A Great Opportunity for Library Advocacy

Link to July 25 Eau Claire Leader Telegraph article, "Council seeking more public input on budget".

Excerpt: The council has solicited public budget input at the past couple of meetings, and so far budget advice has been nearly nonexistent as people haven't turned out to talk about city finances. [RG's emphasis.] Council members hope that changes as the council's approval of the budget in November nears.

"Hopefully we will have more people showing up at the start of our meetings, but we haven't had much success with that yet," councilman Bob Von Haden said.

Author of Family History Unhappy with Google Library Project

Link to July 26 Capital Times article, "Is Google-UW book deal fair to authors?"

Excerpt: UW-Madison joined the Google project in 2006, and expanded its agreement with the company on July 8. To date, the university has digitized about 200,000 works from University Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society -- including a 177-page book Fevens authored and owns the copyright to: "Fevens, a family history."

The 55-year-old unemployed carpenter, lobster fisherman and jack-of-all-trades living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, stumbled across his work in the Google book archives on May 13 while poking around the Internet.

According to Fevens, the Google book search indicated that the online copy of "Fevens, a family history" had been scanned from UW-Madison's archives.

Although the whole book wasn't available online -- only a few lines of text, or what Google calls "snippets," were shown -- Fevens was nonetheless outraged.

McMillan Library has Lots to Offer

Link to July 25 Wisconsin Rapids Tribune column Library Director Ron McCabe, "From music to movies, library entertains".

Excerpt: Here at McMillan Library, the library fountain is bubbling away while children and teens enjoy reading and special summer library program events. The Circus Manduhai will perform at 1:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Wednesday to conclude the summer library program. June broke our previous record for the most loans in one month with 47,448 library materials loaned to the public. On July 16, 255 people attended the performance of blues guitarists Bob Bingham and Gordon Thorne.