By Steve Rhodes
1. I guess this is what a casino in Des Plaines looks like. Ugh.
2. Calvin Boender is outta here.
3. Meet ObamaCare.
4. Several months ago, I noticed that the Sulzer Regional Library and several other Chicago Public Library branches had changed how they made books that had been placed on hold available for patrons to pick up,” Nick Ammerman writes at At Infinite Number Of Monkeys. “It used to be that holds were kept behind the desk, and patrons had to stand in line to request them. Under the new system, the hold books are kept out in the main lobby space, which is accessible to anyone who comes into the library.
“As a user, I have to say the new system is much more convenient. At Sulzer, there seemed to be several storage locations for hold books in different parts of the library under the old system, and I would often have to wait while the librarian went off in search of the elusive book. It’s definitely a lot easier and faster to be able to just walk in, get my hold books, and get in line to check them out.
“However, as I was a library school student at the time when I first noticed the change, I had had the American Library Association’s policies about privacy of patron records drilled into my head, and I started to wonder if the new hold system violated these policies. Each hold book now has a slip of paper with the full name of the patron, and the book’s cover, title, and author are not obscured in any way. This seemed contrary to the statement on the ALA’s Privacy and Confidentiality page that, ‘Confidentiality of library records is a core value of librarianship.’ It was unclear to me how library records could remain private if hold books were kept in a public area and marked with patron names.”
5. “The Chicago Police Department (CPD), with the willing assistance of some of the local media, informed Chicago residents that the CPD will be greatly expanding the deployment and use of tasers by their officers as an alternative to using deadly force,” Tracy Siska writes at the Chicago Justice Project.
“In reading the local press it becomes clear pretty quickly to most people, except the journalists writing and editors approving the stories, that the CPD is going to be allowing use of the tasers in situations where they would not use deadly force. This means that tasers will be used in situations when officers would not use their guns. This is clearly an expansion of the use of force currently allowed under CPD rules and not a replacement of previous methods.”
6. Children, by the millions, sing for Alex Chilton.
7. “An Australian study has found that newspaper Web sites are not cannibalizing their print-based parents and that consumers see the two forms as complementary,” the AIM Group reports.
8. The big showdown is off. In TrackNotes.
9. Do the Blackhawks need an enforcer? Our very own George Ofman addresses this and other pressing issues.
10. So much for all that blather about the Rickettses understanding the fan experience.
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“The Rickettses must be able to compete,” the Sun-Times bleats.
Right – because current conditions are just unbearable!
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Purists is the word editorialists always spit out to describe people who think there are more important things in life than money.
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“Nobody with smarts pays $800 million for the goose that laid the golden egg and then kills it,” the S-T edit goes on.
Right, like that’s never happened in business before. Even the newspaper business.
11. For purists only.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Reconcile your feelings.
Posted on March 19, 2010