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The article discusses the Traveling Library Center (TLC) implemented by the King County Library System in Issaquah, WA. Two box trucks and one cargo van sit at the edge of the parking lot. Around the corner sit a renovated Winnebago called the Techlab, the slightly smaller ABC Express, and an older van. This fleet, and the outreach technicians and librarians who run it, is KCLS's answer to how to reach those who can't get to the library. TLC visits 130 nursing homes, assisted living and retirement facilities, senior centers, low-income housing, rehab centers, and hospitals across King County. Beyond TLC's dedicated collection of 44,802 items, the staff draws from the KCLS collection. Such intensive service is expensive. In 2003, each TLC circulation costs $10.19 compared with an average circulation cost of $5.38 across KCLS. The answer to lowering costs might be to tap volunteers, who already do approximately 29 percent of the homebound runs, and work with getting technology into patrons' hands, automating some of the manual activities, and working with remote holds. INSET: On the road.

The residents of King Country, Washington, who turn to the justice system for help face many challenges. They must overcome barriers linked to information and legal literacy, economic limits, and access to computers and the Internet. There's been an explosion of available resources on the Web, but many come to the King County Law Library for help because they do not have Internet access at home. In Washington, county law libraries derive their authority from the state Legislature and operate as special districts. As a public law library, we provide access to legal information to judges, government officials, attorneys, and members of the general public.We believed that opening a training center would accomplish a number of goals and objectives, including fulfilling goals in the library's strategic and technological plans to enhance the role of the library's staff as teachers and trainers, to provide a setting for formal and informal learning opportunities geared to the needs of self-represented litigants, and to make the resources of the library's Web site available for patrons to use in-house as well as from remote locations.

Comments on a meeting of the board of trustees of the Kitsap Regional Library System in Bremerton, Washington. Expectation of the author that the meeting would be a venue for heated debate about the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA); Opinion that CIPA, which mandates that federally funded libraries implement Internet filters for public access computers, amounts to censorship; Events of the meeting, at which attendees were polite and generally supportive of the library's position on CIPA.

This article reports that in the first lawsuit filed over a library's refusal to disable Internet filters for adults wishing to access constitutionally protected speech, three library users an organization advocating Second Amendment rights have sued the North Central Regional Library District in Wenatchee, Washington. The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington.

Reports that the King County Library System in Washington has made electronic audiobooks available in its eAudio collection. Way that books are played on MP3 players; Titles bought from the company Audible.com; How library patrons want to download electronic books themselves.

Presents news briefs related to libraries. Rejection by the Minneapolis, Minnesota Library board's finance committee of a plan to close four branches; Bill that the Washington State Senate passed that would require filters on all public library Internet terminals; donation by Brooklyn, New York native S. Stevan Dweck of $1.5 million to the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) Foundation's Plaza and Auditorium Project at BPL's Central Library; Other news.

Reports that a federal judge has ordered local police to return two computers seized from the Kent branch of the King County Library System in Washington after a patron viewed child pornography on the Internet and left behind printouts of some images. Lawsuit by the library against the Kent Police Department because the detectives did not have a search warrant; Order by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman that the library system preserve the computers as evidence.

Offers news briefs related to libraries in the United States as of November 1, 2000. Reopening of the Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge, which had been closed since an earthquake in 1994; Tax cut which would limit the funds of libraries in Washington; Opposition of conservative groups to Internet filtering amendments to the bill H.R. 4577; Launch of a business publishing program, Stanford Business Books, at Stanford University Press.

Features services in cities in the United States. Grade One at the Library, a library program for children, in Phoenix, Arizona; Teaching of civics in Lenexa, Kansas; Minimization of storm water runoff in Lacey, Washington.

The article provides information on the AquaBrowser Library (ABL), with an Innovative Interfaces Millennium system, which will be used by the King County Library System (KCLS) in Washington in 2006. The AquaBrowser Library offers users a progressive interactive searching through integrating with any library vendor's catalog. AquaBrowser Library compares a user's search terms to the metadata in a library's catalog to create a visual map or overviews of areas of interest. KCLS joins a growing number of libraries that offer ABL.

Offers news briefs pertaining to libraries. Demand for Internet access in San Francisco Public Library in California; Prank at the Central Washington University library in Ellensburg; Design of a bed featured in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog that has space for a collection of books.

Reports on the closing of the King County Transportation and Natural Resources Library in Seattle, Washington, due to a loss of state revenues. Cost effectiveness of shutting down the library; Extent of the library's holdings; Estimated annual usage of the library.