In addition to the “Well Stacked Sci-brarians” who took home the gold DEMCO grand prize book cart, California’s myth-busting teams were the “Bibliotechies” of St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano, “California Girls” of the California School Library Association’s Southern Section, “Call Number 007” of the Riverside County Library System (west), the “Dancing Raisinettes” of the Fresno County Library, and the “Palm Desert Library Cart Attacks” of the Riverside County Library System.

To watch SMPL’s Norma Angel, Diane Bednarski, Rachel Foyt, Lana Fukushima, Shana Johnson, Simran Khalsa, Christa Muscatine, Donnae Tidwell, Ann Wagner, and Ivy Weston perform their routine, visit the official YouTube link at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZAL0bcO_k8&NR=1. 

For more information about the Book Cart Drill Team World Championship competition, visit the American Library Association’s website at www.ala.org. 

On July 20, the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research at the University of California, Riverside received a Larry L. Sautter Silver Award for Achievement in University Computing for development of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. This University of California system-wide award recognizes “innovative deployment of information technology in support of the University's mission.”

The software developed for the California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) incorporates unique features for processing and displaying digital newspapers. The Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) is currently beta testing the software and plans to make it available to libraries next year.

The CDNC is an on-going program of the CBSR to digitize historical California newspapers and make them freely accessible to the public. The CBSR has digitized over 200,000 pages of California newspapers spanning the years 1846-1911. They include the Alta California, 1849-1889; the Sacramento Union, 1851-1895; the San Francisco Call, 1900-1910; the Amador Ledger, 1900-1911; the Imperial Valley Press, 1901-1911; the Los Angeles Herald, 1905-1907; and very early California newspapers from 1846-1851: the Californian; the California Star; the California Star and Californian; the Sacramento Transcript; the Placer Times. Additional titles and years will be added to the collection as funding permits.

The CDNC builds on the California Newspaper Project, a 17-year effort by the CBSR to catalog, union list and preserve California newspapers. Close to 9,000 California newspapers were inventoried in over 14,000 repositories throughout the state, 1.5 million pages of California newspapers were preserved and made available on microfilm, and 100,000 rolls of negative microfilm rolls are being processed for permanent storage.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities; the California State Library; and the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, under provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act administered in California by the State Librarian.

The Project team consists of: Benjamin Arai, Software Developer, TABBEC; Chuck Boucher, Systems Administrator, CBSR; Craig Boucher, Software Developer, TABBEC; Allan Crosthwaite, Digital Projects Coordinator, CBSR; Jeanne Gahagan, Digital Archivist, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; Brian Geiger, Assistant Director, CBSR; and Andrea Vanek, Assistant Director of Newspaper Projects, CBSR.

For more information about the CDNC, please contact Andrea Vanek at avanek@ucr.edu or (510) 643-7680.

Redwood City Public Library’s Project READ, in collaboration with Cañada College, received the San Mateo County School Boards Association’s J. Russell Kent Award in May, an honor that earned Project Read a Certificate of Recognition from the California Senate and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives.

The school board singled out Redwood City’s Project Read program (funded in part by California Library Literacy Services ) for its Inmate Peer Tutor Program, a project in which Project READ volunteers tutor inmates who in turn earn college credits for tutoring their peers. Kathy Endaya, Director of the Redwood City Project READ, says, “Almost 89% of incarcerated people read or write below a 5th grade level. Because of our successful and close alliance with Canada College, we not only have the Kent Award, we have also started breaking the cycle of low or non-literacy in a correctional institution.” In addition to boosting reading levels, Endaya reports that the program is building self-esteem in both the inmate tutors and the learners.

Because Redwood City partners with Canada College on the award-winning program, the inmate tutors earn one college credit for their work. Many of the participants, now “college students,” continue their education by taking additional classes while still incarcerated. These new readers are then able to participate in recovery programs and GED classes, and achieve other educational goals.

“We earned the Kent Award because of our work with Canada College. The State Senate and Congressional Certificates honor both Project Read and Canada College. We are so very proud to share it with our wonderful partner!” Endaya says. California Library Literacy Services (CLLS), she says, does “a great job” supporting community collaborations, work that “expands and enhances our services to our learners.”

For more information please contact Redwood City Project READ at (650) 780-7077 or visit www.projectread-redwoodcty.org.   

The California Research Bureau (CRB) at the California State Library is one of nine national winners of a 2008 “Notable Document Award” from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Legislative Research Librarian staff. The CRB won in the “Innovative Study” category for Voices from the Street: A Survey of Homeless Youth by Their Peers.

Nell Bernstein and Lisa K. Foster wrote March 2008’s Voices from the Street: A Survey of Homeless Youth by Their Peers as part of the California Homeless Youth Project, a major research and policy initiative the CRB and California Council on Youth Relations, with support from The California Wellness Foundation, undertook to bring attention to the serious issues facing homeless youth in the state.