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Jessica McGilvray writes: “It’s official and, incredibly, it’s virtually unanimous. Thanks in large part to the enthusiastic response to an ALA Washington Office call to action, as well as a boost from mega-author James Patterson, the US Senate on July 8 voted 98–0 in favor of the bipartisan Reed-Cochran Amendment to S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015. This amendment will explicitly make effective school library programs part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”...
District Dispatch, July 8 |
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In a sweeping critique of past spending and accounting practices at the Queens (N.Y.) Library, a city audit (PDF file) released on July 8 detailed more than $310,000 in prohibited expenses by the former president of the system, Thomas W. Galante, and other executives. Trustee Chair Carl S. Koerner said the current board had “launched sweeping reforms (PDF file) to address concerns raised by the comptroller and other public officials.”...
New York Times, July 8 |
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The Saskatoon (Sask.) Public Library is working with forest fire evacuees to help them stay connected to their communities. Library Director Carol Cooley said the library’s mandate is to be a community builder. People who are staying in the city temporarily because of the fires can get a library card and check out books, or just use the computers and internet to stay in contact with loved ones....
CBC News, July 9 |
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The Denver Public Library has won the Urban Libraries Council’s award for being the Top Innovator of 2015 because of its teen DevCamps. These week-long sessions team teenagers with real-life web developers who expose the kids to HTML, CSS, and Javascript. For free. The DevCamps have local tech companies as partners and supporters, including Universal Mind, Talent Lattice, and Galvanize....
Denver Post, July 10
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Keith Stuart writes: “Many teenage boys are tired of the sexualized depiction of women in video games, according to a new survey. In the study of about 1,400 US youths, 47% of middle-school boys and 61% of high school boys agreed that women are treated as sex objects too often in games. The findings, gathered by education consultant Rosalind Wiseman and games writer Ashley Burch, counter familiar assumptions that boys will voraciously consume media images of scantily clad women without a second thought.”...
The Guardian (UK), July 10; Time, July 8
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Jacob Berg writes: “University of Utah Associate Dean for Scholarly Resources and Collections Rick Anderson has published an opinion piece in Insights, titled ‘A Quiet Culture War in Research Libraries: And What It Means for Librarians, Researchers, and Publishers.’ Rather than revealing or elucidating a problem, the article can be read as an apologia for the current state of scholarly communication and LIS practitioners’ roles in that.”...
BeerBrarian, July 9; UKSG Insights, July 7
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The Digital.Bodleian website, launched July 8, includes more than 100,000 images covering everything from beautifully illustrated manuscripts and centuries-old maps to Victorian board games and Conservative Party election posters from the last 100 years. For the first time, the public can view digital versions of library materials, many of which were only previously accessible by obtaining an Oxford University Bodleian Libraries’ readers card....
Bodleian Library, July 9 |
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Brad Hooper writes: “Business and economics touch all our lives in some fashion or other, and the following 10 books, reviewed in Booklist between July 2014 and June 2015, discuss in superior fashion many of the contact points between our personal lives and economic theory and practice.” Among them: Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism, by Bartow J. Elmore, who takes a riveting look at the origins and success of Coca-Cola....
Booklist Online, July 8 |
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Chris Hoffman writes: “Browser plug-ins are on their way out. Microsoft Edge doesn’t support ActiveX plug-ins, although it does have built-in Flash support. Google Chrome has also discontinued support for the NPAPI plug-in format used by Java, Silverlight, Unity, and other plug-ins. Most web users can get away without these plug-ins, but some sites may still require the Java web plug-in, Silverlight, Unity, or something similar, Here’s how to get around that.”...
How-To Geek, July 10; Oct. 14, 2014 |
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Bryan Gardiner writes: “If a film is rare, highly flammable, and was made before 1951, there’s a good chance it will end up on George Willeman’s desk. Or more specifically, in one of his vaults. As the nitrate film vault manager at the Library of Congress’ National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Willeman presides over more than 160,000 reels of combustible cinematic treasure, from the original camera negatives of 1903’s The Great Train Robbery to the early holdings of big studios.”...
Wired, July 7 |
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The Norman (Okla.) Public Library held a trivia contest about the award-winning BBC series Doctor Who. Jamie Hale writes: “The format for the contest consisted of 10 questions (PDF file) asked during three rounds. Each team was given sheets of paper to write their answers down. Each question was worth points (three points in the first round, four in the second, and five in the third) and the questions got harder to answer (PDF file) as the rounds progressed.”...
Programming Librarian, July 7 |
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You can now read the first chapter of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, coming out on July 14, and listen to a sample of Reese Witherspoon reading the audiobook. The Wall Street Journal reports on the “extreme security measures” in place for the book’s rollout to libraries and bookstores in more than 70 countries (it appears shrink-wrapping counts as an “extreme measure”). Libraries have ordered thousands of copies of the book....
Early Word, July 10; The Guardian (UK), July 10; Wall Street Journal, July 10; San Francisco Chronicle, July 10 |
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