Gleeson Gleanings

It took me a little time to track this info down, so I thought posting up a few quick links might help. The following is a synopsis of the bill from Speaker Pelosi’s blog. A link to the full text is at the bottom of this post.

EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STABILIZATION ACT OF 2008

I. Stabilizing the Economy
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) provides up to $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury to buy mortgages and other assets that are clogging the balance sheets of financial institutions and making it difficult for working families, small businesses, and other companies to access credit, which is vital to a strong and stable economy. EESA also establishes a program that would allow companies to insure their troubled assets.

II. Homeownership Preservation
EESA requires the Treasury to modify troubled loans – many the result of predatory lending practices – wherever possible to help American families keep their homes. It also directs other federal agencies to modify loans that they own or control. Finally, it improves the HOPE for Homeowners program by expanding eligibility and increasing the tools available to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help more families keep their homes.

III. Taxpayer Protection
Taxpayers should not be expected to pay for Wall Street’s mistakes. The legislation requires companies that sell some of their bad assets to the government to provide warrants so that taxpayers will benefit from any future growth these companies may experience as a result of participation in this program. The legislation also requires the President to submit legislation that would cover any losses to taxpayers resulting from this program from financial institutions.

IV. No Windfalls for Executives
Executives who made bad decisions should not be allowed to dump their bad assets on the government, and then walk away with millions of dollars in bonuses. In order to participate in this program, companies will lose certain tax benefits and, in some cases, must limit executive pay. In addition, the bill limits “golden parachutes” and requires that unearned bonuses be returned.

V. Strong Oversight
Rather than giving the Treasury all the funds at once, the legislation gives the Treasury $250 billion immediately, then requires the President to certify that additional funds are needed ($100 billion, then $350 billion subject to Congressional disapproval). The Treasury must report on the use of the funds and the progress in addressing the crisis. EESA also establishes an Oversight Board so that the Treasury cannot act in an arbitrary manner. It also establishes a special inspector general to protect against waste, fraud and abuse.

A Section-by-Section analysis of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 from the House Financial Services Committee (.PDF File).

The full bill as amended for consideration by the Rules Committee.

Librarians do lots of different things: we catalog books, digitize documents, search databases, teach people how to evaluate websites, build book collections, to name just a few. This week we did something different: we walked an informational picket line. Students may have seen us and wondered what was going on.

The librarians here at Gleeson are members of the USF Faculty Association. The Faculty Association is a union of the full time faculty and librarians founded in the late 1970’s. For the last 4 months, the Association has been negotiating with the University administration for our contract. Although we have made progress on some issues, we are stuck on the questions of salary and retirement. The goal of the informational picketing was to reach out to the rest of the university and make them aware of our concerns and hopefully move the negotiations forward. We are not on strike but instead are just trying to spread the word. Librarians always believe the more information people have, the better.

The Foghorn just published a front page article about our informational picketing in this week’s issue and they are promising more in depth coverage next week.

Faculty and Librarians on Harney Plaza on Monday

It’s Roadworks: Steamroller Prints, San Francisco Center for the Book’s fifth annual art-in-the-street-festival at Potrero Hill on Saturday, September 20. Here’s the link where you can see what it looked like last year.

In addition to steamroller printmaking, there’s music, free bookmaking and printmaking fun for kids, and dozens of the Bay Area’s finest book arts vendors selling their wares. You can get a bite to eat, buy a “little lino” steamroller print and pull your very own letterpress print.

While you’re in the neighborhood, dip into the Center for the Book and see their exhibit coinciding with Banned Books Week: Banned and Recovered: Artists Repond to Censorship, a collaboration with Oakland’s African American Museum and Library.

Roadwork: Steamroller Prints will be on DeHaro St. between 16th and 17th Sts. from noon to 5 pm.

Have you hugged your Constitution today? September 17th is Constitution Day, a day to commemorate the September 17, 1787 signing of the Constitution. I like to think of it as a day to reflect upon and celebrate the rights we have thanks to the U.S. Constitution. Take a minute to look at our Constitution Day online guide, and maybe you’ll even learn something new about the Constitution.

Oh Hai! The USF Book Club’s next selection is

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
by Sherman Alexie

Personally I love Alexie’s poetry and spoken word performances, but I am excited about next month’s meeting because I haven’t read any of his prose. Also, the movie Smoke Signals was based off this novel.

We will meet on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 in the Seminar Room (2nd Floor) of Gleeson Library. 12 noon – 1 pm. Bring your lunch and your posse! (Faculty and staff only)

You can get The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven through the library’s free service Link+ since our copy of the book is checked out. Click here to request it. Link+ takes about 4 days for the book to arrive.

Also, we have the movie Smoke Signals, so feel free to check it out sometime!

Good people,

There is work occurring in several locations around the library.  The workmen make every attempt to minimize the disruption to Gleeson Library patrons and staff. Unfortunately sometimes the noise and disruption is unavoidable.  Today’s (9-9-08) noise was related to work on the third floor near the “R” stacks.  Facilities is apologetic for the noise but sees resolution of this problem as a high priority.  The noisy aspect of this work should conclude by tomorrow.  Thank you for your patience.