Jon Frater

This made it into today’s Metro (the free NYC newspaper, not the library group) as well as theglobeandmail.com:

Vienna’s public library raises cash with erotica hotline

Associated Press

May 8, 2007 at 6:12 AM EDT

VIENNA — This isn’t the typical whispering you might expect to hear at a library.

Vienna’s City Hall has launched a “sex hotline” to raise money for the capital’s main public library, officials said Tuesday.

It’s unusual, but it’s not particularly raunchy: Callers pay the
equivalent of 53 cents (U.S.) a minute to listen to an actress read
breathless passages from erotica dating to the Victorian era.

City Hall set up the hotline earlier this month to help the library
raise cash for planned remodelling and expansion, Austrian media
reported.

Anne Bennent, a famous Austrian stage and film star, reads passages
from the Vienna library’s collection of 1,200 works of erotic fiction
from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, the library said.

Officials said the hotline would be operational through May 31.

The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900,
which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May
Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.

For the complete story, click here.

Two personal favorites:

Prediction
#4:  There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All
hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city
limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels,
well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk”
stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will
teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned
wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains.  Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.

Prediction
#16:  There will be No C, X or Q in our
every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by
sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a
language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more
extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

"Queens‘ Biggest Cake" Marks the
Occasion; Time Capsule to Be Buried

QUEENS VILLAGE, NY, April
17, 2007–Library Director Thomas W. Galante, and a host of government and community
well-wishers joined to cut Queens‘ Biggest Anniversary Cake in honor of Queens Library’s 100^th
anniversary of incorporation. The event was held at Antun’s in Queens Village.

"Queens Library is the busiest
library system in the U.S. We needed a cake this big to mark
the occasion," said Library Director Galante. He added: "We’re proud
to be one of very few organizations that can look back on more than a century
of service and honestly say, ‘people in Queens depend on us more now than they did
a century ago.’ A hundred years from now, people in Queens will still rely on their library
for education, information and recreation. We enrich lives. Today is National
Library Worker’s Day. The anniversary couldn’t come at a more apt time. Our
staff is the reason why Queens Library will continue to be relevant long into
the future."

Queens Library was chartered from
several small, independent libraries in 1896, prior to the Act of Consolidation
in 1898, which made the five boroughs into New York City. Queens Library was incorporated on
April 17, 1907. Andrew Carnegie gave the nascent public library a
big boost by financing six stately buildings on the condition that the City
would pay ongoing operating expenses. Queens
Library, Brooklyn Public Library and New York Public Library were incorporated
separately. They remain independent of each other to this day.

The anniversary cake measured 16
feet x 20 feet. It was baked by Junior’s. It used 1200 lbs. of cake batter, 500
lbs. of fudge filling and 500 lbs of frosting. Total calorie count defied
description. Most of it was donated to City Harvest.

A follow-up event will be held on April
25, 2007. A
time capsule will be buried at the Queens Library at Queens Village. It contains items donated by
children from all over Queens to illustrate "The Way We Were in 2007." It will
be opened at the library’s bi-centennial.

Queens Library is an independent,
not-for-profit corporation and is not affiliated with any other library. The
Queens Library serves a population of 2.2 million in the most ethnically
diverse county in the U.S. With a record 20.2 million items in
circulation for FY 2006, the Library has one of the highest circulations of any
public library system in the world. For more information about programs,
services, locations, events and news, visit the Queens Library Web site at www.queenslibrary.org or phone 718-990-0700.