Library workers have been underpaid because their profession is dominated by women, according to a landmark decision handed down today. [ thanks fiona ]

Mrs. Astor had an early birthday celebration on Thursday afternoon at the New York Public Library with 100 librarians. "I asked her how she wanted to celebrate, and this is what she wanted," [NYPL president] Mr. LeClerc said.
Heike Kordish, a research librarian, said Mrs. Astor often celebrated her birthday with the librarians. "And she always asked each of us to stand and talk for five minutes about our experiences," Ms. Kordish said. [ NYT, thanks benjamin ]

For no particular reason, Usha Rangachari picked tails. And with that five-letter word, the Hamilton Public Library employee got to keep her job of 14 years. The library held a coin toss yesterday — in accordance with a union agreement — to determine whether Rangachari or another employee would get bumped into a more junior position. But Rangachari, a part-time library technician, doesn't feel victorious. "I feel so sick about it. It's not fair to do this to anybody," [ thanks jen ]

As part of its attempt to defend a library-filtering law from a legal challenge, the U.S. Justice Department unveiled a thick black binder stuffed with color printouts from sex sites. Attorney Tim Zick asked a librarian testifying in opposition to the law, 59-year-old Candace Morgan, to page through the images and say whether visitors to her public library would be permitted to view them.
"Is it your testimony that I have the right to look at these websites?" Zick asked.
"Yes, it is," replied Morgan, the steely-eyed associate director of the Fort Vancouver, Washington, regional library. [ thanks dsdlc ]

Mr. Lane was the volunteer librarian at the Writers' Room, a haven for novelists, historians, cookbook writers and anyone else able to prove seriousness about writing. Mr. Lane showed up at the Writers' Room in 1988, a decade after its founding, and volunteered to be the librarian, a position that had not existed. At the time, the room owned one book: a dog-eared dictionary. By the time he retired in February 2001, leaving a $25,000 contribution for the room's endowment fund, he had assembled a collection of 3,000 books [ NYT thanks jen ]

"It is going to affect everyone's First Amendment right to get access to information that is perfectly legal," said Judith F. Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. [ NYT, thanks karen ]

Previously, businessmen had stored their documents in cumbersome cases, or folded and labelled the pieces of paper and stuck them in the pigeonholes of the secretary desks.... What Dewey proposed was essentially an enlarged version of a card catalogue, where paper documents hung vertically in long drawers. The vertical file was a stunning accomplishment. In those efficiency-obsessed days, it prompted books and articles and debates and ended up winning a gold medal at the 1893 World's Fair, because it so neatly addressed the threat of disorder posed by the proliferation of paper. What good was that railroad schedule, after all, if it was lost on someone's desk? Now a railroad could buy one of Dewey's vertical filing cabinets, and put the schedule under "S," where everyone could find it. [ thanks michael ]

"I'm picturing a coin-op library. It boggles the mind," said MacPhail, director of the Racine Public Library. "That's not why I went to library school." [ thanks bill & katia ]

Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers introduced Talking Heads, saying that hearing the band gave him a new sensation: "I wanted to have sex with a lot of librarians." [ thanks rebecca ]

My compromise solution is to ditch the book-choosing committee, which is far too goody two-shoes and dull, and take tips directly from regular New Yorkers. Every month or so, the mayor -- or perhaps one of those pretty women who pick the lotto numbers on television -- could board a subway car somewhere in the city system and pick a passenger with a book. Whatever that book happened to be, would be the city's book of choice for the next month.

"God spoke to my spirit that we must do HOUSE CLEANING!" said the letter announcing the review request. "As a Christian teacher in the public school, God has showed me that it is my responsibility to take a stand and lift my voice." [ thanks janet ]

Mr. Gellman, author of three volumes on Franklin D. Roosevelt, said today that he wanted to steer clear of the feud but that he had been shocked by the poor quality of the library's operations. "There is no library that is as poorly operated as the Richard Nixon library, as compared with any other presidential library," he said. "It's a disgrace." [ thanks bill ]

Ever wonder what librarians do after hours when they remove their glasses, lose the orthopedic shoes and let their hair hang down? Do you think librarians fuck?? [ thanks katester ]

"It's becoming a younger profession," said Paige Wasson, an ALA spokeswoman, who donned sneakers at the event. "You see folks with dreadlocks and chunky boots. They're not the 'shush, be quiet' librarians of old." [ thanks jude ]

...there are ways to recover one's perspective. You can wait for one of those periodic crises that summon the best of the decent men and women who toil at virtually every level of government. Or you can go to your local public library, where the democratic ideals of liberty, equality and free inquiry are still burnished by daily use. These days, they also have the latest DVDs. [ thanks kevin ]

Researchers, Russophiles and spies made their way to Victor Kamkin Inc., which for decades collected and sold books detailing every aspect of life and history in the Soviet Union, all in their original Russian. A little more than 1 million bound volumes were in the last inventory, taken two years ago. Workers there estimate there could be nearly 2 million books and other published materials today. On Monday morning, Montgomery County sheriff's deputies are expected to receive the entire collection at the county incinerator. [ thanks janet ]

Peikoff explained that he had given the 2,158-page "Fountainhead" manuscript to the Library of Congress. "But I stole the first and last pages," he added with a laugh. The throwaway line was included in the lengthy magazine article published Aug. 16, 1998. Library officials weren't laughing when they read the piece. They demanded the missing "Fountainhead" pages, claiming them to be property of the U.S. government. When Peikoff refused to turn them over, officials threatened to sue him for $1.1 million--the amount the library had spent "in storing, archiving and preserving the manuscript" in the belief it was the complete original. [ thanks kteela ]

Research on the libraries has shown that contrary to popular belief, books in the libraries of stately homes were not acquired by the yard to impress visitors but were bought to be read and cared for. Mark Purcell, the Trust librarian, said: “Many owners of country houses spent more on their books than they did on their furniture.” [ thanks owen ]

CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, a new professional body formed following the unification of the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS) and the Library Association (LA). [ thanks eoin ]

We've all heard and probably used the term "cyberlibrarian" and assume it to mean a librarian who is in constant touch with the Internet, but where did the word “cybernetics” originate? Norbert Wiener coined the term "cybernetics" more than 50 years ago, not to describe the use of computers, but rather as a term denoting the study of the use of messages to control machines and the use of communication to control society. He derived it from the Greek word “kerbernetes” – a “steersman”: the one who controls the ship. [ ftrain ]

Why isn’t there more violence in the strip?
Because you don’t get a lot of blood when you maul someone with a book. [ thanks dawn ]

The order allows a sitting president to deny the release of a former president's records even if the former president has agreed to make them public.

Submission of an entry and/or acceptance of a prize grants Woman's Day and the American Library Association the exclusive and perpetual rights to publish, use, edit, adapt, modify, excerpt and/or copy the entry for any and all purposes in any or all media currently in existence or hereafter invented without further compensation to entrant.

State Librarian Virginia Lowell said mold and bugs are a problem for libraries across the state. Because of a budget shortfall that has lasted the better part of a decade, most libraries can spend money either replacing materials or trying to control humidity, but not both. [ thanks brandon ]

Cats have a long and honorable association with libraries, dating back to centuries past when they were employed to guard books from destructive vermin. Silent sentinels, they fit right in with the hushed library ethos. [ thanks eoin ]