James LaRue - myliblog

Thanks to Suzanne for this most intriguing link: "The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education ." I love the links to the players, and their avowed aims.

Mary Minow, librarian and copyright lawyer, has come up with yet another jewel. This one is something for authors. She suggests that they add the following language to their publisher contracts: Author’s Rights To Allow Library Loans Notwithstanding any terms or conditions to the contrary in any author agreement between Author and Publisher, Author shall retain the non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free right to authorize the loaning of digital copies of Author's work, facilitated by libraries on a one-user-at-a-time basis. How's that for bold ? Authors want readers, and libraries are willing to pay the author for every copy they buy. The challenge in the 21st century isn't going to be to get published. It will be to get NOTICED. That hand-selling of favorite authors, that recommending to new readers a wonderful new find, are just what libraries are about. I hope this one will get picked up by LOTS of writers. Well done, Mary!

Just had to go back and remove an apostrophe I'd inserted (in another blog entry) in "hers." I actually typed "her's". The increasing ungrammatical use of the apostrophe can only lead to the entire collapse of civilization. I deeply regret my complicity. I shall strive to do better.

My article for Public Libraries (the January/February issue of 2012) can be found here . A companion piece, written by Monique Sendze, Assistant Director of Information Technology for the Douglas County Libraries, is here . Hers is titled, "The E-Book Experiment." Together, the two do a good job of setting out the issues and defining the broad approach to managing our own e-content. The approach of the Douglas County Libraries has been to focus on solving some problems, not just complaining about them. I believe, as I have said repeatedly, that this is the most exciting time in the history of librarianship -- and of writing. But if we want to do more than be passive observers of sweeping change, then we have to step up our games. Monique's contributions have been enormous.

Thanks to Matt Hamilton for this link to another tool. Looks like this one is more collaborative than Sigil. I'll need to set aside some time to dig into these.

I just got off the phone with my daughter, Maddy, now working on her Master's Degree (in Cultural Translation) in Paris. We got to talking about a recent pattern. People of MY generation (Baby Boomers) stand before people of the rising generation (Millennials) and tell them (the Millennials) that they're screwed. The world, civilization, politics, religion, society, all of it, is crashing to the ground. Run while you can, there's nothing left! I know we don't want to hear it, but the declining years of the Boomers isn't the apocalypse. It's just a grim reminder that we haven't been very good at running things. The next generation doesn't have to play by our rules. And if they have as much sense as they seem to, they almost certainly won't. Or as I told Maddy, I once asked a bright and ambitious young librarian what I could do to help her move up through the profession more quickly. "Quit!" she said.

She's already won more Nebula and Hugo awards than any science fiction writer. And now, Connie Willis (author of so many wonderful books, including "Fire Watch," "Lincoln's Dreams," "Doomsday Book," "Remake," "Passage," "To Say Nothing of the Dog," and the recent "Blackout/All Clear" duology) has been awarded the 2011 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award . That puts her in some pretty rarified company -- the writers who defined science fiction. Robert Heinlein. Ray Bradbury. Isaac Asimov. Arthur Clarke. The honor is absolutely deserved. I know Connie from the days when I was the Library Administrator of the Greeley Public Library, where Connie wrote "Doomsday Book" on her trademark Indian Chief tablets. She is a woman of uncommon insight and intelligence. She also works hard on her writing. This award marks that transition from just a really good writer, a commercial and critical success, to ...