...at least when we're not obsessing over tabloid murder dramas:

A university president has maintained on ongoing research project, attempting to rank America's Most Literate Cities:

This study attempts to capture one critical index of our nation’s social health—the literacy of its major cities (population of 250,000 and above). This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

Boston currently ranks 8th. Some might quarrel that it's not higher, and the absence of cities such as NYC lead one to question the statistical measures used, but it's fun to peruse: http://www.ccsu.edu/amlc08/ [link corrected]

Intellectual Freedom Committee
Massachusetts

IF Programming. IF Materials. Grey Literature.
Please look into developing intellectual freedom programming and materials for our public library reference desk department in Cambridge about intellectual freedom and grey literature.

Deflecting. Delay. Denial.
Our Reference Desk Department deflected, delayed, denied access to our municipal public documents.

Information policies. Presentation of services.

The Cambridge Public Library
http://www.cambridgepubliclibrary.org/announce.htm
We expect to welcome you to the beautifully renovated and expanded Main Library this autumn.

To prepare for our move the Library located at 359 Broadway (Longfellow School) will be closed after January 31st.

All branch locations will remain open.

The Central Square Branch will have extended hours starting February 2nd.

Updates will be made available at every branch location.
http://www.cambridgepubliclibrary.org/announce.htm

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is getting feedback, comments, concerns and suggestions about the VirtCat, the Virtual Catalog

Digital Restrictions protest photos. Boston Public Library
http://www.flickr.com/photos/makoshark/sets/72157600127273939/show/with/2255532118/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/makoshark/

MAKOSHARK IS STRONG

Many people haven't yet used interlibrary loan readily available at our branch public libraries for books, audio and video not on the shelves within the immediate Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville and other Massachusetts' libraries systems.

Better software is being developed for tracking what titles library users/customers/consumers ask for.

Alternately new book suggestions, audio suggestions and video suggestions can be submitted for local branch libraries' collections.

Hints, tips and pointers for more effective use of interlibrary loan...

Branch Boston public libraries

Many people haven't yet used interlibrary loan readily available at our branch public libraries for books, audio and video not on the shelves within the immediate Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville and other Massachusetts' libraries systems.

Better software is being developed for tracking what titles library users/customers/consumers ask for.

Alternately new book suggestions, audio suggestions and video suggestions can be submitted for local branch libraries' collections.

Hints, tips and pointers for more effective use of interlibrary loan...

Branch Boston public libraries

By John Markoff
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/27/business/library.php

The Boston Public Library is also interested in scanning local Boston and Massachusetts documents and is in the process of creating its own digital archive.

Boston Public Library President Bernard A. Margolis
Massachusetts
http://bpl.org/general/seniorstaff.htm

Dear Bernard A. Margolis,

Problematical library use.
Please arrange it so that permanent URLs for entries in the BPL catalog at http://bpl.org
can be referred to for letting other library users/customers/consumers
know about a book's catalog entry.

Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

[ photo by Robert Spencer ]
Bernard Margolis, president of The Boston Public Library.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

by Katie Hafner
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/technology/22library.html