Library of Congress acquires Lee Strasberg collection

The Library of Congress has acquired the initial portion of the personal papers of the American director, producer, actor and acting teacher Lee Strasberg (1901-1982), internationally known for his development of method acting in the Stanislavsky tradition, which deeply influenced performance in American theater and film. The collection has come to the Library as a generous donation by Strasberg's widow, Anna Strasberg of New York City, who noted that she joins son Adam Strasberg in making this gift to the Library of Congress

MLA '12 Annual Meeting and Exhibition (Medical Library Association)

MLA's annual meeting is an opportunity to present and discuss papers, posters, applied research, and important issues in health sciences information management. The event gives MLA members and affiliated professionals a chance to share ideas, hear from experts, see the latest products, network, and socialize. Mark your calendar for May 18–23, 2012, in Seattle, WA

Center for Copyright Information

The Center for Copyright Information was formed as part of a collaborative effort between U.S. content creators in the movie and music industries and leading IPSs to help educate the public and deter copyright infringement and offer information about legal content options and protecting personal computers from unintentional file sharing through P2P networks. CCI Member companies and associations include the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. and its members, the Recording Industry Association of America and its members as well as 5 major ISPs - AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon. Also Independent Film and Television Alliance and American Association of Independent Music (the major associations which represent independent film and music producers) are represented via their association with the MPAA and RIAA. CCI will also benefit from an Advisory Board of consumer advocates, privacy and education specialists and technical experts

Facet Publishing release Information Literacy Beyond Library 2.0

Information Literacy Beyond Library 2.0 is the follow-up to the best-selling Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0, described by the Higher Education Academy as "absolutely essential reading for all library and information practitioners who should read it to improve our libraries". The new book, edited by Peter Godwin and Jo Parker, picks up where Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0 left off. In the last three years the information environment has changed dramatically, becoming increasingly dominated by the social and the mobile. This new book asks where we are now, what is the same and what has changed, and, most crucially, how do we as information professionals respond to the new information literacy and become a central part of the revolution itself?

New journals from Inderscience Publishers

African Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance

African Journal of Economic and Sustainable Development

International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics

International Journal of Social Network Mining

International Journal of Strategic Engineering Asset Management

International Journal of Technology Policy and Law

Maney Journal of the Month - April 2012 - Journal of Field Archaeology

From 1st April to 15th May 2012 Maney is offering free access to all content in the Journal of Field Archaeology from the last 3 years

The US 1940 census records released today

The 1940 census records were released by the US National Archives April 2, 2012, and brought online through a partnership with Archives.com. This website allows you full access to the 1940 census images, in addition to 1940 census maps and descriptions

Discovery - the National Archives' new catalogue (UK)

This year we will be replacing our current Catalogue and DocumentsOnline service with Discovery. Discovery is The National Archives' new catalogue, providing a new way to explore our collections. Discovery is much more than a replacement for the current Catalogue, as it has been designed to host, search and display the many different databases and datasets held at The National Archives. By doing so it provides a more robust and integrated system to manage current and future data and storage needs, along with a consistent and seamless user experience

LISTen: An LISNews.org Program -- Episode #192

LISTen: An LISNews.org Program -- Episode #192. "This week's episode is a bit unconventional yet posted early on April 1st.". Previous Podcasts/Programs can be found here

Information Today - April 2012 issues

The April 2012 issues of Computers in Libraries, Information Today, and Searcher, are now available

Directory of Open Access Journals - recently added titles

Law, Crime & History

Zdravniski Vestnik

Journal of Lasers in Medical Sciences

New from Bodleian Library Publishing - A Dance Through Time: Images of Western Social Dancing from the Middle Ages to Modern Times

From medieval dances of courtship and celebration to Strictly Come Dancing and hip hop, this richly illustrated book encompasses 700 years of social dance. A knees-up at a country fair, a pair of dancing ogres, children round a maypole, ballroom champions, decadent masquerade, and celebrations at Piccadilly Circus on VE day all feature in this enchanting survey of dance illustration through the centuries. What do these vibrant, often elegant and sometimes irreverent images reveal to us about the history of social dancing and changing attitudes towards the dance floor? Jeremy Barlow shows how over the centuries, artists and illustrators have represented dance in a stylized and often humorous manner, with curved, flowing lines for the gracious dancer and angular postures for the uncouth, rustic, or exhibitionistic performer. He also reveals how artists have responded in imaginative ways to the challenge of how to convey a sense of the dancer's movement through a frozen moment in print. A central theme is the age-old tension between decorum and licence on the dance floor, a tension that culminated in the advent of jive and untutored vitality of rock'n' roll. Not ‘strictly ballroom’, Victor Silvester's first-hand account of the jitterbug craze in the 1940s concluded that, 'All lifts, throws and other exaggerated movements should be entirely eliminated. These movements are acrobatics, which is not dancing, and quite unsuitable for the ballroom.' The book draws on a wide range of materials in the Bodleian Library, including fourteenth-century manuscripts, satirical prints, dance cards, and invitations to balls. Each image is carefully analysed for what it can reveal to us about behavioural codes and satirical intent, providing an unusual insight into the social history and imagery of dance

Kathleen Hegarty named 2012 winner of ASCLA Execptional Service Award

The Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASCLA) will posthumously honor Kathleen Hegarty, Boston Public Library (retired), with the 2012 ASCLA Exceptional Service Award. The ASCLA Exceptional Service Award is a citation presented to recognize exceptional service to patients, to the homebound, to people of all ages who live in group homes or residences and to inmates, as well as to recognize professional leadership, effective interpretation of programs, pioneering activity and significant research of experimental projects. Hegarty was notified of winning the award prior to her death on Jan. 28, 2012

11th Southern African Online Information Meeting 2012

11th Southern African Online Information Meeting (SAOIM) - Innovation in an age of limits - 5 to 8 June 2012 - Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa

Bioscience Reports to convert to full open-access

The Biochemical Society has announced that its peer-reviewed journal, Bioscience Reports will be accepting submissions for Open Access from 2nd April with the first full open access issue available from August 2012. All papers published from the August issue will be freely available online and subscriptions will no longer be charged from January 2013

Nature Publishing Group to co-publish new OA journal Light: Science & Applications

Light: Science & Applications publishes high quality optics and photonics research from around the world. The Journal covers fundamental research as well as the important issues in engineering and applied sciences that are related to optics and photonics. Light: Science & Applications is an open access fully peer-reviewed publication.

Wikidata

Wikidata aims to create a free knowledge base about the world that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike. It will provide data in all the languages of the Wikimedia projects, and allow for the central access to data in a similar vein as Wikimedia Commons does for multimedia files. Wikidata is proposed as a new Wikimedia hosted and maintained project

Peru Nobel laureate donates library to hometown

Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa will donate more than 30,000 books from his personal library to his hometown of Arequipa, where he was celebrating his 76th birthday. "A first installment of the books, properly classified" will be donated next year, the writer said during a ceremony in his honor. The books are planned to be delivered to Arequipa's Cultural Center, which administers the house where Vargas Llosa was born and will convert it into a museum in 2013. The author of "The Dream of Celt" said he decided to donate his library after "feeling very dedicated" to Arequipa for the love its people had shown him. Vargas Llosa said his more than 30,000 books are spread between residences in Lima, Madrid and Paris

Earth Hour - 30 March 2012

Hundreds of millions of people, businesses and governments around the world unite each year to support the largest environmental event in history - Earth Hour. More than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour 2011 alone, sending a powerful message for action on climate change. It also ushered in a new era with members going Beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action for the planet. Without a doubt, it's shown how great things can be achieved when people come together for a common cause

Podcast: Business Archives: new initiatives and developments (UK)

This podcast looks at the background to company archives and the recent development of national strategies to promote business archives more widely. The talk focuses on individual projects under way to improve storage and access to the records of companies, such as Marks & Spencer and Clarks Shoes and gives an update on the current architecture, building and construction survey. Alex Ritchie is the Business Archives Advice Manager at The National Archives. He has had a long involvement with business history and archives at both The National Archives and the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. He is best known as the author of The Shipbuilding Industry: a Guide to Historical Records (1992) and has been a major contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography