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Photos: © Adobe Stock All of us who teach copyright have been confronted with a person who says sheepishly, “I know I should know about copyright. I’m probably doing everything wrong and could go to jail!” This rueful self-declaration is really a way of saying, “Copyright has never been important to me, and I don’t […]
Cruise: The Guide to Gay Entertainment in the Southeast. Photo: Queer Music Heritage 1970Year the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA)—the nation’s first LGBT professional organization—was founded as the Task Force on Gay Liberation. (For more on the RRT and its 50th anniversary, see our story “The Rainbow’s Arc.”) 49Number of years […]
Staffers at Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library, which closed its doors March 16 because of COVID-19, advertise the library’s remote-reference services in a group Zoom call. Photo: Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library Much has changed since Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library (CRPL) closed its doors March 16—but not the assistance the library strives to provide […]
Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham, Michigan, donated 100 3D-printed protective face shields to Beaumont Hospital in nearby Troy. Photo: Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham, Michigan. Personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers, including face shields, surgical masks, and N95 respirator masks, is in critically short supply. To mitigate the ongoing crisis, some public and […]
Salt Lake County (Utah) Library’s story sacks contain a blank book, a pencil, and other materials that serve as prompts to inspire storytelling. Photo: Melodie Kraft Ashley On March 12, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coeur d’Alene (Idaho) Public Library (CDAPL) canceled its in-house programming. By March 13, Young Adult Coordinator Angela Flock and […]
Illustration: Tom Deja Keeping libraries safe is important for both workers and guests. But during the current COVID-19 pandemic, questions about how to do that—particularly when it comes to materials and surfaces—have complicated answers. It’s an unprecedented situation. Conservators, who are experienced in diagnosing and repairing collection damage, say that historical information on sanitizing library […]
The following is a repost from the blog Worlds Revealed: Geography & Maps at the Library of Congress. The author is Rachel Trent, Digital Collections and Automation Coordinator in the Geography and Maps Division. Interested in bulk downloading maps from the Library of Congress’s online collections? Need a corpus of historical map images to build a training dataset […]
A gallery of historic moustaches, a wall of 12,000 photos, a collage of First World War-era “damn the Kaiser” cartoons, and more were on display May 7, when 135 people attended a virtual “data jam” to dig into a massive new collection of historic newspaper images. LC Labs hosted the event to showcase Library of […]
The following guest column is a reprint from the rereleased May 1 issue of Booklist. Last week, it came to the attention of the editors at Booklist that there were issues around the magazine’s May 1 cover. After discussing the matter internally and with me, they decided to change the cover to the one you […]
Are you curious about ArcLight and how it can integrate with ArchivesSpace and other systems? Learn more from the video below! Mark Matienzo and Gregory Wiedeman (University at Albany) present on ArcLight and ArchivesSpace as part of the Integrations with ArchivesSpace webinar series on May 12, 2020. Mark’s presentation provides background on ArcLight, its community-oriented development, its […]
Today at 6pm starts The Big Payback (https://www.thebigpayback.org), and while there are dozens of non-profits that need our help right now, I’m starting with the one that began our family’s path into community theater. Millennium Repertory Company was the first to put Eliza on stage, casting her in their production of The Wizard of Oz. […]
American soldiers in Paris just after the armistice of World War I. The American Library in Paris was a continuation of the work of the Library War Service, which ALA created in 1917 to supply reading materials to US servicemembers stationed in Europe during the war. Photo: American Library in Paris In the 7th arrondissement […]
Photo illustration: © Dariusz Jarzabek/Adobe Stock (library); © nongkran_ch/Adobe Stock (circles) The library technology industry took some significant turns in 2019. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, acquired Innovative Interfaces and shifted the balance of power, strengthening Ex Libris’s position in technology for academic libraries and propelling it as a major player in public libraries. This move narrows […]
Librarianship is ever changing, and some of the people leading that change are newer members of the profession. They’re the fresh faces greeting patrons at reference desks, helping students with research, and experimenting with new ideas behind the scenes. These are the American Library Association’s (ALA) Emerging Leaders. Launched in 1997 as a one-year program […]
Julia Alvarez Photo: Bill Eichner Like many Dominican-American writers of her generation, Julia Alvarez has drawn inspiration from the Dominican Republic’s history (such as the legacy of dictator Rafael Trujillo, in her novel In the Time of the Butterflies) and her experience as a newcomer in the US (How the García Girls Lost Their Accents). […]
Ameet Doshi (right), director of innovation and program design and subject librarian at Georgia Tech’s (GT) School of Public Policy and Law, and Charlie Bennett, public engagement librarian and subject librarian for GT’s School of Economics, in GT’s campus radio station. Photo: Allison Carter/Georgia Institute of Technology Listeners of WREK-FM 91.1 radio station in Atlanta […]
A flier from New York Public Library’s Dorot Jewish Division. Photo: Dorot Jewish Division/New York Public Library 2006 Year that US President George W. Bush proclaimed May Jewish American Heritage Month (JAHM). The month celebrates the contributions Jewish Americans have made since they first arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654. 5th and MarketIntersection in Philadelphia […]
Law Librarians of New England members Ashley Selima (left) and Stephanie Edwards work with Rhode Island’s early suffrage documents at a 2018 transcription party. Photo: Joe Graziano/Rhode Island Department of State When people in the US cannot afford an attorney’s services or don’t know the answers to legal questions, they often turn to their local […]
The Silent Book Club at Newport (R.I.) Public Library offers teens a space for quiet reading after school. Photo: Newport (R.I.) Public Library When a friend and fellow librarian mentioned to Christina Wolfskehl that the most popular programming at her library focused on silent reading, she seemed almost embarrassed by the activity’s simplicity. But the […]
The Mobile Law Network RV visits two St. Paul (Minn.) Public Library branches per month. Photo: Mitchell Hamline School of Law A mother of two told her partner she was taking the kids to the library—the only way her controlling partner would permit her to leave the house. While she was there, she met with […]
