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Private papers and personal effects covering two decades of the life of slain civil-rights leader Malcolm X were placed on long-term deposit at New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City and will be available to researchers as early as May 19, 2004, which would have marked Malcolm X's 79th birthday. Two of Malcolm X's daughters, Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, turned over to the library for a 75-year period two large crates of hundreds of pages of materials--including letters, speeches, journals, and photographs--that had been the subject of an ownership dispute. Among the most significant items are diaries in which Malcolm X documented his trips to Africa and the Middle East, made soon after he broke with the Nation of Islam in 1964. The documents, which have yet to be assessed by scholars, were stored for years at the home of Malcolm's late wife, Betty Shabazz, in Mount Vernon, New York, and had been removed after her death in 1997. The Schomburg Center, located on Malcolm X Boulevard, is just a few blocks from the mosque where Malcolm X once preached.

Highlights useful resources in major areas of library/information activity. Donation of old postcards to the New York Public Library by Marshall and Prudence Montgomery; Acquisition of Ernest Hemingway's letters to his close friend Eric Edward Dorman-Smith by the Stanford University LIbraries; Donation of jazz bandleader Cab Calloway's papers and memorabilia to the Coppin State College's Cab Calloway Jazz Institute.

Discusses the symposium 'Libraries and the Search for Academic Excellence,' co-sponsored by the Columbia University School of Library Service and the University of Colorado. Debate on how libraries can become a more integral part of the education process in the United States and 'close the gap' between the classroom and the library; Topics of the 12 papers presented during the symposium.

States that the old-fashioned kind of book that is printed on paper was the main topic at the May 2002 Book Expo America held in New York City. Description of the conference that featured booksellers, publishers, and authors such as Walter Mosley; Consumer spending on books; Indication that adult fiction writers are entering the market of children's books; Mention of prepublication excitement surrounding Jeffrey Eugenides and his historical novel about a hermaphrodite, 'Middlesex.'

Mentions library acquisitions in the United States of archival materials. Acquisition of author Kurt Vonnegut's papers by the Indiana University/Bloomington's Lilly Library; Purchase of the `Paris Review' archives by Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.