[Tasl] librarians in the news...
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Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:18:53 -0700 (PDT)
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You'll find hundreds of current articles on this site, such as:
http://www.readingrockets.org/
~~~~~~~~~~Now that you've gorged your sweet tooth with Halloween treats, how about feeding your brain? November 1 marks National Family Literacy Day. Approximately eight thousand literacy programs will hold readings, workshops, and family activities at libraries and community centers across the country. http://www.famlit.org/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/elsentinel/comunidad/orl-asecread13101303oct13,0,1186634.story?coll=elsent-comunidad-headlines
READING BY NINE
Good school libraries boost readersBy Mary Shanklin
Sentinel Staff Writer
October 13, 2003
In between helping other students to their first classes at Orlando's Richmond Heights Elementary, fourth-grader Adrian Wilson tries to read a few pages of a library book about the Titanic.
"I like to read in the morning, at lunch, even when I'm on the safety patrol," said Adrian, who had the highest FCAT reading scores in his class last year.
This is the same child who barely made it through second grade and was retained in the third grade because of his poor reading and math skills.
"I didn't read much in the first grade. Books were harder then," he said. "Teachers told me reading can take me to a lot of places, and so I started reading."
New research to be presented to Florida educators later this month shows part of the reason Adrian and other students are reading better: the school library.
Donna Baumbach, a professor at the University of Central Florida, analyzed more than 1,700 media centers at Florida schools. She found that well-staffed, well-stocked libraries drive up elementary reading scores by 9 percent, middle-school scores by 3 percent and high-school scores by 22 percent.
Her yearlong study reflects the findings of similar research in six other states.
For Adrian and other elementary students, strong school libraries can be critical to academic success because educators agree it is important that children learn to read by age 9 -- the third grade -- so they can begin to read to learn subjects such as math, history and science.
Baumbach found a direct tie between the amount of time a library was professionally staffed and the number of students at a school who can read at grade level. She also found that reading scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test were higher at elementary schools where certified media specialists run the library, rather than teachers or clerks.
Media programs 'critical'
"I hope this will reinforce the idea that media programs are critical to academic achievement and that a certified media specialist is important," said Baumbach, director of UCF's Instructional Technology Resource Center.
Last November the Orlando Sentinel reported that many Florida school media centers were full of antiquated books and run by untrained clerks. A year later, Orange County schools have more certified media specialists, along with donations of more than $800,000 to update collections at various libraries.
Statewide, however, Florida's library funding has held flat at $15 million for three years. And even though fast-growing Florida buys more books for media centers than the national average, schools have so many students that there are fewer books per pupil, Baumbach's research shows.
In order for Florida to invigorate its school libraries, the latest research suggests that the local school districts must have fresh library resources and media center professionals who know how to use them.
As Adrian sails through Harry Potter, Black Stallion and Goosebumps books, no one can say how much Richmond Heights' media center prompted the 10-year-old's newfound love of reading. School tutors helped him. His mother said she first noticed the difference when school was out for the summer.
"I really noticed the change when he started picking up and taking books with him instead of the GameBoy," Carole Wilson said.
Richmond Heights Principal June Jones said she has seen students' interest in reading ignite since media specialist Andrea Haynes became involved with the library, first as a volunteer coordinating a 24-hour read-a-thon last spring and now as the certified head librarian.
"It's the central location in our school," Jones said. "Our children love going there and getting extended learning time with someone outside of the classroom."
Orange County adds specialists
About a month after the Sentinel's report on school libraries, Orange County Superintendent Ron Blocker instructed principals to put certified teachers and media specialists over libraries that had been headed by clerks. Since then, four media specialists were added to 134 elementary and middle schools, bringing the total to 76. Fourteen were add at 14 high schools, for a total of 31.
Elsewhere in Central Florida, the number of professional media specialists declined in Seminole and Volusia counties and increased in Osceola, Polk, Brevard and Lake counties from 1997 to 2002, according to the state Department of Education. The state has no numbers for the current year.
The critical role media specialists play in pushing strong reading programs was reinforced in the new research. Libraries with certified media specialists had: more books per student, more subscriptions to newspapers and periodicals, more computers per student, more student visitation and greater circulation.
Improved reading was the payoff for having media specialists, the study shows. Test scores are more than 20 percent higher in schools with a full-time professional librarian and assistant than in schools with part-time media-center help.
In her report, Baumbach did not specify which districts had the best-run libraries. But she outlined some of the things certified media specialists do to help boost reading and test scores:
Apply for grants and use the proceeds to purchase more books. Rather than left sitting in the stacks, the books are rotated among classrooms.
Provide reading-incentive programs, writing assignments and multimedia instruction.
Work with teachers to assess their students' test scores and determine areas in which they need help.
When children pick up a school library book in Orange County or anywhere else in Florida, the volume still may be as old as some parents.
Throughout the state, school-library books still are an average of two decades old. One of every five media-center resources was published before 1980, according to the SUNLINK automated book catalog operated by Baumbach's library-services center.
In Central Florida, Osceola's book collection was in the best shape, with 11 percent of its books published since 2000. Orange, Lake, Volusia and Polk counties all have more old books than the average Florida school district. Orange and Duval were the only urban districts that had more pre-1980 books than the state average. About one in every four or five library resources predated 1980 in those counties.
Libraries feel budget constraints
Money for new books is sporadic at best. Librarians report that about half of their budgets come not from the state but from book fairs, parent organizations, candy sales and profits from school supplies, according to the latest research.
Library advocates say they were lucky to get even $15 million from the Legislature this year with the state facing a funding crisis over a voter-led mandate to reduce public-school class sizes.
But with strained budgets, libraries have become more like conservatories for old books than research centers with current resources.
Last year, the Sentinel found many old books on library shelves, including such titles as The Negro in America and Junior: A Colored Boy in Charleston. Other volumes prepared young women for jobs as flight attendants, rather than pilots, and predicted that people would someday land on the moon.
Community groups responded by donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to school libraries. This month, Central Florida Educators Federal Credit Union will donate $500,000 to school media centers, with $10,000 going to 10 low-performing schools for each of the next five years.
Joseph A. Melbourne Jr., president of Central Florida Educator's Federal Credit Union, said the Sentinel stories spurred the donation by shedding light on a great need at local schools.
"Schools need books," Melbourne said. "If kids can't take them home, it really hinders their learning."
Donations help schools get books
Additionally, home builders and Harcourt Trade Publishers have worked with the Orange County Public School Foundation to get $300,000 worth of books into elementary schools. Media centers at the district's 108 primary schools received 115 books as a result of that donation a few weeks ago.
At Richmond Heights, Adrian has benefited, too. Charities, churches and the school district have put more than $25,000 into the media center that the young reading enthusiast patronizes. Most of it went to new books.
Donations may have helped, but they have not transformed book stacks. Shelves at Orlando's Rock Lake Elementary, for instance, remain spare. A new library chief weeded out hundreds of antiquated volumes after some of the books were held up as examples of outdated materials by the Sentinel.
"No, we did not have the money to replace them. I think we need more books for the children. I need a little bit of everything," Rock Lake librarian Lydia Richard said.
"Our whole emphasis is getting kids to be better readers. That's our goal, to get them to read on grade level and that we keep reading till we're there. And that's what the library is here for."
var st_v=1.0; var st_pg=""; var st_ci="703"; var st_di="d050"; var st_dd="st.sageanalyst.net"; var st_tai="v:1.2.3"; var st_ai=""; if (st_v==1.0) { var st_uj; var st_dn = (new Date()).getTime(); var st_rf = escape(document.referrer); st_uj = "//"+st_dd+"/"+st_dn+"/JS?ci="+st_ci+"&di="+st_di+ "&pg="+st_pg+"&rf="+st_rf+"&jv="+st_v+"&tai="+st_tai+"&ai="+st_ai; var iXz = new Image(); iXz.src = st_uj; }~~~~~~~~~~~~~Librarians gone wild? Book minders go whole hog for ‘pinup’ calendarBy JARRETT RENSHAW Staff Writer, (609) 978-2015
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ocean/101503LIBRARIANS.html
http://oceancountylibrary.org/HUH/Press%20Release/harley_humancanvas.htm
Motorcyclists can be a stereotypical bunch dressed in black leather and decorated in body art from head to toe.
But not all.
One Ocean County group sports body art that's not your typical skull and crossbones or heart with mom's name in it. Instead, they're adorned with the newest library card design or a symbol of a new program at the library.
These riders are county librarians, and for the second time they have published a promotional calendar. The name of this year's calendar is Harley and the Human Canvas@ your library.
Last year, the Ocean County library system drew national attention when officials there challenged the public to see libraries and librarians in a different light with the publication of a provocative calendar featuring the book minders riding a road hog.
As much as library officials pushed the envelope with their marketing plan of a year ago, they knew fans would not accept a recycled version of last year's calendar.
"We knew we had to add something else to the calendar, and we wanted it to be fun and informative," said Mary Malagiere, the county's chief librarian.
The informative part comes in the form of body art. On the inside cover of this year's calendar, Ocean County Library Director Elaine McConnell appears barebacked on top of a 100th anniversary Harley Davidson V-Rod with a painting of the library's new symbol on her left shoulder.
Another of the pinup girls, Barnegat Branch principal library assistant Cathy Lynch, said she is not the exhibitionist type. In fact, she said she hates being in front of the camera.
That assertion will be hard for Lynch to defend when you open the calendar to find the leather-clad Miss July sitting comfortably on the chromed vehicle. She said she was an easy pick for the calendar because she just got a tattoo of her own in March - most of the librarians were temporarily painted by local artists.
"I really had no idea that I would take the photo I did. I thought I was just going to show my tattoo," Lynch said of the tribal flower tattoo located on her ankle.
Miss November, otherwise known as Kathy Falco said she never imagined herself as a pin-up girl.
"The whole thing is pretty funny and I think it is a great way to break the stereotypes that exist of libraries and librarians," the supervising library assistant said.
The calendar is part of an ongoing campaign aimed at raising $2 million for its share of the $12.9 million needed for the expansion of the county library's main branch in Tom's River.
The idea for the calendar began when library officials were searching for a way to market a fund-raising raffle featuring a donated Harley Davidson motorcycle last fall.
So they asked librarians to dress in leather, bandanas and sunglasses and pose on top of the motorcycle. The library quickly found out that the ironic posters were pretty popular by themselves and the project grew into a calendar.
The raffle and the calendar were a success, bringing in close to $30,000. Another raffle this year will feature the 100th anniversary Harley Davidson V-Rod used in this year's calendar.
Even more important than the financial reasons, librarians say the motorcycle is a metaphor for the changing more energetic, more modern culture that now exists at libraries.
"Libraries and librarians are not what they used to be," Malagiere said. "We offer courses, we have speakers, people can rent DVDs and CDs, and we have the Internet, plus much more."
Once word of a 2003 calendar featuring librarians on a Harley spread, the oxymoron grew wings and became something of a national sensation. The local story found its way onto CNN and "Good Morning America," which helped fuel the sale of all 1,500 calendars.
This year library officials produced 2,000 calendars and they have already received orders from as far as Japan and Australia. According to Malagiere, many of the long-distance customers are repeats from last year's edition.
The 2004 calendar can be purchased for $10 at all 20 branch locations and for $15 on the library's Web site: oceancountylibrary.org.
Not only did TV get involved in telling the story of last year's calendar, columnists across the country applauded the effort, including one columnist from an Ohio newspaper who wrote:
"Books and bikes are not completely incongruous. For those who adore adventures of the mind, an adventure of the body on the back of a hog seems a reasonable step. Luckily, the librarians at the Ocean County Library in Toms Rivers, N.J., are attempting to make use of that seemingly odd coupling."
It also caught the eye of the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Special Libraries Association, Jack Morris, who in an attempt to convince association members that the profession needs a name change used the calendar as an illustration of forward thinking.
"It's been a struggle for information professionals to get across the idea that we're much different than the stereotypical librarian. Despite the fact that over the past two decades the profession has changed radically, the old stereotypes exist," Morris wrote.
With another calendar of Ocean County librarians expected next year, the stereotype - at least in this county - is sure to become a thing of the past.
---------------------------------
Posted on Thu, Oct. 09, 2003
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/6970417.htm
Hysterical librarians? Try reasonably cautious
By Linda Campbell
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
So maybe mousy Mary did start screaming that night she was closing up the library and George Bailey appeared from the shadows, insisting he was her husband.
What did you expect? Clarence the guardian angel had told George that Mary became an old maid because George was granted his wish that he'd never been born. What else was a woman supposed to do when accosted by a man she'd never laid eyes on?
That pivotal panic scene from It's a Wonderful Life hardly depicts your modern librarian.
She -- or he -- is more likely to be akin to Nancy Pearl of Seattle, rousing a community to read the same book and inspiring the creation of an action figure complete with trading card, bookmarks and "amazing push-button shushing action."
So the image that Attorney General John Ashcroft recently conjured of hysterical librarians being led into frenzy by rabid ACLU leftists rings almost comical.
Except that it's absurd, misinformed and deceptive -- even vaguely sexist. Not to mention that it could be interpreted as an affront to first librarian Laura Bush.
Over the weekend, Bush hosted the National Book Festival and introduced the country to a budding poet.
"Roses are red/Violets are blue/Oh my lump in the bed/How I've missed you," you-know-who wrote to her, according to The Associated Press.
"Roses are redder/Bluer am I/Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy."
A week ago, Laura Bush was touting tomes over television to Russian students at a Moscow book festival.
As quoted by Reuters, she called the event "a celebration of freedom … to write and read the books that we want to read."
What a radical concept.
But that's what librarians do. Besides getting you old magazines, directing you to reference books and showing you how to enter the Internet, they promote, protect and defend that grand liberty of intellectual inquiry.
As a general rule, librarians don't think it's anybody's business -- much less the government's -- why you want to read what you want.
So if they've gotten passionate about the USA Patriot Act, it isn't as though their hormones are temporarily out of whack, thank you very much.
For months, the American Library Association has been warning that the Patriot Act's Section 215, which allows federal agents engaged in terrorism investigations to look at individuals' business records, could be used to snoop on library patrons' check-out habits.
Anyone who's a target wouldn't know it because the record holders aren't allowed to tell. And don't expect a heads-up from the FBI -- short of an indictment.
For their vigilance, librarians have been ridiculed by Ashcroft.
"According to these breathless reports and baseless hysteria, some have convinced the American Library Association that under the bipartisan Patriot Act, the FBI is not fighting terrorism. Instead agents are checking how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel," he said, according to a report on the "Democracy Now!" Web site.
Then he finally acknowledged that government agents had used Section 215 exactly zero times.
To Ashcroft, this was the last laugh.
But it raises the question of why this power is necessary if, as he put it, they "just don't care" about Americans' reading habits.
Why not let Congress exempt libraries from this Patriot Act provision, as U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders and other members of Congress have proposed?
Significantly, Ashcroft did not say that the Justice Department had never searched library records under a separate provision of the act. This one lets agents seek information via a "national security" letter that requires neither probable cause nor a court-approved subpoenae if the material sought is considered relevant to a terrorism investigation.
The nation's physical security depends on law enforcement's having the right tools to fight terrorism. But security also depends on our having the right checks on government.
It takes vigorous debate among informed citizens who've been presented with a rich array of information to decide what those tools and those checks should be.
Let's concede that both critics and defenders of the Patriot Act have, at times, been given to exaggeration.
But consider this: If it's hysterical to warn about a power that the government does have and might use, is that any more hysterical than invading a country over a power that its government might have and might use?
Just asking.
You decide.
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“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”
~ Viktor Frankl
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<P><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U><IMG height=26 alt="Learn About Reading" src="http://www.readingrockets.org/images/home/learnaboutreading.gif" width=295 border=0> </U></EM></FONT></FONT></P>
<DIV class=hlheaders><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>You'll find hundreds of current articles on this site, such as:</U></EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=hlheaders><A href="http://www.readingrockets.org/"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM>http://www.readingrockets.org/</EM></FONT></A></DIV>
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<DIV class=hlheaders><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>~~~~~~~~~~Now that you've gorged your sweet tooth with </U></EM></FONT><A href="http://www.factmonster.com/spot/halloween1.html"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM>Halloween</EM></FONT></A><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U> treats, how about feeding your brain? November 1 marks </U></EM></FONT><A href="http://www.famlit.org/nfld/nfld.html" target=_blank><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM>National Family Literacy Day</EM></FONT></A><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>. Approximately eight thousand literacy programs will hold readings, workshops, and family activities at libraries and community centers across the country. </U></EM></FONT><A href="http://www.famlit.org/"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM>http://www.famlit.org/</EM></FONT></A></DIV>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U></U></EM></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>~~~~~~~~~~~~~</U></EM></FONT></P></TD>
<TD align=right><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U></U></EM></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><A href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/elsentinel/comunidad/orl-asecread13101303oct13,0,1186634.story?coll=elsent-comunidad-headlines"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM>http://www.orlandosentinel.com/elsentinel/comunidad/orl-asecread13101303oct13,0,1186634.story?coll=elsent-comunidad-headlines</EM></FONT></A><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U> </U></EM></FONT>
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<H4><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>READING BY NINE</U></EM></FONT></H4>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U></U></EM></FONT></P>
<H1><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Good school libraries boost readers</U></EM></FONT></H1><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>By Mary Shanklin<BR>Sentinel Staff Writer<BR><BR>October 13, 2003<BR><BR>In between helping other students to their first classes at Orlando's Richmond Heights Elementary, fourth-grader Adrian Wilson tries to read a few pages of a library book about the Titanic.<BR><BR>"I like to read in the morning, at lunch, even when I'm on the safety patrol," said Adrian, who had the highest FCAT reading scores in his class last year.<BR><BR>This is the same child who barely made it through second grade and was retained in the third grade because of his poor reading and math skills.<BR><BR>"I didn't read much in the first grade. Books were harder then," he said. "Teachers told me reading can take me to a lot of places, and so I started reading."<BR><BR>New research to be presented to Florida educators later this month shows part
of the reason Adrian and other students are reading better: the school library.<BR><BR>Donna Baumbach, a professor at the University of Central Florida, analyzed more than 1,700 media centers at Florida schools. She found that well-staffed, well-stocked libraries drive up elementary reading scores by 9 percent, middle-school scores by 3 percent and high-school scores by 22 percent.<BR><BR>Her yearlong study reflects the findings of similar research in six other states.<BR><BR>For Adrian and other elementary students, strong school libraries can be critical to academic success because educators agree it is important that children learn to read by age 9 -- the third grade -- so they can begin to read to learn subjects such as math, history and science.<BR><BR>Baumbach found a direct tie between the amount of time a library was professionally staffed and the number of students at a school who can read at grade level. She also found that reading scores on the Florida Comprehensive
Assessment Test were higher at elementary schools where certified media specialists run the library, rather than teachers or clerks.<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=2><FONT color=#7f007f><EM><U>Media programs 'critical'<BR><BR>"I hope this will reinforce the idea that media programs are critical to academic achievement and that a certified media specialist is important," said Baumbach, director of UCF's Instructional Technology Resource Center.<BR><BR>Last November the Orlando Sentinel reported that many Florida school media centers were full of antiquated books and run by untrained clerks. A year later, Orange County schools have more certified media specialists, along with donations of more than $800,000 to update collections at various libraries.<BR><BR>Statewide, however, Florida's library funding has held flat at $15 million for three years. And even though fast-growing Florida buys more books for media centers than the national average, schools
have so many students that there are fewer books per pupil, Baumbach's research shows.<BR><BR>In order for Florida to invigorate its school libraries, the latest research suggests that the local school districts must have fresh library resources and media center professionals who know how to use them.<BR><BR>As Adrian sails through Harry Potter, Black Stallion and Goosebumps books, no one can say how much Richmond Heights' media center prompted the 10-year-old's newfound love of reading. School tutors helped him. His mother said she first noticed the difference when school was out for the summer.<BR><BR>"I really noticed the change when he started picking up and taking books with him instead of the GameBoy," Carole Wilson said.<BR><BR>Richmond Heights Principal June Jones said she has seen students' interest in reading ignite since media specialist Andrea Haynes became involved with the library, first as a volunteer coordinating a 24-hour read-a-thon last spring and now as the
certified head librarian.<BR><BR>"It's the central location in our school," Jones said. "Our children love going there and getting extended learning time with someone outside of the classroom."<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=2><FONT color=#7f007f><EM><U>Orange County adds specialists<BR><BR>About a month after the Sentinel's report on school libraries, Orange County Superintendent Ron Blocker instructed principals to put certified teachers and media specialists over libraries that had been headed by clerks. Since then, four media specialists were added to 134 elementary and middle schools, bringing the total to 76. Fourteen were add at 14 high schools, for a total of 31.<BR><BR>Elsewhere in Central Florida, the number of professional media specialists declined in Seminole and Volusia counties and increased in Osceola, Polk, Brevard and Lake counties from 1997 to 2002, according to the state Department of Education. The state has no numbers
for the current year.<BR><BR>The critical role media specialists play in pushing strong reading programs was reinforced in the new research. Libraries with certified media specialists had: more books per student, more subscriptions to newspapers and periodicals, more computers per student, more student visitation and greater circulation.<BR><BR>Improved reading was the payoff for having media specialists, the study shows. Test scores are more than 20 percent higher in schools with a full-time professional librarian and assistant than in schools with part-time media-center help.<BR><BR>In her report, Baumbach did not specify which districts had the best-run libraries. But she outlined some of the things certified media specialists do to help boost reading and test scores:<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT></FONT></FONT>
<LI><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Apply for grants and use the proceeds to purchase more books. Rather than left sitting in the stacks, the books are rotated among classrooms.<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT>
<LI><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Provide reading-incentive programs, writing assignments and multimedia instruction.<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT>
<LI><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Work with teachers to assess their students' test scores and determine areas in which they need help.<BR><BR>When children pick up a school library book in Orange County or anywhere else in Florida, the volume still may be as old as some parents.<BR><BR>Throughout the state, school-library books still are an average of two decades old. One of every five media-center resources was published before 1980, according to the SUNLINK automated book catalog operated by Baumbach's library-services center.<BR><BR>In Central Florida, Osceola's book collection was in the best shape, with 11 percent of its books published since 2000. Orange, Lake, Volusia and Polk counties all have more old books than the average Florida school district. Orange and Duval were the only urban districts that had more pre-1980 books than the state average. About one in every four or five library resources predated 1980 in those
counties.<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=2><FONT color=#7f007f><EM><U>Libraries feel budget constraints<BR><BR>Money for new books is sporadic at best. Librarians report that about half of their budgets come not from the state but from book fairs, parent organizations, candy sales and profits from school supplies, according to the latest research.<BR><BR>Library advocates say they were lucky to get even $15 million from the Legislature this year with the state facing a funding crisis over a voter-led mandate to reduce public-school class sizes.<BR><BR>But with strained budgets, libraries have become more like conservatories for old books than research centers with current resources.<BR><BR>Last year, the Sentinel found many old books on library shelves, including such titles as The Negro in America and Junior: A Colored Boy in Charleston. Other volumes prepared young women for jobs as flight attendants, rather than pilots, and predicted that people
would someday land on the moon.<BR><BR>Community groups responded by donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to school libraries. This month, Central Florida Educators Federal Credit Union will donate $500,000 to school media centers, with $10,000 going to 10 low-performing schools for each of the next five years.<BR><BR>Joseph A. Melbourne Jr., president of Central Florida Educator's Federal Credit Union, said the Sentinel stories spurred the donation by shedding light on a great need at local schools.<BR><BR>"Schools need books," Melbourne said. "If kids can't take them home, it really hinders their learning."<BR><BR></U></EM></FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=2><FONT color=#7f007f><EM><U>Donations help schools get books<BR><BR>Additionally, home builders and Harcourt Trade Publishers have worked with the Orange County Public School Foundation to get $300,000 worth of books into elementary schools. Media centers at the district's 108 primary schools
received 115 books as a result of that donation a few weeks ago.<BR><BR>At Richmond Heights, Adrian has benefited, too. Charities, churches and the school district have put more than $25,000 into the media center that the young reading enthusiast patronizes. Most of it went to new books.<BR><BR>Donations may have helped, but they have not transformed book stacks. Shelves at Orlando's Rock Lake Elementary, for instance, remain spare. A new library chief weeded out hundreds of antiquated volumes after some of the books were held up as examples of outdated materials by the Sentinel.<BR><BR>"No, we did not have the money to replace them. I think we need more books for the children. I need a little bit of everything," Rock Lake librarian Lydia Richard said.<BR><BR>"Our whole emphasis is getting kids to be better readers. That's our goal, to get them to read on grade level and that we keep reading till we're there. And that's what the library is here for."<BR> <!-- SAGE -->
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<NOSCRIPT><img src="//st.sageanalyst.net/NS?ci=703&di=d050&pg=&ai="></NOSCRIPT></U></EM></FONT></FONT></FONT></LI></H2>
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<H2><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Librarians gone wild? Book minders go whole hog for ‘pinup’ calendar</U></EM></FONT></H2>
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<DIV><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f><EM><U>By JARRETT RENSHAW Staff Writer, (609) 978-2015</U></EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ocean/101503LIBRARIANS.html"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f><EM>http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ocean/101503LIBRARIANS.html</EM></FONT></A></DIV>
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<DIV><A href="http://oceancountylibrary.org/HUH/Press%20Release/harley_humancanvas.htm"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f><EM>http://oceancountylibrary.org/HUH/Press%20Release/harley_humancanvas.htm</EM></FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f><EM><U>Motorcyclists can be a stereotypical bunch dressed in black leather and decorated in body art from head to toe.<BR><BR>But not all.<BR><BR>One Ocean County group sports body art that's not your typical skull and crossbones or heart with mom's name in it. Instead, they're adorned with the newest library card design or a symbol of a new program at the library.<BR><BR>These riders are county librarians, and for the second time they have published a promotional calendar. The name of this year's calendar is Harley and the Human Canvas@ your library.<BR><BR>Last year, the Ocean County library system drew national attention when officials there challenged the public to see libraries and librarians in a different light
with the publication of a provocative calendar featuring the book minders riding a road hog.<BR><BR>As much as library officials pushed the envelope with their marketing plan of a year ago, they knew fans would not accept a recycled version of last year's calendar.<BR><BR>"We knew we had to add something else to the calendar, and we wanted it to be fun and informative," said Mary Malagiere, the county's chief librarian.<BR><BR>The informative part comes in the form of body art. On the inside cover of this year's calendar, Ocean County Library Director Elaine McConnell appears barebacked on top of a 100th anniversary Harley Davidson V-Rod with a painting of the library's new symbol on her left shoulder.<BR><BR>Another of the pinup girls, Barnegat Branch principal library assistant Cathy Lynch, said she is not the exhibitionist type. In fact, she said she hates being in front of the camera.<BR><BR>That assertion will be hard for Lynch to defend when you open the calendar to find the
leather-clad Miss July sitting comfortably on the chromed vehicle. She said she was an easy pick for the calendar because she just got a tattoo of her own in March - most of the librarians were temporarily painted by local artists.<BR><BR>"I really had no idea that I would take the photo I did. I thought I was just going to show my tattoo," Lynch said of the tribal flower tattoo located on her ankle.<BR><BR>Miss November, otherwise known as Kathy Falco said she never imagined herself as a pin-up girl.<BR><BR>"The whole thing is pretty funny and I think it is a great way to break the stereotypes that exist of libraries and librarians," the supervising library assistant said.<BR><BR>The calendar is part of an ongoing campaign aimed at raising $2 million for its share of the $12.9 million needed for the expansion of the county library's main branch in Tom's River. <BR><BR>The idea for the calendar began when library officials were searching for a way to market a fund-raising raffle
featuring a donated Harley Davidson motorcycle last fall. <BR><BR>So they asked librarians to dress in leather, bandanas and sunglasses and pose on top of the motorcycle. The library quickly found out that the ironic posters were pretty popular by themselves and the project grew into a calendar.<BR><BR>The raffle and the calendar were a success, bringing in close to $30,000. Another raffle this year will feature the 100th anniversary Harley Davidson V-Rod used in this year's calendar.<BR><BR>Even more important than the financial reasons, librarians say the motorcycle is a metaphor for the changing more energetic, more modern culture that now exists at libraries.<BR><BR>"Libraries and librarians are not what they used to be," Malagiere said. "We offer courses, we have speakers, people can rent DVDs and CDs, and we have the Internet, plus much more."<BR><BR>Once word of a 2003 calendar featuring librarians on a Harley spread, the oxymoron grew wings and became something of a national
sensation. The local story found its way onto CNN and "Good Morning America," which helped fuel the sale of all 1,500 calendars.<BR><BR>This year library officials produced 2,000 calendars and they have already received orders from as far as Japan and Australia. According to Malagiere, many of the long-distance customers are repeats from last year's edition. <BR><BR>The 2004 calendar can be purchased for $10 at all 20 branch locations and for $15 on the library's Web site: oceancountylibrary.org.<BR><BR>Not only did TV get involved in telling the story of last year's calendar, columnists across the country applauded the effort, including one columnist from an Ohio newspaper who wrote:<BR><BR>"Books and bikes are not completely incongruous. For those who adore adventures of the mind, an adventure of the body on the back of a hog seems a reasonable step. Luckily, the librarians at the Ocean County Library in Toms Rivers, N.J., are attempting to make use of that seemingly odd
coupling."<BR><BR>It also caught the eye of the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Special Libraries Association, Jack Morris, who in an attempt to convince association members that the profession needs a name change used the calendar as an illustration of forward thinking.<BR><BR>"It's been a struggle for information professionals to get across the idea that we're much different than the stereotypical librarian. Despite the fact that over the past two decades the profession has changed radically, the old stereotypes exist," Morris wrote.<BR><BR>With another calendar of Ocean County librarians expected next year, the stereotype - at least in this county - is sure to become a thing of the past.</U></EM></FONT></DIV>
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<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Posted on Thu, Oct. 09, 2003</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><A href="http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/6970417.htm"><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM>http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/6970417.htm</EM></FONT></A></P></TD>
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<DIV class=body-head><SPAN class=sig></SPAN><BR><SPAN class=kicker></SPAN><BR><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=2><FONT color=#7f007f><EM><U><SPAN class=headline>Hysterical librarians? Try reasonably cautious</SPAN><BR><SPAN class=deck></SPAN><BR><SPAN class=byline>By Linda Campbell</SPAN><BR><SPAN class=creditline>Star-Telegram Staff Writer</SPAN><BR></U></EM></FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV><!-- begin body-content --><SPAN class=body-content>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>So maybe mousy Mary did start screaming that night she was closing up the library and George Bailey appeared from the shadows, insisting he was her husband.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>What did you expect? Clarence the guardian angel had told George that Mary became an old maid because George was granted his wish that he'd never been born. What else was a woman supposed to do when accosted by a man she'd never laid eyes on?</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>That pivotal panic scene from It's a Wonderful Life hardly depicts your modern librarian.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>She -- or he -- is more likely to be akin to Nancy Pearl of Seattle, rousing a community to read the same book and inspiring the creation of an action figure complete with trading card, bookmarks and "amazing push-button shushing action."</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>So the image that Attorney General John Ashcroft recently conjured of hysterical librarians being led into frenzy by rabid ACLU leftists rings almost comical.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Except that it's absurd, misinformed and deceptive -- even vaguely sexist. Not to mention that it could be interpreted as an affront to first librarian Laura Bush.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Over the weekend, Bush hosted the National Book Festival and introduced the country to a budding poet.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>"Roses are red/Violets are blue/Oh my lump in the bed/How I've missed you," you-know-who wrote to her, according to The Associated Press.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>"Roses are redder/Bluer am I/Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy."</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>A week ago, Laura Bush was touting tomes over television to Russian students at a Moscow book festival.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>As quoted by Reuters, she called the event "a celebration of freedom … to write and read the books that we want to read."</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>What a radical concept.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>But that's what librarians do. Besides getting you old magazines, directing you to reference books and showing you how to enter the Internet, they promote, protect and defend that grand liberty of intellectual inquiry.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>As a general rule, librarians don't think it's anybody's business -- much less the government's -- why you want to read what you want.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>So if they've gotten passionate about the USA Patriot Act, it isn't as though their hormones are temporarily out of whack, thank you very much.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>For months, the American Library Association has been warning that the Patriot Act's Section 215, which allows federal agents engaged in terrorism investigations to look at individuals' business records, could be used to snoop on library patrons' check-out habits.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Anyone who's a target wouldn't know it because the record holders aren't allowed to tell. And don't expect a heads-up from the FBI -- short of an indictment.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>For their vigilance, librarians have been ridiculed by Ashcroft.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>"According to these breathless reports and baseless hysteria, some have convinced the American Library Association that under the bipartisan Patriot Act, the FBI is not fighting terrorism. Instead agents are checking how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel," he said, according to a report on the "Democracy Now!" Web site.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Then he finally acknowledged that government agents had used Section 215 exactly zero times.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>To Ashcroft, this was the last laugh.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>But it raises the question of why this power is necessary if, as he put it, they "just don't care" about Americans' reading habits.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Why not let Congress exempt libraries from this Patriot Act provision, as U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders and other members of Congress have proposed?</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Significantly, Ashcroft did not say that the Justice Department had never searched library records under a separate provision of the act. This one lets agents seek information via a "national security" letter that requires neither probable cause nor a court-approved subpoenae if the material sought is considered relevant to a terrorism investigation.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>The nation's physical security depends on law enforcement's having the right tools to fight terrorism. But security also depends on our having the right checks on government.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>It takes vigorous debate among informed citizens who've been presented with a rich array of information to decide what those tools and those checks should be.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Let's concede that both critics and defenders of the Patriot Act have, at times, been given to exaggeration.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>But consider this: If it's hysterical to warn about a power that the government does have and might use, is that any more hysterical than invading a country over a power that its government might have and might use?</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>Just asking.</U></EM></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f size=2><EM><U>You decide.</U></EM></FONT></SPAN></P><!-- end body-end --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><BR><BR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><BR><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f><EM><U>
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<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f><STRONG></STRONG></FONT></P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f>
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<P><FONT face="comic sans ms" color=#7f007f> “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”<BR><STRONG>~ Viktor Frankl</STRONG><BR></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><p><hr SIZE=1>
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