Free Republic

Every afternoon at Maplewood Middle School’s final bell, dozens of students pour across Baker Street to the public library. Some study quietly. Others, library officials say, fight, urinate on the bathroom floor, scrawl graffiti on the walls, talk back to librarians or refuse to leave when asked. One recently threatened to burn down the branch library. Librarians call the police, sometimes twice a day. As a result, starting on Jan. 16, the Maplewood Memorial Library will be closing its two buildings on weekdays from 2:45 to 5 p.m., until further notice. An institution that, like many nationwide, strives to attract...

Southern Methodist University moved closer Thursday to landing the George W. Bush Presidential Library, giving the school a high-profile chance to polish its image and cement Dallas' close ties to President Bush. The library's site selection committee announced Thursday that it is intensifying discussions with SMU, and a person close to the deliberations said the two other finalists – the University of Dallas and Baylor University – were told they are out of contention unless unforeseen problems crop up. "We're not announcing that [the library is] coming to SMU," university President Gerald Turner said at a news conference, "but this...

Troves of scholarship For 1,500 years, Deir Al-Surian has had a working library. Active steps are now being taken to conserve this rich heritage, says Jill Kamil One of the most well preserved texts is this New Testament Coptic manuscript, 13th century The Coptic monastery known as Deir Al-Surian, or the Monastery of the Syrians, contains more than 3,000 books as well as a vast number of texts in Syriac, Aramaic (the language of Christ), Coptic, Arabic and Ethiopic. They date upwards from the fifth century and today, as a result of the revival in Coptic monasticism in recent years,...

Internet access for the public at the Mount Clemens Public Library has been revoked because of an increase in the number of people looking at sexually explicit material. Advertisement The plug was pulled on the computers earlier this month after employees noticed a "large increase" in visitors using the free Internet service to access what the library termed obscene material in violation of library policies. "There seemed to be a sudden increase in that kind of activity, and it was really bothering me. I thought something needed to be done," said library Director Donald E. Worrell Jr. Library staffers acknowledge...

WASHINGTON - He may be a certified lame duck now, but President Bush and his truest believers are about to launch their final campaign - an eye-popping, half-billion-dollar drive for the Bush presidential library. Eager to begin refurbishing his tattered legacy, the President hopes to raise $500 million to build his library and a think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Bush lived in Dallas until he was elected governor of Texas in 1995. Bush sources with direct knowledge of library plans told the Daily News that SMU and Bush fund-raisers hope to get half of the half billion...

SAVANNAH, Mo. – Three years after she was fired for refusing to work on Sundays, Connie Rehm has won back her job on the staff of this small town's public library, and her employers have received a costly education in employment rights law. No less a legal team than the same Florida attorneys who represented the parents of Terri Schiavo – the brain-damaged woman at the center of last year's right-to-die case – took up Rehm's cause, suing Rolling Hills Consolidated Library on a claim of religious discrimination. A federal jury found in her favor after a three-day trial in...

LOS ANGELES A camera phone captured a UCLA student being shot with a stun gun by a police officer after he allegedly refused repeated requests to show his student identification and would not leave a campus library, university police said Wednesday. The incident occurred about 11 p.m. Tuesday after police did a routine check of student ID at the Powell Library computer lab. "This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours," said UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. She said police tried to escort Mostafa Tabatabainejad, 23, out of the library after...

Hi all I thought maybe some of you would find this helpfull. I have a site of 4000+ Christian books, magazines, images, audio files, and video files. All free of course. As far as I know all files are in the public domain or have liberal copyrights so you should be fine using them on your own websites or giving them to people. Enjoy:) http://www.thebibleproject.com Also a discaimer. I am putting the books on the site I like and find helpfull. But if you find something you do not like feel free to message me in private and we can...

Keep Arkansas Legal, a new immigration reform group in the Central Arkansas area, will meet at the Roosevelt Thompson Libray from 3:00pm-6:00pm Saturday October 7th (Terry Library was booked). We will discuss what to do for the election and the upcoming legistlative session. We will then have a general discussion about illegal immigration. address: Roosevelt Thompson Library 38 Rahling Circle Little Rock, AR 72223 You can go to this link and type the address for a map http://maps.yahoo.com/" We also have a volunteer opportunity. The Lagrone campaign has given a neighborhood in Chenal called The Village to do door to...

KIDS, PORN AND POLITICS Sunday, September 10, 2006 David Reinhard, Assoc. Ed. The Oregonian Editorial Rob Brading had a chance to stand up for children and blew it -- twice. The Democratic challenger to House Speaker Karen Minnis had a chance to champion the common-sense notion that children are different than adults and said nothing -- twice. Brading had a chance to protect kids from pornography when they're in Multnomah County public libraries and did nothing -- twice. First, as a member of the Multnomah County Library Advisory Board, he voted for the county to join with the American Civil...

"Jittery" was how Barbara Dimick, Madison's head librarian, described the zeitgeist in her profession as the Patriot Act was rolled out in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Five years later, Dimick said her staff tells her that the law, which allows the government access to library records without a court order, "doesn't come into play." But Dimick says she can't say whether the Madison Public Library ever received a request for records under the act. "That's the gag order part," she said. The Patriot Act was amended slightly when it was reauthorized in March. The...

<p>WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is often accused of an obsession with secrecy, and critics say the case of the Justice Department versus Connecticut librarians proves their point.</p> <p>Documents once kept secret in a now closed terrorism inquiry reveal that government lawyers kept secret a newspaper article and several references to Supreme Court opinions that undercut government arguments for secrecy.</p>

This spring, in my capacity as publisher of Encounter Books, I had the honor to publish Melanie Phillips's book Londonistan, a brilliant, but also harrowing, look at the ways in which radical Islam has established itself in England. The book carries endorsements from such well respected experts on the subject as Natan Sharansky, Daniel Pipes, and Steve Emerson. It has been widely reviewed here and in England, to admiring praise from those (like me) who regard radical Islam as a terrible threat, and to sometime hysterical consternation from those who believe that Islam is a religion of peace or who...

52 REASONS NOT TO MOW 37 WAYS TO HELP TREES Please download with 100% cotton, rice, recycled, or scrap paper Ron Howard, director of A Beautiful Mind and many other films,made his first film at age 8.. an anti mowing film which showed the nature of mowers' attacks on lawns. Art Buchwald: People shouldn't be judged by the length of their grass. In 2003 through now, the world has seen floods, famine, fire, mudslides, hurricanes, tornados and other disasters created by the unprecedented destruction of trees around the world. Trees are nature's weather stabilizers. We need trillions of trees.. new...

Have you visited your local library lately? Better yet, have you visited its website? A startling array of resources may now be available online, including broad databases of publications, electronic books that can be checked out, and reference librarians who can be queried -- all from the comfort of your home PC. At least that's the case with my local St. Louis County Library. The library has been adding resources to its website over the past decade, starting with its catalog of books. That alone is a great service -- I can see what books are available, or order them...

FORT HUACHUCA — Fort officials dedicate the post’s Military Intelligence Library to Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Nason in a ceremony at 8 a.m. Friday. Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, and Nason’s sister, Gena Nason, will unveil a plaque honoring him. Nason, a Fort Huachuca military intelligence Soldier, died Nov. 23, 2003, of injuries sustained in a vehicular accident in Iraq. He was assigned to Company A, 306th Military Intelligence Battalion on the fort and had volunteered to serve a temporary yearlong assignment in Iraq. The Military Intelligence Library serves the...

SUMMERVILLE (AP) (--) The Dorchester County Library Board is on the front lines of a fight to put a book refuting current history written about the Civil War on its shelves. "The South Was Right!," written by Sons of Confederate Veterans members and brothers James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy of Louisiana, states the Confederacy had the right to be a free nation and most of what is taught in this country is false and misleading. A crowd of about 50 people, mostly members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in St. George and Moncks Corner, pleaded for the ...

LAPD has shut down the Los Angeles Central Library (the Riordan Library) and closed off 5th Street between Flower and Grand. Lots of LAPD and LA Fire on site. Several LAPD Bomb Squad cars and personnel there to.

Librarian Ensnared in Privacy Conflict Saturday, July 1, 2006 By MERRY FIRSCHEIN STAFF WRITER Can a librarian withhold information from the police and claim the public's right to privacy trumps catching a potential criminal? That question is at the center of a debate raging in Hasbrouck Heights and is one that constitutional law and privacy experts, librarians and law enforcement authorities nationwide are struggling to answer. In May, Hasbrouck Heights library director Michele Reutty refused to turn over circulation records to local police seeking a man who had allegedly made sexually threatening comments to a 12-year-old girl outside the library....

A Baytown woman got pulled over, thinking she'd just get a ticket. Instead, she was arrested and you won't believe why. It's a story that will have you thinking twice about keeping those library books long after they're due. Making sure her eight-year-old son, Jose, is a proficient reader is important to Joanne Ibarra, so books are also important. They just might not be coming from Baytown's Sterling Library anymore. "I don't want to see them. I don't want to see any more books, not right now," laughed Ibarra. Ibarra laughs it off, but it was a serious situation that...