of improving its book recommendations.

David Guterson’s immensely popular 1995 novel Snow Falling on Cedars has been taken off high school library shelves in Ontario’s Peel region for its “explicit sexual content,” according to an article in today’s Toronto Star. The book has apparently not been banned outright by Peel’s Catholic board, it has just been removed until its appropriateness can be reviewed.

Snow Falling on Cedars was part of a Grade 11 English course at Father Michael Goetz Secondary School in Mississauga when a parent complained about it just prior to Christmas, said Bruce Campbell, spokesperson for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

The board committee has not yet been struck, but the review could be complete in two weeks, Campbell said. “It’s definitely not a fait accompli,” he said of the process.

Not surprisingly, the move has drawn a lot of criticism from freedom of expression watchdogs. One of the more notable comments in The Star piece is from Shari Graydon, the author of two children’s books on media literacy:

“Removing thoughtful fiction from the school library is like taking mashed potatoes out of the cafeteria when the problem is french fries at McDonald’s,” said Graydon.

The irony here, of course, is that likening Snow Falling on Cedars to mashed potatoes is all too apt. Yeah, the tale of interracial romance and murder in 1950s America was a big success, but it was also a cliched, groan-inducing, made-for-Oprah bore, and the idea that anything in it could possibly offend or scar anyone is totally absurd. Kids should be free to go ahead and read it if they want, but parents should make sure that they read some more worthwhile titles, too. Like Valley of the Dolls, say…

The New Yorker has a story by Jeffrey Toobin on Google’s staggeringly ambitious and hugely contentious Google Books project, in which the company intends to digitize and make fully searchable more than 30 million books over the next decade. (Toobin quotes the Google vice-president in charge of the project who describes the undertaking as Google’s “moon shot.” The lengthy article details the legal challenges some publishers are making to Google Books, and the possible dangers inherent in a possible cash settlement on Google’s part.

The article is as interesting for the information on the project and on the murky history of U.S. copyright law as it is for the glimpses into Google corporate life: pajama days (which most employees rightly spurn), free food 24 hours a day, and a 10,000-strong workforce, to which 50 people are apparently added every week.

The Toronto Star reprints a story from the Washington Post about the Mogadishu Public Library, a one-room affair in the middle of Somalia’s perpetually war-torn capital. The library, which is privately funded by its 7,000-odd members, stocks mostly non-fiction titles of a practical bent, books like The Handbook of Metal Treatments and Testing and The Multinational Construction Industry, though there is the odd work of poetry and philosophy.

[Manager Hirsie Mohamed Hirui] said it was slightly easier to find novels during the dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre, who was overthrown in 1991, and he recalled a slight craze in the 1980s over two books in particular, Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days and Franz Kafka’s Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared.

“Everyone wanted to learn a little English,” Hirui said.

Of course, just because you are in the middle of a city where random AK-47 fire is the norm doesn’t mean you’re immune to book hype:

Lately, some worn copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code have been circulating from house to house.

No word on whether copies of Oprah’s latest book pick, The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier, have appeared yet in the Somali capital.

This Is London reports on a British councillor, Alex Aiken, who has called on the library field to redefine itself.

Mr. Aiken, a former policy director for the Tories, told a conference of the Public Library Authorities: “The concept of the librarian has to change and perhaps a start would be to abolish the title itself, with its connotations of middle-aged conservatism.”

Telling the librarians how to get pro-library articles into the press, he said: “From racy books to photogenic librarians and new services that counter outdated perceptions, media is a powerful tool to shape image.”

The library community’s response has been one of predictable and understandable outrage and/or scorn (see the comments section below the article). One blogger, David Rothman, ran a poll asking readers to suggest and vote on new job titles to replace the archaic “librarian”; his favourite contender — and Quillblog’s too — was “information alchemist.”

As any Quillblog reader undoubtedly knows already, librarians are some of the coolest people around. But they’ve often been treated unfairly by popular culture. For example, now that the holidays are looming, let’s think back to a certain classic, heartwarming Jimmy Stewart movie about the true meaning of Christmas….

That’s right, Rear Window. Nothing says “Christmas” like spying on your neighbours for cheap titillation.

Nah, just kidding. Anyway, you may remember that late in It’s a Wonderful Life, as George Bailey tries to wrap his head around the grim alternate universe into which the angel Clarence has dropped him, his thoughts turn to the fate of his wife. We’ll let the script take it from here.

GEORGE
If you know where she is, tell me where my wife is.

CLARENCE
I’m not supposed to tell.

GEORGE
(becoming violent)
Please, Clarence, tell me where she is.

CLARENCE
You’re not going to like it, George.

GEORGE
(shouting)
Where is she?

CLARENCE
She’s an old maid. She never married.

GEORGE
(choking him)
Where’s Mary? Where is she?

CLARENCE
She’s…

GEORGE
Where is she?

CLARENCE
(in self-defense)
She’s just about to close up the library!

It loses something on paper, without the apocalyptic “Dear God, not the library” music, but you get the idea.

Related links:
Click here for the This Is London article
Click here for the David Rothman poll
And yes, click here for the complete It’s a Wonderful Life script

Google has been in the centre of an ongoing controversy over the merits and dangers of its plan to digitize whole libraries worth of books, but its initiative to celebrate banned books as a part of the 25th anniversary of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week may help it win a few friends.

The Google banned books site lists 42 classic books that have been banned over the years, including Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which was recently challenged at a middle school in Tennessee. Visitors can link to critical essays about the books and libraries where they can find the books and related material.

Related links:
Click here for the Google site
Thanks to the blog Foreword for the link!

Hit the ATM, the DVD kiosk, and the made-to-order book machine? This ain’t no book vending machine, folks — it’s more like a coffee-machine, making a book for you in three minutes or so at a penny a page.

The aptly-named Espresso Book Machine, according to an article in next week’s Newsweek, is “currently being tested at the World Bank bookstore in Washington, D.C. … and can print the text for a 300-page book, with a color paperback cover — and bind it — in just three minutes and for only a penny per page.”

The brainchild of former Random House editorial director Jason Epstein and former Dean & DeLuca CEO Dane Neller, the machines go for $100,000 a pop; the New York Public Library and the Egypt’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina are due to get theirs for fall tryouts.

“If publishers digitize their catalogs and booksellers get onboard (big ifs), the machine could revolutionize the current warehouse-distribution model,” according to the story.

Related links:
Read the Newsweek story here

Bookninja links to a Ledger story about a new service offered by Florida libraries that delivers your books right to your doorstep. All residents of Polk County can take advantage of Polk County Library Collective’s BMail. Says the story: “There is no cost to have the books mailed to a residence. People are responsible for returning the book either to any county library or to the bookmobile. Residents can mail the books back, but must pay for the return shipping themselves, unless they are medically disabled and have a doctor’s note to verify that. Then there is no charge.”

All patrons have to do is go onto the website, poke about for whatever book, video, or newspaper they want, provide their library location and library card number, and presto! As quick as you can say Netflix-a-riffic, up to four books’ll be winging their way toward them.

But part of the fun of a library is browsing through the books, feeling their worn old covers, laughing at the funny author photos, submitting yourself to the wrath of the librarian if your books are late or you’re rustling your newspaper too loud, and being in the company of others who love to read just as much as you. So while the convenience might be nice (and it is tempting to kiss waiting in line goodbye), we’re all for heading back to the library again and again — being there is part of the thrill of the hunt…

Related links:
Read the full story here

Either out of ignorance or envy of the Indiana library that decided to rescind all lending privileges to residents of a homeless shelter (a decision itself since rescinded), a library in Lawrenceville, Georgia has cut its budget for adult fiction titles in Spanish. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, the library will still stock children’s books and adult non-fiction, but not thrillers, romances, or any other adult fiction en Español — a significant move, given that one-sixth of the surrounding county’s population is Latino, and the current heated debate over (primarily Mexican) immigration in the States.

The library’s justification was that they could not afford to provide titles in all languages, but the real reason probably lies closer to here: “… one board member, Brett Taylor, said the move came after some residents objected to using taxpayer dollars to entertain readers who might be illegal immigrants. ‘The argument was we didn’t need to cater to illegal aliens,’ Taylor said. ‘I’m personally offended by that. We have to look out for everybody.’”

Related links:
Read the L.A. Times story

In Edinburgh, Scotland, where unemployment has risen to over 18% and 23% of households fall under the low-income threshold, stability has been found in a somewhat unlikely place: a local library. Turning young, rambunctious patrons of the Sighthill library into respectful, law-abiding citizens was a matter of talking to regulars, taking stock of their needs, and addressing them.

Now offering a range of new programs and facilities — everything from a football literacy project to IT classes and creative writing courses held by guest authors like Irvine Welsh — the library may have contributed to some astonishing changes. Reports Peter Hetherington of The Guardian, “Since introducing the new regime, police have reported a two-thirds drop in the number of ‘youth calls’ in the [surrounding] area between 2004 and 2005. At the same time, complaints from library customers over anti-social behaviour have dropped by three-quarters.” And with some of the techniques used at the library being tried out in over two dozen other locations across Edinburgh, Sighthill library administrators were the recent recipients of a prestigious ‘libraries change lives’ award given by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals at a ceremony in Birmingham.

Related links:
Click here for the story from The Guardian

The American Library Association has released its “10 Most Challenged Books of 2005″ list, and though it’s comforting that such immoral tomes as Of Mice and Men and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have finally been deemed acceptable by all of America’s library-card holders, there are still a few vintage titles on the list that might raise a few eyebrows. To make the list, a book must have generated at least one written request in the past year that it be removed from the library system. Such requests inevitably arise from a concern with the book’s sexual content or use of bad language, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone with a basic cable TV subscription could still be calling for the removal of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (third on the list) or Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, which placed fourth. The most challenged book was Robert H. Harris’s It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, and Sexual Health for its “homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion, and being unsuited to age group.”

Related links:
Read the list on the Library Journal site

The Toronto Star reports this morning that Deborah Ellis’s Three Wishes, a book that featured conversations with Israeli and Palestinian children, is causing controversy in the York Region District School Board, near Toronto. Education reporter Tess Kalinowski reports that the book, which made the Ontario Library Association’s list of finalists for the Silver Birch award (the winner is then voted on by nine- to 11-year-olds), has been dropped from the school board’s selection list. The article points to a Feb. 8 letter from the Canadian Jewish Congress that outlines some of the concerns about the book. “The letter says the book portrays Israelis as ‘brutal occupiers,’ and Palestinians as ‘murderers who are so intent on killing Israelis that they are prepared to blow themselves to shreds,’” Kalinowski writes.

CJC director Len Rudner told the Star: “What you’re left with is a book where, in a fair number of instances, you have kids saying: Maybe suicide bombing is a viable alternative, or maybe it’s understandable or maybe it’s a career choice for me. It either convinces children that maybe blowing up your enemy by strapping explosive devices to yourself is not such a far-fetched thing, or it advances the message these people are crazy and people like that can’t be trusted. Just imagine how those kind of messages can play themselves out in a schoolyard.”

Other area school boards, including the Toronto District School Board and the Durham District School Board, are going to review the book in the near future. The Peel District School Board has already conducted a review of Three Wishes and deemed it suit