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2021 Library Systems Report

Illustration: Tom Deja In a year complicated by a global pandemic, the community of vendors providing technologies to libraries made important strides to meet pressing needs and make ongoing progress in their longer-term initiatives. Though the pandemic disrupted library services—as well as funding—in 2020, concerted efforts were made to fulfill the demands of users to […]

The Virtual Job Hunt

Illustration: Shane Tolentino Gloria Vela, fresh from receiving her MLIS and earning her Texas school librarian certification, did all the right things when she applied for school librarian jobs. She set up a tidy workspace well-lit for Zoom interviews. She applied makeup, styled her hair, and made sure her 6-month-old miniature Australian shepherd, Olive, was […]

Serving the Community at All T1

In early March 2020—before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the US in full—a typical Tuesday evening at the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales branch of Denver Public Library (DPL) would bustle with activity, the smell of coffee brewing, and the murmurs of many voices. Some people would practice English together, while others worked on homework assignments or drilled […]

Newsmaker: Isabel Allende

Photo: Lori Barra Since her first novel, The House of the Spirits, was published in 1982, Isabel Allende has written frequently about the interior lives of women. Her latest book, The Soul of a Woman (Ballantine Books, March), is a collection of essays that follows the trajectory of Allende’s life and evolving approach to feminism—as […]

Bookend: History Rolls On

Monique Sugimoto, librarian and archivist for Palos Verdes Library District’s Local History Center, points out over the coast. Photo: Erik Jay From housing former military installations to settling neighborhood squabbles over lighthouse design to becoming overpopulated with wild peacocks, Palos Verdes Peninsula, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles, is full of history. Monique Sugimoto, […]

LC Labs Letter: April 2021

LC Labs Letter: April 2021

April 2021 LC LABS LETTER A Monthly Roundup of News and Thoughts from the Library of Congress Labs Team Our Projects Talk back to history through Speculative Annotation (launching soon) The 2021 Innovator in Residence project, Speculative Annotation, is launching soon! In a recent blog post, Innovator Courtney McClellan shared more about the artistic process behind curating the items […]

Task Force Seeks to Disrupt Ra1

Some of the world’s top tech firms are backing a new industry task force focused on disrupting cybercriminal ransomware gangs by limiting their ability to get paid, and targeting the individuals and finances of the organized thieves behind these crimes. In a 81-page report delivered to the Biden administration this week, top executives from Amazon, […]

Experian API Exposed Credit Sc1

Big-three consumer credit bureau Experian just fixed a weakness with a partner website that let anyone look up the credit score of tens of millions of Americans just by supplying their name and mailing address, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Experian says it has plugged the data leak, but the researcher who reported the finding says he […]

Experian’s Credit Freeze Secur

In 2017, KrebsOnSecurity showed how easy it is for identity thieves to undo a consumer’s request to freeze their credit file at Experian, one of the big three consumer credit bureaus in the United States.  Last week, KrebsOnSecurity heard from a reader who had his freeze thawed without authorization through Experian’s website, and it reminded […]

Note to Self: Create Non-Exhau1

What was the best news you heard so far this month? Mine was learning that KrebsOnSecurity is listed as a restricted competitor by Gartner Inc. [NYSE:IT] — a $4 billion technology goliath whose analyst reports can move markets and shape the IT industry. Earlier this month, a reader pointed my attention to the following notice […]

Joining By the People: An inte1

Abby Shelton, the newest Digital Collections Specialist working as a community manger on the By the People team. I’m thrilled to share that Abby Shelton has joined the Digital Content Management section as a new Digital Collections Specialist working as a community manager on the By the People Program. To that end, I’m also happy to […]

Curating as Artistic Act: Sele1

The following is a guest post by the 2021 Innovator in Residence Courtney McClellan, a research-based artist who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. With a subject focus on speech and civic engagement, McClellan works in a range of media including sculpture, performance, photography, and writing. Courtney’s Residency initiative “Speculative Annotation” will be an experimental browser-based application that […]

Did Someone at the Commerce De1

On Aug. 13, 2020, someone uploaded a suspected malicious file to VirusTotal, a service that scans submitted files against more than five dozen antivirus and security products. Last month, Microsoft and FireEye identified that file as a newly-discovered fourth malware backdoor used in the sprawling SolarWinds supply chain hack. An analysis of the malicious file […]