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T
HIS month we begin with law and order in the library sector, after a number of incidents came to our attention.
The first story comes from Arizona, where the chief of police is in hot water over a missing gun.
Bryan Jarrell, Chief of Prescott Valley Police Department, noticed his gun was missing four days after visiting the local library and says he must have left it in one of the bathrooms after using it to get changed. He reported the loss to the… police, who are currently searching for it. Mediawatching’s advice is to sit tight and wait until the three week loan period is up (
http://bit.ly/2j18J5B). Elsewhere in the US and three inmates at Wakulla County jail in Florida used the prison library as their gateway to freedom. Joel Teraill Cooper, Donald James Cotterman and Casey Brandon Martina used “a breach of the ceiling in our Law Library,” according to the sheriff’s office, before “making their way across the building above the ceiling to an exit point where they made their escape.” Again, Mediawatching suggests waiting the requisite three weeks and we’re sure the inmates will be back behind bars rather than risk a fine for a late return. (
http://abcn.ws/2ipTEtO). Moving closer to home and on to another prolific criminal mind – this time in the form of novelist Ian Rankin. Kate Eggleston has been in touch to point out that the author has recently laid the “blame” for his often violent take on crime on his local library. He told BBC One’s The One Show that as a boy growing up in Glasgow, no one stopped him taking any kind of book from the library – meaning he was able to foster his imagination unencumbered by any hint of censorship. Kate adds: “I am glad he just left it to writing about and not doing the crime.”
Moving away from criminal behaviour, but staying with the shadier side of life on the internet and recent revelations about Russian-funded propaganda on social media. The FT reports on Facebook’s attempts to reassure
December-January 2017/18
Tony explains that “I have been downsizing my collection of ephemera and one I noticed (from a very long time ago) might fill a corner of your column.” Indeed it might. The piece in question is a recruitment advert from a distant ancestor of this magazine, the Library Association Record of November 1982. The advertised post is for a Deputy Branch Librarian in the Wood Street Library of Waltham Forest. Tony says: “Presumably they were looking for someone with a certain veneer plus an interest in pulp fiction and who wasn’t thick as two short planks.” Finally, sticking with 1982, we learn of a “pinch-me moment” for a die-hard Paul McCartney fan, who also happens to be a librarian. Sarah Lindenbaum of Bloomington, Illinois recently travelled to New Jersey to see the former Beatle in concert. She took along a sign, referencing his 1982-penned song Ballroom Dancing – asking the star “Ballroom Dance with a vegetarian librarian?”
Making a break for it – lax security in prison library helps inmates taste freedom.
Sir Paul, famously vegetarian, picked up on the sign and invited her on stage for “some playful banter, an awkward solo ballroom dance, and then a hug”, according to WGLT website (http://bit. ly/2juktgm).
US Congress that it can control advertising (
http://on.ft.com/2g6fm8q). However, Harvard Professor Ben Edelmen is quoted as saying: “The typical librarian in an elementary school library has more training than Facebook managers who are the decision makers.” Thanks to Chris Leftley, Librarian at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford.
Taking a leap back in time for our next item, which has only taken 35 years to reach us – thanks to Tony Doyle for not wasting any time in sending it to us. Actually,
She told the website: “My husband said to me afterwards, ‘So if someone asks you what the best day of your life was, are you going to say your wedding day or the day you met Paul McCartney?’ “I replied, ‘Um.’”
Surely now she has featured on the hallowed pages of Mediawatching she will have no hesitation about the best day of her life. Thanks to Iain Baird, Academic Librarian (Health and Social Care), at Teeside University, who also happens to be a die-hard McCartney fan – just one who has never met him. IP
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