Library Advocacy Day from ALA Washington

Countdown to National Library Advocacy Day
For one year only, Library Advocacy Day will replace National Library Legislative Day (NLLD). On June 29, 2010, library advocates from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. will meet at Upper Senate Park on the U.S. Capitol grounds. The event, which will begin at 11 a.m., will feature Lauren Myracle, photo ops, and a chance to cheer on libraries! After the rally, participants will meet with their elected officials and their staffs. Continue reading: Library Advocacy Day from ALA Washington





On the same shelf:

i need. i value. i love my library campaign

What is your Library worth to you?

Pull and Push Communications: Ranganathan's Laws re-interpreted

Market Research Techniques for Libraries

Global ebook survey reveals encouraging results

"New findings from a study on e-book usage landed in my inbox earlier this week. Conducted by e-content providers, ebrary the study has been attempting to measure the changing perceptions and patterns of e-book usage among students. It is now in its third run through.
Working with 150 Higher Education librarians throughout the world to design the survey, nearly 6,500 students took part. Such a cross section of academic respondents is certainly respectable. While there is an obvious North American slant to the findings, generally half of the participants were based elsewhere in the world. Around 400 academic institutions took part say ebrary and admittedly the patterns between the US and elsewhere show similar results. So even if there is little in the way of UK eBook habits, the results are revealing all the same." Continue reading the summary by Daniel Griffin @ IWR Blog: June 2008

From the same shelf:

• What are the advantages of e-books over print books
• Reading Habits in Different Communities, PEW Forum

Stay in India for free via blogger Web site

Tony Tharakan , Reuters & CanWest News Service, 27 Sep 2007

Hotel rooms in India tend to be expensive and hard to find, but a new Web site is helping visitors find a bed, with a warm conversation thrown in, all for free.

While most hosts on http://www.extrabed.in/ offer a spare bed and an Internet connection, some offer sightseeing tours, endless cups of coffee or even a game of Scrabble to add that personal touch.

The Web site was born after its founder, Kiruba Shankar, randomly contacted bloggers in Mumbai to see if anyone would put him up. He found several. continue reading

see also:

ExtraBed on NDTV

Bangla and Bangalooru: The Phonetic Similarity in Jeopardy

PS. Bear in mind the newstory about the trend to restore original syntax & symantics (A.K.A. Indianization) that was announced in the State of Karnataka (India) -- It's official: Bangalore is now Bengalooru / Bangalore or Bangalooru?

Reference and Research Protests posted by Annoyed Librarian:
It can't happen often that a reference book draws more than yawns and mediocre reviews, but the OUP has stopped selling the Concise Dictionary of World Place Names because of some protests and outcries in India. (This was reported a few days ago, but I'm behind on my news.)

According to the story:"Among other errors, the book, the Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, says that the local language in Bangalore, Karnataka’s capital, is Bengali. Actually the language is Kannada. Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh and neighboring regions of northeastern India." Continue reading

You a bookworm? Click and get your own library

Watch the video about the exciting free @ Gutenberg.org

Library ditches microfilm in favour of RIAs

By: Briony Smith
ComputerWorld Canada (30 Aug 2007)
Nestled up in the northern interior of British Columbia, even the small town of Terrace isn’t untouched by the rich Internet applications trend — the local public library has recently recreated its newspaper archiving system into a digital version that’s getting rave reviews. continue reading

Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive

When Willings Multimedia needed help building an interactive web-based library for the Terrace Public Library in British Columbia, Canada, they contacted Integration New Media (INM). The two companies worked together to build the “Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive”, a dynamic and interactive web application that allows users of all ages and technical capabilities to search through and read newspapers online.

ALA ALCTS Foreign Book Dealers Directory on the web

The ALCTS Acquisition Sections Publications Committee is pleased to
announce that its Foreign Book Dealers Directory is now available as a single, searchable Web publication. Most recently available as three distinct Web sites, the information has been combined into a single file, with access points by vendor name and country (or countries) whose materials each vendor can supply. To replicate the three previous regional versions, there are also lists by region that can be accessed by either the point and click world map on the home page, or by a pull-down menu. The original three regions, Eastern Europe-Soviet Union, Asia-Pacific, and Africa-Middle East, are now six regions: Eastern Europe, Central Eurasia, Asia, The Pacific, Africa, and Middle East.... continue reading
Find suppliers of library materials from many parts of the world with our searchable lists of vendors regularly used by university libraries in the United States.

Launch of BookCross@SG: Books need to be freed!

Sighted @ Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian

Same shelf and aisle:.
>>Go Hunting Country List > Canada > Ontario > Toronto

Similar shelf:
>>Donate to the "Why Indie Bookstores Matter" Tour!
>> really modern library

See also:

Nigeria's Library System - is It Collapsing Or Transforming?

Bookstores everywhere are going broke

History of the book: Writing on the Stone Slab

Good old Indian folk tales need a magic genie

New Delhi: Once upon a time, traditional folk tales from the Panchatantra or, say, stories of Akbar and Birbal used to be hugely popular with Indian children. But ask a kid today about her favourite book, and chances are she will name an Enid Blyton, a Nancy Drew, a Hardy Boy and - even more likely - a Harry Potter.

To give an example, the pre-bookings for the seventh edition of the Harry Potter series to be released July 21, is escalating at a rapid rate. The sixth in the series sold a smashing 160,000 copies in India last year.

The story is entirely different for Indian folk tales and other children's books. A predictable storyline, monotonous illustrations, lots of moral baggage and more importantly sloppy marketing have led to their taking a beating. continue

Mahatma Gandhi praised Urdu in last letter

News update: Heritage saved! Auction of Gandhi letter stopped CNN-IBN, July 02, 2007
The executors of Albin Schram have agreed to withdraw the Gandhi manuscript from Tuesday's auction in order that it may be acquired by the Indian Government.


Bapu's letter may be stolen: Grandson, CNN-IBN, June 27, 2007 at 22:16
New Delhi: The scheduled auction of a letter written by Mahatma Gandhi, possibly his last before his assassination, has sent the Indian government in a tizzy.
The letter, written on January 19, 1948, is part of a collection of manuscripts put up for auction at the famous auction house Christie's in London. Meanwhile, a harried Indian Government has started the process of bidding for it. Sources in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs have said that they are assessing the cost to bid for Gandhi’s letter, which is expected to fetch £ 12,000 or Rs 10 lakh.

Press Trust Of India, London, June 29, 2007,
In the letter, a rare manuscript that will go under hammer at Christie's in London on July 3, Gandhi said opposing Urdu will "put a wanton affront" on the Muslims, who "in the eyes of Hindus have become aliens in their own land".

Writing in his journal 'Harijan' on January 11, 1948, Gandhi, who appeared disturbed with the dwindling circulation of its Urdu edition, said in the letter that it is likely to be stopped.

Praising Urdu, which he said "is set free from bondage of orthodoxy", he asserted that those who learn it will "lose nothing but gain". At the same time he urged Muslims to learn Devanagari to "enrich their intellectual" capital and subscribe to his journal.continue

See also:

Mahatma in market

Mahatma manuscript up for sale, govt wakes up

India to participate in auction of Gandhi letter

Gandhians demonstrate against auction of letter

Rare letter from Mahatma surfaces

The invisible Indian library - Thought for the Day

"It would take a lot of dedication—and the revenues of more than a hundred villages today—to create proper public libraries, accessible to all, across India. But the difference it would make in our daily lives is incalculable. We’re very good at constructing malls; it seems that every city and small town now has its own shopping paradises. How hard would it be for a nation of mall-builders to construct a few good public libraries alongside?" SPEAKING VOLUMES, Nilanjana S Roy / New Delhi May 01, 2007, Business Standard

See also related resources:

The lost world of libraries

MEGA Website for Indian Public Libraries - Is there any?

Libraries to go online in Andhra Pradesh: Minister

Case Studies from India: Evidence-based Librarianship. Extracts from:

Working Locally At Home and Abroad

World Literacy of Canada is a small NGO with big projects on the go. For 50 years now, WLC has been changing people's lives through literacy and community development programs, both at home here in Canada, and in homes throughout the world. Although the world has changed dramatically over the course of the past 50 years, the heart of WLC's programming philosophy has remained the same: global change begins at a local level. Continue reading

World Literacy of Canada
401 Richmond Street West, Studio 236
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
P: 416 977 0008
F: 416 977 1112
E: info@worldlit.ca
W: www.worldlit.ca

The lost world of libraries

posted by Blake on Sunday May 20, @12:23PM from the dusty-shelves dept.

The Business Standard - India has a look at some ooooollllddd libraries in India. But, however distinguished the provenance of these three, as also that of the Dayal Singh Public Library in Delhi and other public libraries elsewhere in the country, they are all rather sad places today. Only PhD students come here now to trawl the dusty shelves of uncared for books, rummage through the crumbling cards and brave the apathetic sloth of the staff for the early and rare editions of novels and journals. [Source: Librarian and Information Science News]

See also: Map of Libraries in New Delhi

Library Open House - Maurice M. Pine Free Public Library

Maurice M. Pine Free Public Library
10-01 Fair Lawn Ave., Fair Lawn, NJ 07410 (201)796-3400


Gail standing next to Miss Harneet Singh

Japanese man runs library on a bicycle

"And you thought you were committed to your profession" [Thanks to LibraryStuff for this quote]

Tokyo, May 02: Kazuhiro Doi is on a one-man mission to change the world by pulling a mobile library on a bicycle around Japan.

For more than two years, the 28-year-old has been distributing books on the environment, civil disputes and other social issues on a custom-made bicycle with a waterwheel-shaped bookshelf across his native Japan.

Doi left his home in the central prefecture of Aichi in January 2005, initially to ask libraries around the country to carry a book published by a non-profit organisation 'Think the Earth'.

The book documents the gravity of environmental destruction with about 100 photographs, including those of a mountain of industrial waste, children injured in a chemical factory accident in India and penguins covered with crude oil. Full news story @ Zee News, May 03, 2007;

See also: Japanese man on one-man mission to distribute books by bicycle EARTHtimes.org

The Harry Potter Marketing Story Revisited

PS. Jill Stover's blog (Library Marketing - Thinking Outside the Book) and, Vancouver Sun (Magical Marketing: Harry Potter seller turns early book release into effective sales tool) covered this theme in 2005. Here is an update:

Amazon.com Seeks ''Harry-est Town'' in America

Indigo starts 107-day countdown to release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

New Potter book has rules for libraries

Librarians must obey the rules to get Harry

Amazon.ca Seeks "Harry-est Town in Canada"

Publisher Wants To Keep Harry Potter's Secrets

No peeking at 'Deathly Hallows' till July 21

From my related posts:

Market Research Resources via Libraries