Recently in Libraries and Librarianship Category

The Science and Society Picture Library in South Kensington, London, represents images from the UK Science Museum; the National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television; the National Railway Museum.

The collections include 4000 personalities, the Daily Herald and Manchester Daily Express archives, the Kodak collection, the Photographic Advertising Archive, and the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, William Henry Fox Talbot and Tony Ray-Jones.

Check out the galleries for highlights of the collections or browse the main subjects by using detailed categories.

The American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom released its list of "10 Most Challenged Books of 2007":

1. “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell 

Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

 

2. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier

Reasons:  Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

 

3. “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes

Reasons:  Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

 

4. “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman

Reasons:  Religious Viewpoint

 

5. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain

Reasons:  Racism

 

6. “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

 

7. “TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle

Reasons:  Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

 

8. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou

Reasons:  Sexually Explicit

 

9. “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris

Reasons:  Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

 

10. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons:  Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Pulitzer Prize winning author, Alice Walker has placed her personal archive with Emory University. 

Included in the archive are journals Walker had kept over the years, drafts of many of her early works of fiction, and correspondence between her and the editors of her books.  Rudolph Byrd, professor of American studies at Emory, said at the time of the acquisition that Walker's papers "give you a sense of the process for creating fiction, creating poetry."

In her recent Vanity Fair article, New York Times television critic, Alessandra Stanley highlights the new generation of (television) comediennes, such as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Sarah Silverman, who not only "act, perform stand-up, write, and direct," but also "[dish] out the jokes with a side of sexy," noting that Fey is an example of one who "cultivates a 'sexy librarian' look" on her hit program, 30 Rock with her "foxy glasses and decolletage."

While I find this highly amusing, I would encourage those trying to emulate the 'sexy librarian look' to look no further than my fellow colleague in Libraryland, The Well Dressed Librarian for advice and tips. :-)

A unique digital collection of photos, film, documents, and sound recordings from the Civil Rights era was released by Penn State University Libraries on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. 

The Jack Rabin Collection on Alabama Civil Rights and Southern Activists includes copies of records of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), many hours of oral history of the renowned civil liberties lawyer Clifford Durr, as well as hundreds of black-and-white photographs created by the Subversive Unit of the Investigative and Identification Division of the Alabama Department of Public Safety in the course of sit-ins, demonstrations, and marches in several Alabama cities during the early to mid-1960s.

The Library of Congress is now sharing photos from its collection on Flickr and invites the public to help identify and tag the subjects.  See more than 3,000 photos from two of their most popular collections, "1930s-40s in Color" and "News in the 1910s."

A recent article appearing in the St. Louis Suburban Journals reported that a St. Louis area resident called for the banning and removal of a free weekly available at a Jefferson County (Mo.) Public Library branch because "the content of this thing really upset [him]" - namely the use of the "F" word, plus advertising images that could be harmful to children.

The article noted that while the Library Director was "sympathetic" to the resident's "high moral standards, ...the library has an obligation to offer a wide range of material for its many patrons" and is not planning to remove the weekly.

This story reminded me of the near frenzy that occurred two years ago at the public library I used to frequent in suburban Columbus, Ohio, where residents (unsuccessfully) called for the removal of two free LGBT weeklies for similar reasons, resulting in public hearings and a legal brief/opinion that stated “The fact that some materials may be harmful to juveniles does not authorize a library from an outright prohibition of those items. In fact, the Supreme Court has held to the contrary: a total ban is not constitutionally permissible.”

A recent article in The New York Times described the hipper and more progressive image of librarians that is emerging in Libraryland:

Librarians? Aren’t they supposed to be bespectacled women with a love of classic books and a perpetual annoyance with talkative patrons — the ultimate humorless shushers?

Not any more. With so much of the job involving technology and with a focus now on finding and sharing information beyond just what is available in books, a new type of librarian is emerging — the kind that, according to the Web site Librarian Avengers, is 'looking to put the ‘hep cat’ in cataloguing.'

The New York Sun also has a similar article on the same topic.

Sara Lin, of the LA Times, recently wrote an article, discussing the evolution of the Eaton Collection, a collection of science fiction, fantasy and horror resources at UC Riverside's Libraries.

Some jewels of their collection include: a first edition Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," printed in 1818; an embossed publisher's edition of Jules Verne's "Mirifiques Aventures de Maitre Antifer," printed in 1900; in addition to Batman trading cards from 1966.

The national 12-university consortium called the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) just announced a collective agreement today to digitize select collections across all its libraries, up to 10 million volumes, as part of the Google Book Search project.

The CIC comprises University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.