The Monkeypuzzlers were one of 47 teams across 10 branches to compete in Mid-Columbia Libraries’ inaugural speed puzzling tournament in southeastern Washington last January. Photo: Madison Rosenbaum/Mid-Columbia Libraries Hands flew, timers ticked, and tensions ran high. But team Piece Out found success by sticking to a classic strategy: starting its 500-piece jigsaw puzzle with the […]
Brian Selznick Photo: Brittany Cruz-Fejeran Until recently, Caldecott Medal–winning author-illustrator Brian Selznick had never written for young adults, nor written a full-fledged love story. That changed with Run Away with Me (Scholastic, 2025), a YA novel about a transformative summer romance between two teenage boys in 1980s Rome that is interwoven with love stories spanning […]
Zora Neale Hurston. Photo: Library of Congress, Prints and Photography Division 10Number of Zora Neale Hurston plays—most of which were never published—held by the Library of Congress (LC) in Washington, D.C. The prolific 20th-century writer and anthropologist wrote the plays between 1925 and 1944, but they were not widely known until found in an LC […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly made its way into library resources, services, and work. These four recent publications offer important criticisms, background information, and critical strategies for librarians to help distinguish between the hype and realities of this growing technology. New Horizons in Artificial Intelligence in LibrariesEdited by Edmund Balnaves, Leda Bultrini, Andrew Cox, and […]
Your story matters. Not just because you curate collections or answer reference questions, but because you build bridges between people and knowledge. You have witnessed quiet triumphs: a child learning to read, a student discovering their passion, a senior reconnecting with history. These moments are part of our collective story, and they deserve to be […]
2025 wasn’t the best year in memory. Between job challenges, 8 months of unemployment, and spending weeks recovering after having 20% of my right kidney removed due to renal cell carcinoma….let’s just say it wasn’t the best year for me or my family. But even in the midst of all of the troubles, there were […]
KrebsOnSecurity.com celebrates its 16th anniversary today! A huge “thank you” to all of our readers — newcomers, long-timers and drive-by critics alike. Your engagement this past year here has been tremendous and truly a salve on a handful of dark days. Happily, comeuppance was a strong theme running through our coverage in 2025, with a […]
In this interview, 2025 Library of Congress Junior Fellow Kurt Lemai-Nguyen reflects on his experience working to support understanding AI at the Library in the Library’s Digital Strategy Directorate. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Leah: Hi Kurt! It’s great to have you on our team this summer. Could you tell us what your […]
Getting started with web accessibility improvements can feel overwhelming. The ultimate goal should be a website that maximizes accessibility and considers inclusive access in all decisions. But even incremental improvements have real benefits. A good approach is to look at the most high-impact changes you can make early in the process to improve accessibility for […]
New Zealand Two locations of Thames-Coromandel District Libraries closed temporarily on November 19 because of concerns that play sand used in crafts at the library may have been contaminated with asbestos, Radio New Zealand reported. Multiple brands of play sand have been recalled, and investigations are ongoing, according to New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, […]
Today’s guest post is from Kate Murray, Liz Caringola, Genevieve Havemeyer-King and Liz Holdzkom of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division at the Library of Congress. Happy new and updated FDDs (format description documents) to all who celebrate! It’s time for one of our favorite holiday traditions – an update about recent file format […]
Direct navigation — the act of visiting a website by manually typing a domain name in a web browser — has never been riskier: A new study finds the vast majority of “parked” domains — mostly expired or dormant domain names, or common misspellings of popular websites — are now configured to redirect visitors to […]
Master storyteller Angela Lloyd’s “sunbrella.” Everyone knows Cinderella, the story of the unfortunate young woman who, thanks to her fairy godmother, rides in a pumpkin, misplaces her glass slipper, and ends up marrying a prince. But have you heard the version where she’s aided by a magical fish instead? Or the one where she loses […]
This post is the third in a series about the Library’s 2025 Innovator in Residence, Vivian Li, and her project Anywhere Adventures. Following the selection of three communities, and a visit to the Library for research, the mobile experience has now officially launched! The 2025 Innovator in Residence project, Anywhere Adventures, has officially launched! The […]
Microsoft today pushed updates to fix at least 56 security flaws in its Windows operating systems and supported software. This final Patch Tuesday of 2025 tackles one zero-day bug that is already being exploited, as well as two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. Despite releasing a lower-than-normal number of security updates these past few months, Microsoft patched […]
In this interview, 2025 Library of Congress Junior Fellow Noelia Alvarez reflects on her experience working on the Expanding AI Community Engagement Project in the Library’s Digital Strategy Directorate. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Leah: Hi Noelia! It’s great to have you on our team this summer. Could you tell us what […]
A sprawling academic cheating network turbocharged by Google Ads that has generated nearly $25 million in revenue has curious ties to a Kremlin-connected oligarch whose Russian university builds drones for Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Nerdify homepage. The link between essay mills and Russian attack drones might seem improbable, but understanding it begins with a […]
China-based phishing groups blamed for non-stop scam SMS messages about a supposed wayward package or unpaid toll fee are promoting a new offering, just in time for the holiday shopping season: Phishing kits for mass-creating fake but convincing e-commerce websites that convert customer payment card data into mobile wallets from Apple and Google. Experts say […]
More than a decade after its launch, the Science Blogs Web Archive continues to grow and evolve. In this interview, Jennifer “JJ” Harbster reflects on building and maintaining the collection, while intern Yahir Brito brings a fresh perspective on updating and expanding it. Together, they share a few of their favorite blogs and discuss why […]
One of the best collections of education-related AI tools, the Ithaka S+R Generative AI Product Tracker has been upgraded from Google Sheets to Airtable, according to a post on the Ithaka blog. They’ve also taken the opportunity to tweak which tools they’re covering: We have also refined the scope of the tracker. While our tracker […]
