Library Officials

A woman died yesterday in a one-alarm in a Randallstown townhouse, county fire officials said. About 1:40 p.m., officials received a report of a fire at a middle-of-the-group townhouse in the 3900 block of Queens Lace St., county fire officials said. Inside, firefighters found the woman's body near the front door, authorities said. Her identity and age had not been released. Firefighters said yesterday there were no smoke detectors inside the home. Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Sally Majoros led a group of eager children and their parents into a classroom at the Arbutus library on a recent morning. "My name is Miss Sally, and I'm so happy to see you this morning," she said in a soothing, grandmotherly voice. The kids seemed just as pleased to see her. Majoros is one of more than a dozen retired library system employees who volunteer. At least once a month, she reads and sings to children during a half-hour story time session. It is not uncommon for a former library employee to return as a volunteer, but the number who have returned to Baltimore County libraries appears to exceed the norm.

If you're two weeks late in returning a book to the Baltimore County library, you're likely to get a phone call. If your book is four weeks overdue, you'll receive a notice in the mail. And if you're Philip Akbar Shabazz, you're sent a letter that begins: "You currently have 402 items overdue from the Baltimore County Public Library. Fees and charges for these items amount to over $8,400." Library officials say they suspect that the books were sold. Yesterday, Shabazz, a Randallstown resident, went to court to face a felony theft charge.

When Laurie Hayes arrived in Mississippi with a group of fellow Maryland library officials to donate a mobile library and books to a town that had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, she was shocked by the devastation. As the group drove through the area in December, "you really couldn't tell whether the storm had hit days or months ago," she wrote in an e-mail. Approaching Pearlington, Miss., where they would make the donation, she wondered "just how important having access to a library would be to people who had lost so much."

It wasn't easy for Dan Taylor to part with his prized collection of vintage Atari games, but that's the life of a self-publisher. Auctioning them on eBay was a way to raise a couple hundred dollars - and put out another edition of his zine, The Hungover Gourmet. Zines (pronounced "zeens") are small, self-published magazines popular among people in their 20s and 30s, and Taylor, like many zine authors, writes his more out of a passion to print than a quest for profit. Now, however, the Lutherville man and other zine authors are about to get a little more exposure.

City library officials believe Holes will be the perfect way for area youth to fill in those dreary summer gaps. Louis Sachar's 1998 novel about friendship and destiny has been selected as the fourth annual "Baltimore's Book" and will be handed out to children in fourth grade and above who register for the state's summer reading program today at an event at Mondawmin Mall. Holes, a popular children's book that spawned a Disney feature film, chronicles the odyssey of Stanley Yelnats, who is wrongly sent to a boys' detention camp and ordered by a vicious warden to dig holes all day. The book interweaves two mysterious story lines brought together and resolved by Stanley's courage.

David Clark Marshall, an Anne Arundel County public library official, died of complications from a heart condition Thursday at University of Maryland Medical Center. The Waldorf resident was 66. Born in Grove City, Pa., he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Harvard University and a master's in library science from Pittsburgh University. He also earned a law degree from the University of Baltimore and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1979. He did pro bono work for nonprofit organizations.

BALTIMORE Hampden library branch to be closed for two weeks The Hampden branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library is scheduled to close for two weeks beginning tomorrow for interior painting, according to library officials. The scheduled work marks the first phase of renovations at the branch. By September, the library at 3641 Falls Road is expected to have new carpeting, new furniture, a new security system, a new roof, a new door and fresh exterior painting. While the branch is closed, library officials encourage patrons to use the Roland Park branch, 5108 Roland Ave., or the Govans branch, 5714 Bellona Ave. The Hampden branch is scheduled to reopen June 7. BALTIMORE Restoration work on fountain at Druid Lake wins award The rehabilitation of the Druid Lake Fountain was recognized with the Outstanding Small Project Award for 2005 by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Maryland Section.

The Finksburg Library Location: Old Westminster Pike at Green Mill Road Architect: The Lukmire Partnership of Arlington, Va. Description: Architects have submitted drawings of the long-awaited sixth branch of the Carroll County library system. Officials have met twice with Finksburg residents to solicit their comments on the architectural aspects. Plan calls for a 10,000-square-foot library and a 14,500- square-foot headquarters building - a nearly $5 million project. Status: Project will go out to bid early next year with groundbreaking expected in spring 2006 and construction completed in late 2007.

Suggestions that the Annapolis Area library branch could close -- and a new regional branch could be built in Parole -- have some residents worried that they will no longer be able to walk to the familiar red-brick library that's been a fixture on West Street since 1965. A coalition of residents opposed to closing the Annapolis library recently formed and enlisted Mayor Ellen O. Moyer in the cause. The mayor introduced a resolution at a City Council meeting last week to keep the branch open, even though she acknowledges city government has no direct power over the county library system.