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ALA to Libraries: Keep Alms for Jihad, Pulped in the UK Andrew Albanese & Jennifer Pinkowski -- Library Journal At the urging of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), a scholarly book pulped by its British publisher is maintaining a safe haven in U.S. libraries. Alms for Jihad was the target of a potential libel suit in England by Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose charitable activities have reportedly been linked to terrorist activities, as conveyed in the book. In response, publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP) pulped its unsold copies of the book, put it out of...

Peter McDonald, American Library Association [ALA] Councilor and Dean of Library Services at Fresno State, has publicly defamed American troops with known false misinformation, but you be the judge. In an open letter to the ALA Council, Mr. McDonald said: "Where's Mr. Kent's outrage on this travesty where, if we're talking library-related, the prisoners' Korans have been routinely desecrated by soldiers and where they have NO freedom to read?" ....

A new kind of Library has opened, where instead of books you can borrow a Muslim - or a single father, or a transvestite, for a chat. Alex Forsyth volunteers to be lent as a ‘book’, and asks whether this concept can really help break down stereotypes. A Muslim, a Catholic and a transsexual are sitting in a library. An opener to a joke this is not: It is the Living Library – where, instead of books, you borrow people. You pick a person for a 30-minute dialogue in which you can ask questions, engage in meaningful discourse or simply...

An Ohio county public library has closed its meeting rooms to the public rather than allow them to be used by a Christian group. George and Cathy Vandergriff wanted to host a Crown Financial Ministries "Financial Freedom" workshop in a public meeting room at the Clermont County, Ohio, public library. Tim Chandler, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), says the couple was told that, because the class would be quoting from the Bible, they could not hold it at the library. "The Supreme Court said, more than 25 years ago, that once you've opened up meeting space, you...

ST. LOUIS | The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri has filed a lawsuit against the city of Poplar Bluff after a library worker claims she was disciplined for failing to work at an event to promote a Harry Potter book. Anthony Rothert with the ACLU in St. Louis says the woman, Deborah Smith, is a Southern Baptist who believes the Harry Potter series popularizes witchcraft and the practice of the occult. He says she was suspended without pay for 10 days when she refused to work at a library event on July 21, 2007, for the release of...

Two men raped a mentally retarded teenager in the bathroom at the Brooklyn Public Library's Central branch on Grand Army Plaza on April 14, cops said. According to police, the victim, who suffers from Down Syndrome and cannot communicate verbally, did not indicate to her family that something had happened to her, but her relatives figured out that she was in pain and took her to the hospital. Once there, doctors discovered trauma and other evidence that she had been sexually assaulted, cops said. A spokeswoman for the library said it was unaware of the incident. She said the library...

A former Ohio State University librarian accused of sexual harassment after recommending a conservative book for freshmen has filed a lawsuit against the university and some of its faculty. Scott Savage, who said he resigned because of personal and professional attacks on his character, asks for his job back and for OSU to be forced to change its sexual-harassment policies. OSU is "an aggressive proponent of the homosexual lifestyle by virtue of its practices and policies," Savage says in the lawsuit, filed in federal court because he says his civil rights were violated. "OSU is therefore a naturally hostile environment...

Leftist faculty and clergy have waged a long, sometimes nasty battle to keep Southern Methodist (SMU) University in Dallas from hosting the Bush Library. They have insisted that the library will tie SMU to the Bush Administration’s supposedly sinister policies of preemptive war, “torture,” uncontrolled Global Warming, and puritanical repression. But SMU’s board of trustees has finally voted unanimously in favor of the library. Diehard opponents vow to fight on. “This fight is not over,” declared an angry Rev. Andrew Weaver to the United Methodist News Service. Weaver is an ordained United Methodist minister and New York City psychologist who...

CH-UH library postpones ‘anti-Israel’ documentary BY: DOUGLAS J. GUTH Senior Staff Reporter The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library has postponed a three-part series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid concerns from Jewish residents that the program would be biased against

President Bush said Thursday that he would probably accept foreign donations to build his presidential library in Dallas and would consider keeping the donors’ names confidential if they do not want to be identified. The comments, at a White House news conference, were the first time Mr. Bush had talked in any detail about his plans for the library, which will be at Southern Methodist University, the alma mater of First Lady Laura Bush. But his detail was scant. “We just announced the deal,” he said, “and I, frankly, have been focused elsewhere, like on gasoline prices and, you know,...

YORBA LINDA, Calif. — When Patricia Cosby's 12-year-old daughter brought home the novel "Prep" from school, she was horrified to find out what her daughter was reading. "It was really like reading something that was pornographic," Cosby said. Her daughter found the book -- which is part of an accelerated reading program -- in the Heritage Oak School library in Yorba Linda, Calif. "When the book first came home I couldn't sleep the first night," Patricia Cosby said. "I just kept waking up and I just had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach."

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

Gunmen destroy Gaza Strip's YMCA library, kidnap guards Jerusalem Post, Israel - Feb 16, 2008 Hamas policemen who rushed to the scene discovered another bomb in the library that had not exploded. Although no group claimed responsibility, ...

DALLAS (AP) - Some Methodist ministers are making a final yet improbable attempt to stop George W. Bush's presidential library, museum and public policy institute from being built at Southern Methodist University. They say United Methodist law requires approval from the church's South Central Jurisdiction, whose 290 delegates meet in July. The opponents say at least one-third of the delegates are against the Bush institute because it will promote his administration's policies that they feel conflict with church teachings. "Let it be a topic of discussion and debate, and let the decision be made at the jurisdiction meeting," said the...

Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Kevin Madden (857) 288-6390 National Review's Jim Geraghty: "When Romney takes his shots at McCain, it's both strong and fair - he acknowledges that McCain has some areas in which he's a conservative, but he takes several fair shots - McCain Feingold; voting against the Bush tax cuts twice (McCain noted earlier that he had voted to make them permanent)." (Jim Geraghty, " How Rarely I Get To Write This: Romney Takes McCain To School," National Review's The Campaign Spot, http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/, Posted 1/30/08) - Geraghty: "I like that Romney says that the original...

More than half of Americans visited a library in the past year with many of them drawn in by the computers rather than the books, according to a survey released on Sunday. Of the 53 percent of U.S. adults who said they visited a library in 2007, the biggest users were young adults aged 18 to 30 in the tech-loving group known as Generation Y, the survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said. "These findings turn our thinking about libraries upside down," said Leigh Estabrook, a professor emerita at the University of Illinois and co-author of a...

GARDEN CITY LIBRARY 6015 Glenwood St., Garden City, ID 83714 November 15, 2007 My Name My Address Mr. MyName, The Garden City Library Board of Trustees met on November 14, 2007 to discuss your request for reconsideration of the dvd titled “El Che”. The Board thanks you for your interest in the Garden City Library Collection. All of the Board members did have a chance to view this video prior to the meeting. The consensus of the Board was that the movie is a historic document that represents a fairly realistic portrait of an “Icon”. The Board does not condone...

Clinton library a closed bookFew of ex-first lady's files released by her husband's archive By Mike Dorning | Tribune national correspondent November 12, 2007 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Visitors to the gleaming glass-and-steel William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library can see the former First Lady Hillary Clinton's gold-embroidered 1997 inaugural ball gown and hear Clinton extol his wife's contributions to his administration. In time, Hillary Clinton "will deserve a lot of the credit" for the comprehensive health coverage that the former president predicts is on the horizon, he gushes in the audio for an exhibit celebrating "The Work of the First...

WASHINGTON -- The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is unable to find or account for tens of thousands of valuable mementos of Reagan's White House years because a "near universal" security breakdown left the artifacts vulnerable to pilfering by insiders, an audit by the National Archives inspector general has concluded. Inspector General Paul Brachfeld said that his office was investigating allegations that a former employee stole Reagan memorabilia but that the probe had been hampered by the facility's sloppy record-keeping. "We have been told by sources that a person who had access capability removed holdings," Brachfeld said in an interview. "But...

Ruling Could Speed Release Of Records From Clinton LibraryThis article was published on Friday, October 5, 2007 10:06 PM CDT in News By Andrew DeMillo THE MORNING NEWS LITTLE ROCK -- Former President Bill Clinton will have limited time to review thousands of documents archivists have cleared for release from his presidential library in Arkansas because of a recent court ruling, federal officials say. About 26,000 pages of documents have been processed by archivists and forwarded to Clinton and the White House for their review, according to spokeswoman Susan Cooper of the National Archives, which manages the presidential library system....