Protesting CPSIA – an activists’ guide for bookstores and libraries
Friday, May 15th, 2009As people are beginning to realize, the recent passage of CPSIA has deep ramifications for education and literacy, reducing access to books in stores, libraries and charities. Hardest hit are the economically disadvantaged children among us. Here are some ideas to help get started in protesting and raising support for the repeal of this disastrous [...]
Department of Justice opens antitrust inquiry into Google – finally!
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009In perhaps one of the best bits of book-world news that we’ve seen in awhile, the New York Times is reporting today that the US DOJ has finally opened an antitrust inquiry into Google’s book scanning project. For awhile, it was really looking as if Google was going to get away with breaking copyright law [...]
American Library Association urges citizens to take action on CPSIA bill
Monday, April 6th, 2009The ALA (American Library Association) is urging citizens to take action on the CPSIA bill, and urge their representative to support the amendment recently put forward by Rep. Fortenberry of Nebraska that would exempt childrens’ books from the burdensome legislation. The ALA has made it very easy – please take a moment now to use [...]
BiblioWorks Documentary
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Here’s our first pass at creating a promotional documentary / video for BiblioWorks (the non-profit we founded and continue to support that builds libraries in rural South America and provides support to local literacy organizations here in WNC). Thanks to Paul Sherar for his volunteer work in filming and production on the piece! Biblioworks Video [...]
Library usage up with a down economy
Monday, January 5th, 2009The Boston Globe is reporting increasing usage of public libraries, due to the down economy (yep, that’s right, you folks heard it here first in June, when we predicted library usage would increase after looking at similar patterns during the Great Depression). Now, this, of course is great news for libraries. Well, mostly good news. [...]
Declining economy = increasing readership?
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008According to a brief article in the Chicago Post-Tribune, libraries in Lake County and Porter County Illinois are seeing a surge in circulations and a rise in patronage, owing, in part to the current economy. Its terrific to hear news such as this, since libraries have been arguably one of the most underappreciated public resources [...]