I had the opportunity to see the current production of Cabaret on Broadway (thanks to my wonderful family), and as it is my favorite musical…nay, my favorite staged media full stop…I have thoughts. It is a radical departure from the previous Broadway productions, and while it was magnificent in its way, it wasn’t the Cabaret […]
Virtual private networking (VPN) companies market their services as a way to prevent anyone from snooping on your Internet usage. But new research suggests this is a dangerous assumption when connecting to a VPN via an untrusted network, because attackers on the same network could force a target’s traffic off of the protection provided by […]
I know it’s cliché, but I AM actually trying to help my mom understand Generative AI a little more (hi, mom!). I just completed this free course, and recommend it as a gentle introduction to generative AI: Destination AI: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. It will require an investment of time, though maybe not quite the […]
In today’s issue of Ethan Mollick’s One Useful Thing, I learned that the iPhone 15 has a unique button I hadn’t paid any attention to – the action button. He mentioned how the action button can be used to launch a voice chat with ChatGPT, and I found instructions at TechCrunch. But I only have […]
In this week’s Princh Library Blog, guest writer Nina Grant observes how libraries are presented in the pop culture, and more specifically, in film. Enjoy! When movies take us into libraries, it’s like stepping into another world. You know the feeling… the soft hush of pages flipping, the soft thuds of footsteps wandering between towering […]
Illustration: Jacob Stead The library technology industry had a quiet year in 2023. But in the absence of major business moves and acquisitions, companies set their sights on executing strategies to strengthen their market position. Previous cycles of business consolidation have yielded a layered landscape with distinct levels of competition. At the top, a handful […]
Illustration: Rudzhan/Adobe Stock As school librarians, we are always rethinking how to convey who we are and what we do. To compete and remain viable, we need to work on our brand identity. You might be thinking, “Our school library has a brand?” Most of us associate the word with a name, logo, tagline, and […]
In February, Maynard (Mass.) Public Library featured fenugreek as its spice of the month. The library started its spice club in January 2022. Photo: Maynard (Mass.) Public Library Once a month, the aromas of unique herbs and spices waft through Maynard (Mass.) Public Library (MPL). These spices accent dishes like sweet and spicy tahini noodles, […]
Sister Stella, a resident of Queen of Peace, a retirement community for nuns, plays with Henry. The robotic dog belongs to Ela Area Public Library in Lake Zurich, Illinois.Photo: Liz Kristan Liz Kristan wanted to bring four-legged friends to patrons who needed them the most. Kristan, outreach services coordinator at Ela Area Public Library (EAPL) […]
A nearly 100-year-old headstone that was revived as part of Christian County (Mo.) Library’s Uncovering History: Gravestone Cleaning program.Photo: Christian County (Mo.) Library During the pandemic, Christian County (Mo.) Library was looking to launch an ongoing service series that would bring staffers and patrons together outdoors. So it turned to some of the rural area’s […]
From left: Maia Kobabe and Sarah PeitzmeierPhotos: M. Ruddell (Kobabe); Grace Han (Peitzmeier) In early 2020, Maia Kobabe (e/em/eir) was wrapping up promotion for eir memoir Gender Queer when e received an email out of the blue from Sarah Peitzmeier, a social epidemiologist working in LGBTQ+ health at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Peitzmeier, a […]
Photo: University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor May is National Inventors Month 135,850Number of items in the Edison Sheet Music Collection, housed at University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor. Thomas Edison, who invented the phonograph in 1877, spearheaded this collection as a way for his phonograph company to select vocal and instrumental scores […]
Pickleball Librarian Drew Evans poses on the court. Photo: Ken Doll Photography Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the US, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, with participation more than doubling to 9 million players between 2020 and 2022. Drew Evans, a retired law librarian who has previously worked at Kansas State University in […]
When you’re president of the American Library Association (ALA), you get asked a lot of questions. “What are you reading right now?” (Pure Life by Eugene Marten.) “Aren’t libraries obsolete?” (Nope.) “Will the organized censors win?” (No way.) But here’s one that’s hard to answer: “What’s your favorite library?” When you’ve seen as many amazing […]
Last November, my home state of Iowa saw a flurry of activity relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), both positive and negative. A group of plaintiffs filed suit against the state over a law that would ban books in K–12 schools that purportedly depict sex acts. (A federal judge temporarily halted enforcement of the […]
A 26-year-old Finnish man was sentenced to more than six years in prison today after being convicted of hacking into an online psychotherapy clinic, leaking tens of thousands of patient therapy records, and attempting to extort the clinic and patients. On October 21, 2020, the Vastaamo Psychotherapy Center in Finland became the target of blackmail […]
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today levied fines totaling nearly $200 million against the four major carriers — including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information without consent. The fines mark the culmination of a more than four-year investigation into the actions of the major carriers. In […]
In this week’s Princh Library Blog post, guest writer Jill Brooks discusses how libraries can navigate their digital transformation, including some of the challenges libraries face and the tools they can utilize. Enjoy! Libraries have long stood as bastions of knowledge, evolving through centuries from exclusive archives of scrolls to community hubs bustling with activity […]
The head of counterintelligence for a division of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was sentenced last week to nine years in a penal colony for accepting a USD $1.7 million bribe to ignore the activities of a prolific Russian cybercrime group that hacked thousands of e-commerce websites. The protection scheme was exposed in 2022 […]
In this week’s Princh Library Blog, guest writer Nina Grant talks about something that’s always present, but rarely thought about; air, or more precisely, the air quality in libraries, and how certain activities can be the source of major air pollution. Enjoy! Think about the last time you walked into a library. The smell of […]
