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Averting Ohio's Library Funding Crisis

ALA President Jim Rettig describes Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland's proposed 50% cut to state library funding as an "unprecedented national disaster."  

“I encourage all Ohioans to contact the Governor’s office to express their opposition to his proposal to cut library funding and urge Ohio legislators to reject the Governor’s plan,” said Rettig. (See the ALA press release.)

Nationwide, the crisis in library funding has been growing since at least last Fall.  But since Playaway is a homegrown Northeast Ohio company, folks here can't help but feel an extra measure of concern now that the problem has caught us where we live.  Libraries are our customers of course, but we are library patrons and library supporters too.

Yesterday a group of Playaway employees joined over three hundred demonstrators gathered in Cleveland to protest the proposed budget cuts.  You can read about it (and see a short video clip online) in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Across the state, libraries have swiftly mounted a well-organized campaign to warn the public of the consequences of severe cuts and to encourage people to contact representatives to express their concern.  Many local libraries and library systems have posted special splash pages on their websites in order to spread the word.  (Take a look at the home pages for Cleveland Public, Cuyahoga County Public, Rocky River Public, and Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna, OH.) 

Statewide efforts are being coordinated by the Save Ohio Libraries coalition:

http://saveohiolibraries.com/

Google vs. Amazon - Part 1a

They all said I was crazy -- and I probably am -- but a couple of weeks ago I suggested that Google Book Search might well give Amazon and the Kindle a run for the money. 

If you missed it, take a listen to this morning's story on NPR's Morning Edition which develops the idea in some detail. 

In the 21st Century world of high-tech innovation, it's often hard to tell who's crazy and who's not...

Audie Award Winner Hails Libraries

Lots of people were nervous about the Audio Publisher Association’s plans to “streamline” this year’s Audie Award ceremony.   But everyone I’ve spoken with since awards night seems to agree that this year turned out to be a big improvement over 2008.   

Last year’s ceremony lasted well over four hours, and nearly everyone found it to be a bit too much ("interminable" some would say). This year’s affair was much quicker, and at the end of the night, people were in great spirits.  Everyone’s hopes are high that 2010 will be even better. 

Gathering as we did at the beautiful New York Historical society, it was only fitting that award-winning narrator John Lee, should pay tribute to libraries and librarians.

Accepting his Audie for “Best Male Solo Narration” (for Blackstone Audio’s production of The Count of Monte Cristo) Lee fished in his wallet and then held up his library card for all to see.  He pointed out that the audiobook industry owes much of its success to public libraries.  Then he spoke about how much he personally owes to his local library and called on everyone to support their library. 

 John Lee's masterful narration of The Count of Monte Cristo (all 47 unabridged hours of it!) is available on Playaway.

Here's the AudioFile magazine profile of John, including his full "audiography."  Is it just me or does he resemble the fellow on the cover of the book?

In addition to The Count of Monte Cristo, Playaway currently has over two dozen other classic and contemporary titles narrated by John.  Here's the complete list:

Title	Author	Publisher
Absolution Gap	Reynolds, Alastair	Tantor Audio
Cochrane	Cordingly, David	Tantor Audio
Count of Monte Cristo, The	Dumas, Alexandre	Blackstone Audio
Dark Volume, The	Dahlquist, Gordon	Tantor Audio
Dracula	Stoker, Bram	Tantor Audio
Dreaming Void, The	Hamilton, Peter F.	Tantor Audio
Dust	Grimes, Martha	Penguin Audiobooks
Empires of the Sea	Crowley, Roger	Tantor Audio
Even	Grant, Andrew	Blackstone Audio
Far from the Madding Crowd	Hardy, Thomas	Tantor Audio
Glister, The	Burnside, John	Blackstone Audio
House of Suns	Reynolds, Alastair	Tantor Audio
Invisible Wall, The	Bernstein, Harry	Blackstone Audio
Judas Unchained	Hamilton, Peter F.	Tantor Audio
Old Wine Shades, The	Grimes, Martha	Penguin Audiobooks
Pandora's Star	Hamilton, Peter F.	Tantor Audio
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A	Joyce, James	Tantor Audio
Redemption Ark	Reynolds, Alastair	Tantor Audio
Revelation Space	Reynolds, Alastair	Tantor Audio
Robinson Crusoe	Defoe, Daniel	Blackstone Audio
Secret History of the World, The	Booth, Mark	Tantor Audio
Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong	Bayard, Pierre	Tantor Audio
Spartans, The	Cartledge, Paul	Blackstone Audio
Temporal Void, The	Hamilton, Peter F.	Tantor Audio
Thermopylae	Cartledge, Paul	Blackstone Audio
Three Musketeers, The	Dumas, Alexandre	Tantor Audio
Under the Volcano	Lowry, Malcolm	Blackstone Audio
White Fang and The Call of the Wild	London, Jack	Blackstone Audio
White Tiger, The	Adiga, Aravind	Tantor Audio
Worlds At War	Pagden, Anthony	Tantor Audio