ibookwatch

A number of high profile organizations, including major media companies like the New York Times, the Associated Press, Gannett, and Tribune, as well as librarians, free speech advocates, and legal scholars, have filed amicus briefs urging the Appeals Court to overturn judge Deborah Batts’ injunction barring U.S. publication of Fredrik Colting's 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Story at Publisher's Weekly

Story in School Library Journal Cushing Academy, the nation’s oldest co-ed boarding school, hopes to be a model for 21-century learning by getting rid of its entire library print collection. The 144-year-old school, located near Boston in Ashburnham, MA, is giving away or tossing its 20,000 book collection for 18 digital readers, enhanced electronic databases, flat-screen TVs, and laptop-equipped study cubicles—at a cost of about $500,000. Cushing headmaster James Tracy explained that the library is the "nicest space on campus" and that bookshelves wasted precious space that could be put to better use. The library will be transformed into an interactive learning center, faculty lounge, with a $50,000 cyber café and $12,000 cappuccino machine. "Students never open a book in the library," Tracy told School Library Journal, pointing to an in-house study that shows an average of 48 books in circulation on any given day, 30 of which are juvenile books checked out by the ...