Hang on to your Hats, LOTR fans!

Now there's a musical in the works. I find it odd that they were unable to book any theatre in London, but evidently that sort of thing has to be booked farther in advance than I assumed.

--Oyarsa

No UK premiere for Rings musical

The producers behind the Lord of the Rings musical have abandoned plans to premiere the show in London because no suitable theatre was available.
The £11.5m show will make its debut in Toronto in March 2006, after it was found that all three West End theatres with sufficient capacity were booked.

The musical is not expected in London before December 2006.

Producer Kevin Wallace said it would be "worth waiting for". "It will be like nothing they have ever seen before."

"I know there will be a lot of disappointed British Tolkien fans who hoped to see the show in London, but we couldn't get a London theatre in time," added the British producer.

The world premiere of the stage musical, co-produced by Canadian theatrical impresarios David and Ed Mirvish, will take place at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre next year.


Read more about it here

Yahoo! May Monetize Library Archives

Yahoo! May Monetize Library Archives
by Gavin O'Malley, Tuesday, Oct 4, 2005 6:00 AM EST
WHILE GOOGLE STRUGGLES TO DEFEND its own book archival project against copyright infringement charges, rival Yahoo! on Monday said it had embarked on its own initiative to make the archives of various libraries searchable by any search engine.

For the initiative, Yahoo! has entered into a partnership with several groups, including the Internet Archive, Adobe Systems Inc., HP Labs, and the University of California. The newly formed Open Content Alliance will run the venture.
The new alliance will begin almost entirely with texts in the public domain, but will eventually move on to copyrighted texts, at which point advertising possibilities may arise, according to Yahoo!'s Vice President of Search Content David Mandelbrot.

"We have not started talking to advertisers yet, because our main focus right now is the archiving project itself," said Mandelbrot. "There is definitely the possibility to monetize this content in the future, but we still haven't decided whether we're going to."

Providing the initial content--including books and multimedia such as spoken word audio, video, and music--will be The University of California, The University of Toronto, the European Archive, the National Archives in the U.K., O'Reilly Media, and Prelinger Archives.

"Today, a lot of people go to libraries for the multimedia content, so it was important to include as much as we could in the project," Mandelbrot said.

Asked about the advertising that might accompany such content, Mandelbrot said it was too early to speculate about the details of future opportunities.

The Authors Guild sued Google last week, alleging that its scanning of copyright protected books infringes copyright, even if only small excerpts are displayed in search results as Google plans. Google has publicly maintained that the project adheres to the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law, which allows excerpts from certain texts.

In August, Google suspended its scanning of copyrighted books until Nov. 1.

The Internet Archive, a non-profit founded to make historical collections that exist in digital format publicly available, will host the content, and Hewlett-Packard Labs is providing technology for scanning books.

What the heck was the babysitter thinking?

Babysitting a child is NOT the time to be sitting on a computer. Sorry. That's an off-job activity. When you are in charge of a kid, especially in a public place you better watch your kids like a hawk. This WON'T be a one time occurence. She's lucky that they were able to stop the child molestor this time.

To parents: please take this as a warning. What happened to this unfortunate little girl could happen to your own children in any public place. Watch them closely. Never assume a library is a safe place.

To my fellow librarians: I think this illustrates very clearly WHY parents freak out when indigents flock in libraries. This is a parent's worst nightmare nearly-come-true. We as a profession need to stop dismissing their fears. As a profession, we need to discuss what we can do to discourage child molestors from using the library as a place to stalk, kidnap, or abuse children.
*****************

Police arrest homeless sex offender in library

DES MOINES, Iowa Des Moines police say a homeless man who's a registered sex offender sexually assaulted a toddler at the downtown public library.

Police arrested 32-year-old James Effler Junior after library workers removed a restroom door to free the girl. Effler is charged with first-degree kidnapping, second-degree sexual abuse and failure to comply with rules of the state's sex offender registry.

Investigators say Effler grabbed the 20-month-old girl as she played near a computer being used by her babysitter and took the child into a men's room.

Workers searching for the girl heard her cry from the restroom, which was locked. They removed the door and held Effler until police arrived.

Effler was convicted in Texas two years ago for a sex crime against a 31-year-old woman.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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New Wheaton College acquisitions

Spelling changes mine & are included in brackets. Should you do a search for the source, please take note of the misspelling--Oyarsa

W[h]eaton College has Lewis' Desk, Wardrobe on Display
04 Oct 2005 by Paul Martin

Contributing sources: W[h]eaton.edu

From TheOneLion: I thought you'd be interested in a six week seminar taking place on Wheaton College campus in Wheaton, Illinois. It includes a visit to the Wade Center where CS Lewis' desk and wardrobe are on display and JRR Tolkein's desk is on display. You can even touch them and kids can step into the wardrobe where fur coats are a'hanging. The Wade Center is an amazing little library/museum full of fantastic British authors works and some very interesting Tolkein original writings and other items related to The Lord of the Rings. The seminar is as follows and meets in the Rolland Center cafe - lower level. An as-of-now unscheduled trip to see the anticipated movie that we are all anticipating.

From W[h]eaton.edu: The Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College, Illinois, houses a major research collection of the books and papers of seven British authors: Owen Barfield, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. These writers are well known for their impact on contemporary literature and Christian thought. Together they produced over four hundred books including novels, drama, poetry, fantasy, children's books, and Christian treatises. Overall, the Wade Center has more than 11,000 volumes including first editions and critical works. Other holdings on the seven authors include letters, manuscripts, audio and video tapes, artwork, dissertations, periodicals, photographs, and related materials. Any of these resources may be studied in the quiet surroundings of the Kilby Reading Room.

In addition, the Wade Center has a museum where such pieces as C.S. Lewis's family wardrobe and writing desk, Charles Williams's bookcases, J.R.R. Tolkien's desk, Pauline Baynes's original map of Narnia, and a tapestry from Dorothy L. Sayers's home can be viewed. Photographs, rare books and manuscripts, and other small items of memorabilia round off the displays. A current exhibit, entitled "The Craft of Detective Fiction", details the contributions made by G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy L. Sayers to the genre of detective fiction.

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