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Alan S. Inouye writes: “In early December, a delegation of ALA leaders met with senior corporate executives and library marketing executives of Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Penguin Random House. ALA’s most specific request was to expand the options for library ebook lending business models to give libraries more choice. In particular, we advocated for a long-term option, such as purchase or perpetual license, and a shorter-term option, such as a one-year license or other flexible arrangement.”...
AL: E-Content, Dec. 7 |
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Larra Clark writes: “Kelvin Watson’s first experience downloading a library ebook required 19 steps. ‘By the time I was done, I didn’t want to read the book,’ he said as part of the background leading up to the development of Queens Library’s ‘Discovery and Delivery’ platform and its Virtual Library. Watson joined Queens three years ago as chief innovation and technology officer. Learning about the progress he and his team have made over that time was exhilarating.”...
AL: E-Content, Dec. 7 |
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Sponsored Content
As academic libraries continually shift to keep up with the changing needs of research and scholarship, many are looking at the digital humanities (DH) as an opportunity for closer partnership with faculty and other campus stakeholders. Some are investing in becoming “DH Centers,” offering not just content, but services, technology infrastructure, IT support, and even programming knowledge to scholars. Others want to engage in similar efforts but are constrained by lack of functional expertise, funding, or space.
Join Jon Cawthorne, dean of libraries at West Virginia University; Thomas Padilla, digital scholarship librarian at Michigan State University Libraries; and others for a discussion around the ways libraries can evolve to overcome these challenges and meet the changing needs of faculty and students in the digital humanities. Sunday, January 10, 1–2:30 p.m., ALA Midwinter Meeting, BCC Room 105. |
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YALSA invites library staff to encourage teens to “Create it at your library” for Teen Tech Week, March 6–12, 2016. TTW encourages libraries to tailor the theme to show their community exactly how libraries can connect in meaningful ways with teens in order to help them gain STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) skills. YALSA members can also apply for one of 20 Teen Tech Week programming stipends worth $1,000 each. The deadline to apply is January 1....
YALSA, Dec. 7
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Eric Willey writes: “All 754 volumes of the National Union Catalog: Pre-1956 Imprints are available online to the public for free viewing on the HathiTrust Virtual Library. Less than a month ago I inquired if the ALA would be willing to make this open to public view as one of the copyright holders, and everyone was very enthusiastic and extremely helpful in making that happen (including the ALA Archives staff in Urbana, who were able to locate the original 1964 publishing contract).”...
ALCTS, Dec. 7 |
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The newspaper editors write: “A public row over the placement of a sex education book for gay teens in the Wasilla (Alaska) Public Library appears to have died down now that the book—along with about 300 other books classified as YA nonfiction—has been moved to the adult stacks at the library. However, there are still a couple distressing issues that need to be addressed before the debate is shelved: public process and the shameful language heaped upon Library Director K. J. Martin-Albright.”...
Wasilla (Alaska) Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, Dec. 6 |
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A committee of parents and school staff has decided to retain a young adult book in Rosemount–Apple Valley–Eagan school district libraries south of St. Paul, Minnesota. Parents Ben and Kandi Lovin had asked the district to remove Just One Day by Gayle Forman from the four libraries, citing “adult themes” and inappropriate language. In a December 3 vote, seven members of the district’s review committee favored keeping the novel at both the middle school and high school levels....
St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, Dec. 4 |
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 The Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries provides funds to school libraries to add to and update their book and media collections to encourage and foster a love of reading, support student learning, and make books and reading materials available to students who would otherwise not have access to them. Schools must meet certain criteria to be eligible for a library grant. Applications must be submitted by December 14....
Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries |
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iREAD’s 2015 Summer Reading partnership with the libraries of the US Department of Defense Morale, Welfare, and Recreation has meant much to the thousands of kids and families who participated. From Edwards Air Force Base in California to the Army’s Yongsan Garrison in South Korea, from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam in Hawaii, the “Read to the Rhythm” theme led to drum safaris, performances by the Marine Aircraft Wing Band and the USMC Jazz Band, and lots of reading about music, musicians, and all things rhythm....
Illinois Library Association Newsletter, Dec. 3; Public Libraries Online, Mar. 1 |
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Drew University, founded in Madison, New Jersey, in 1867 as a Methodist seminary, is known for its unusually rich collection of rare books and manuscripts, including hundreds of historic Bibles. In October, graduate student Brian Shetler discovered a treasure the library didn’t know it had: a first edition of the King James Bible, a so-called “He Bible,” named for a typographical error in the Book of Ruth. The Bible will be added to the library’s current exhibition, “Discoveries and Donations,” which runs until February 22....
New York Times, Oct. 14, Dec. 4 |
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The children of Mustafa Güzelgöz, who gained fame in the Ürgüp district of central Anatolia, Turkey, after he traveled from village to village with his mobile library on his donkey in the 1940s, have established a museum to honor their father’s memory. Aziz and Muammer Güzelgöz have been undertaking a reading campaign in the name of their father and they will try to make their father’s name live forever with the newly established museum. Mustafa died in 2005....
Istanbul Daily Sabah, Dec. 7 |
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Steve Coffman writes: “Public libraries are the single largest supplier of books in the US. No other outlet can compete with public libraries—not Amazon, not Barnes & Noble, not Walmart or Costco, not all your local bookstores. But you’d never know it to look at us on the web. Our websites don’t measure up. The solution is obvious—ditch those 9,000 outdated library catalogs and funnel all of our readers through one great catalog built on the web with information on the more than 891 million books held by US public libraries.”...
Online Searcher 39, no. 6 (Nov./Dec.) |
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The creators of more than a billion photos, videos, songs, and other works are giving them away on the internet for others to use for free forever—a big milestone for Creative Commons, the nonprofit organization behind the copyright licenses allowing that use. The numbers were released December 8 in the group’s State of the Commons report. The report shows that Creative Commons licenses have nearly tripled in the last five years to 1.1 billion. The first licenses were released in December 2002....
CBC News, Dec. 8; Creative Commons, Dec. 8 |
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Where are the world’s most influential universities? That’s a question that increasingly dominates the way the public, governments, and funding agencies think about research and higher education. An independent way of producing a ranking that avoids controversies would be widely welcomed. José Lages and colleagues at the University of Franche-Comte are using the way universities are mentioned on Wikipedia to produce a new kind of world ranking that avoids common biases....
MIT Technology Review, Dec. 7; arXiv, Nov. 29 |
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Roz Warren writes: “I work at the circulation desk of a suburban library. I recently handed a patron’s library card back to her after scanning it, but I lost my grip and basically ended up throwing it at her instead. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’ ‘Yes you did!’ she said. Flabbergasted and shaken, I logged on to my favorite Librarian Facebook hangout and asked: What’s the weirdest thing a patron has accused you of doing? I got quite a few responses.”...
Huffington Post: Books, Dec. 4 |
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