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So, I have some free time this week since I am supposed to be at PLA. My slides and my notes and links are online: Library 2.0 and Reader’s Advisory. I read about what the other speakers had to say, it sounds like it was a really lively pre-conference.

I came back to a facebook full of pleas for library assistance including the Save Libraries umbrella group for all the assorted campaigns. Apparently this is a very bad time to be a library. I’ve been meaning to do a wrap-up of some of the save the library campaigns. My apologies that it’s taken me so long to do this.

• Charlotte & Mecklenburg County libraries [in NC, original home to 23 Things] may have to close 12 branches depending on what happens with the budgets. I was alerted to this via the $2 million in one week facebook group. Clicking on “learn more” on their website takes me to a donation form with a little more information but I think this budget page is most useful and this news release explains what’s really happening.
• Los Angeles Public is in trouble again and their Save the Libraries website is back up and running with newly updated information and some good action items including sample letters you can send to the mayor. There is a meeting today. Facebook page has some more details.

If people want to add more in the comments, please do. Times are tough all over, b

My friend Kim Cooper was one of the people behind the SaveLAPL website which you may have read about here a month ago. Just wanted to mention that their lobbying and activism efforts appear to have been successful within the scope of what they were aiming for and this is good news for LAPL patrons and staff generally in my opinion. Congrats Kim and Co. and everyone else who made an effort and got involved.

Based on the recommendations made on May 14, the proposed Sunday closures of the eight regional branch libraries will not be happening, and 36.5 library jobs have been saved! $2,000,000 is being restored to the library’s book buying budget, from $7.7 million to $9.7 million!

Some friends of mine are working on the Save LAPL website. Los Angeles Public Library is having budget problems and considering some odd (and to my mind bad) choices about how to curtail services including…

Unless citizens of L.A. can convince Mayor Villaraigosa and The Board of Library Commissioners to change their plans, starting on July 1st all branch libraries will begin charging a fee of $1 per book to request anything sent from another branch. This wouldn’t be so bad if local branches were well stocked with reading material, but they simply are not, and were never meant to be.

Please consider learning more and adding a testimonial or getting involved.

I have had a lot of people send me links to excellent things that I think other librarians might want. However, since I’m such a stuffy anti-capitalist, I sometimes shy away from “you might want to buy this” posts. Then my inbox fills up and I get into competitive Inbox Zero mode and I realize that one of the things that I like about my readers is that they’re not all like me and so this is why I am posting these.

• Excellent library love t-shirt from Gluekit’s new PartofIt project (launching any day now) which designs neat looking stuff to help raise funds for non-profits.
• Threadless “check out” double entendre t-shirt for your favorite bibliophile
• If you read the BibliOdyssey blog (and you should) you might be pleased to know that there is a companion book full of delightful images from ancient texts. I had the pleasure of meeting PK when I was in Australia and I had no idea something like this was in the works. However, I got a copy last week and while I’m still poring through the frontmatter, the restof it is the real deal. Nice book and the blog post about it has more information on the convoluted process of getting a blog into print with associated rights-haggling etc.
• Lastly, I was cleaning up my house up north and came across a few copies of Revolting Librarians Redux still in their “prepared for mailing” state. If you want one, KR and I are e-baying them off with the proceeds to go to the EFF (or another deserving charity if you’re so inclined). KR and I are pretty geographically dispersed, so signed copies might be a non-option, but ask us and we’ll do what we can. Want a copy? Click here.

Feel free to add other “perfect for the librarian who has everything” links below.

Lezende Vrouwen in de Kunst (women reading, in artworks). The site is in Dutch but you can just click across the century links up top. From the always excellent BibliOdyssey.