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This is a guest blog post by Abbie Grotke, Assistant Head, Digital Content Management Section Washington, D.C. – Crowd in front of Capitol – Cleveland’s 2nd inauguration. Washington D.C, 1893. Photograph. //www.loc.gov/item/00650948/. You may have noticed that it is presidential election season in the United States, which means it’s also time for web archivists to […]
I’m pleased to announce that Thib Guicherd-Callin has accepted the continuing role of Assistant Director and Program Manager for LOCKSS. Thib brings unsurpassed experience and skills to this role. He joined the LOCKSS Program as a Summer intern in 2005 and has been with it since then. In his own words, he is “the intern […]
Illustration: ©artflare/Adobe Stock Each year, American Libraries tracks dozens of library referenda across the country, using the ballot box as a means of tracking support for public and school libraries. Because next week’s presidential election is expected to generate high voter turnout, some communities may be pushing harder than usual to get local referenda in […]
When the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) set out in January 2015 to research the ability of students to judge the credibility of online information, they could never have predicted that their results would be disseminated precisely at a time when the level of public concern over the availability, spread, and impact of misinformation online […]
Sunday Roast Chicken with Chickpeas and Couscous, inspired by Chef Alberta Wright of Jezebel, one of the recipes in The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food by Marcus Samuelsson and Osayi Endolyn Photo: Angie Mosier Reprinted with permission from The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food (Voracious, October) by […]
The COVID-19 pandemic poses many challenges to libraries, including the accessibility of physical materials in support of teaching and learning. In a more typical quarter, faculty would place books on reserve, so that students could come to the library and check them out for a designated window of study. With most students off campus for […]
Carrie C. Robinson Fifty years ago this week, Carrie C. Robinson—a Black school librarian whose long career revealed much about the Jim Crow South, the challenges of integration, and librarianship in the civil rights era—settled a landmark case for racial justice in the profession. After being passed over for a promotion, she had sued her […]
In today’s post, Sam Schireson interviews a By the People volunteer who has gone above and beyond! By the People is a crowdsourced transcription program launched in 2018 at the Library of Congress. Volunteer-created transcriptions are used to make digitized collections searchable and discoverable on loc.gov. In this interview we hear from Henry in Virginia who has been […]
The following is a guest post by Brian Foo, 2020 Innovator in Residence and creator of Citizen DJ. Background This past weekend, the Citizen DJ Showcase aired at the National Book Festival and the Citizen DJ application went from beta to officially launched as an LC Labs experiment. For the Showcase, the renowned DJ, Kid […]
By the People at the National Book Festival Tomorrow, Friday 9/25, marks the beginning of the 20th Library of Congress National Book Festival! Representatives from across the Library will be hosting festival-goers via virtual booths, where visitors can connect with their favorite Library programs and collections. A member of the By the People team will be […]
Today’s guest post is from Marcus Nappier, who is a Digital Collections Specialist in the Digital Content Management Section at the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress maintains over 470 format description documents (FDDs) on the Sustainability of Digital Formats website that provide information about file-formats, bit stream structures and encodings, and their usage in […]
There are those people that come into your life, and shift it. They alter your trajectory, put you on a new trail, to a new place that you weren’t expecting, and maybe didn’t even know existed. I’ve been lucky enough to have learned from many wonderful people, and a few extraordinary teachers. Dr. Mac Luckey […]
Welcome! As summer draws to a close, it’s time to highlight hot news in digital library services. Featuring contributions from: Cathy Aster, Hannah Frost, Dinah Handel, Amy Hodge, Michael Olson, and Sarah Seestone. First Spanish-English exhibit published | Primera exposición publicada en español-inglésThe first Spanish-English Spotlight at Stanford exhibit has been published, The Maria Jesús Casado García-Sampedro […]
Anqi Xu, pictured above, is one of 240 students who deposited their work to the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) as part of completing their programs of study at Stanford in 2020. Xu received her MA in East Asian Studies. Her thesis, available at PURL and SearchWorks, is a case study using a combination of business and […]
We’re pleased to announce expanded discovery for Spotlight at Stanford exhibits is now available via library.stanford.edu and searchworks.stanford.edu. Our colleagues on the DLSS Access Team have recently added an Exhibits tile to the bento search options, adding another discovery point for Spotlight at Stanford. There are different ways to conduct a search that will yield […]
The year’s most impressive new and renovated libraries By Phil Morehart | September 1, 2020 Library Learning Center at Texas Southern University in Houston. Photo: Kayla Hartzog Welcome to the 2020 Library Design Showcase, American Libraries’ annual celebration of new and renovated libraries. These shining examples of architectural innovation—completed before the COVID-19 pandemic—address user needs […]
A floor plan for furniture removal at Hennepin County (Minn.) Library’s Eden Prairie branch. Illustration: MSR Design Libraries have always been spaces for discovery. But in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been tasked with transforming themselves into places that allow users to physically distance while being more digitally connected than ever. As some […]
A worker installs solar panels on the roof of Ledding Library in Milwaukie, Oregon. Photo: Katie Newell/Ledding Library in Milwaukie, Oregon Sarah Preskitt has lived in Alaska for almost 40 years—and seen its climate change in ways the Lower 48’s hasn’t. “We used to joke that you had to arrange your Halloween costume over your […]
Each year, the American Library Association (ALA) recognizes the achievements of more than 200 individuals and institutions with an array of awards. This year’s winners, chosen by juries of their colleagues and peers, embody the best of the profession’s leadership, vision, and service as well as a continued commitment to diversity, equality, education, and outreach. […]
In 1956, Abraham Maslow published a seminal paper on the influence our physical surroundings have on us. Participants viewed photographs of people’s faces and evaluated them based on different attributes. Maslow wanted to test how people reacted to this content while located in different physical environments. Some viewed the images while seated in a beautiful […]
