quickie plug for an ALA event

Hi there. I’m heading down to RILA this rainy morning but I wanted to mention for those of you who are ALA-bound and looking for activities, my pal Kim Cooper [from SaveLAPL fame] will be leading a full-day Raymond Chandler bus tour heading through Los Angeles on Tuesday July 1st. More details on the website. I’m leaving the day before otherwise this is a bus I would be on.

This tour will dig deep into Chandler’s life and his fiction in downtown Los Angeles, featuring stops at the Oviatt Building, Lady in The Lake’s Treloar Building, the Barclay Hotel (aka The Van Nuys, site of the icepick murder in The Little Sister), Bunker Hill and Union Station.

SaveLAPL – Good Changes at Los Angeles Public Library

My friend Kim Cooper was one of the people behind the SaveLAPL website which you may have read about here a month ago. Just wanted to mention that their lobbying and activism efforts appear to have been successful within the scope of what they were aiming for and this is good news for LAPL patrons and staff generally in my opinion. Congrats Kim and Co. and everyone else who made an effort and got involved.

Based on the recommendations made on May 14, the proposed Sunday closures of the eight regional branch libraries will not be happening, and 36.5 library jobs have been saved! $2,000,000 is being restored to the library’s book buying budget, from $7.7 million to $9.7 million!