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Tina Coleman and Jenny Levine write: “Cataloging classes everywhere have a new final exam for students—cataloging spam posts on a hacked Facebook page. For almost 31 hours over Labor Day weekend, ALA’s Facebook page was controlled by a hacker who posted decidedly un-library-like content and removed all ALA admins. While ALA’s Social Media Team scrambled to find a way to regain access to the page, new spam posts were going up every 20 minutes like clockwork.” If you missed it, you can watch the Lego version of #alahackgate2015....
AL: The Scoop, Sept. 8; TechCrunch, Sept. 7; ALA Tumblr, Sept. 8 |
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Marcus Banks writes: “In the past 13 years, open access publishing—in which academic journal content is free for anyone to read online—has moved from a fringe populist movement into the mainstream. Immediate open access could someday become the default publishing model for articles in the biosciences, and perhaps for the humanities and social sciences as well. The subscription-based scholarly publishing system that matured prior to the internet appears unlikely to sustain itself indefinitely.”...
American Libraries feature, Sept./Oct. |
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 Allison Marcotte writes: “The process of turning a story idea into a freshly bound book can seem mysterious to many, but friends Colby Sharp and Travis Jonker have untangled the process with their new podcast The Yarn. In its first season, which debuted in its entirety in mid-August 2015, grade school teacher Sharp and school librarian Jonker flew to New York from Michigan to talk to the people behind Jennifer and Matthew Holm’s recently released Scholastic graphic novel, Sunny Side Up. AL spoke with Sharp and Jonker to learn more about their creative process.”...
AL: The Scoop, Sept. 28 |
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The computer failures at the Library of Congress that have crippled the US Copyright Office since last week also have shut down the electronic services of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). That office’s Braille and Audio Reading Download, or BARD service, has not worked since September 1, preventing thousands of visually impaired readers across the country from accessing materials. Managers of the regional and state offices say customers are calling for help because they are unable to download audio and braille files....
Washington Post, Sept. 4 |
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Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is reportedly shutting down the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project, which aims to digitize every piece of paper that touched the hands of the Great Emancipator. A spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency that administers the program denied that the papers project has been shut down and said that money remains available. However, the future of a dozen University of Illinois Springfield employees who assisted the state with the program isn’t clear....
Springfield Illinois Times, Sept. 4; Lincoln (Ill.) Courier, Sept. 4 |
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Blair Kamin writes: “After years of building cookie-cutter libraries that failed to live up to Chicago’s reputation as the first city of American architecture, the city has finally broken the mold with an elegant new branch in Chinatown. This rounded triangle of steel and glass, its exterior lined with bronze-colored aluminum fins, is everything its banal, prototype predecessors are not: tailored to its physical surroundings and cultural context; a vessel for stirring spaces and abundant natural light; functional and efficient but also inspiring.”...
Chicago Tribune, Sept. 7 |
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Heather Collins writes: “I find myself asking what the historical and genealogical societies of tomorrow will look like. This question is largely inspired by my interactions with many different genealogical and historical societies over the past few months. I’ve had experiences both good and bad—both of which indicate where these societies will strive and struggle to find their place in the future. If a genealogical society is still spending money on sending paper newsletters through the mail, it is trapped in 1998.”...
Young & Savvy Genealogists, Sept. 1 |
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In the Esta Kramer Collection of American Cookery—Bowdoin College library’s new collection of more than 700 American cookery books—you can find recipes for federal pancakes, squash pie, flummery (fermented pudding), calf’s head pie, and stewed oysters. You can read about how to smoke a herring over a campfire or how to remove freckles. Along with recipes, many of the books offer household advice for “young, inexperienced housewives” or frugal housewives, bachelors, or servants. Others are geared toward professional chefs, hunters, and children. The collection includes titles dating from the 1770s to the 1960s....
Bowdoin News, Sept. 1
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With the iKnow digital library card, residents of Harris County, Texas, essentially will have an on-demand library on their electronic devices. The program, which started September 1, already had more than 300 people enroll in the service, including about 10 children. While it doesn’t offer all of the amenities of a full-service library card (digital users can’t check out hard copies of books), the intent is to reach people who may not interact with libraries at all....
Houston Chronicle, Sept. 4 |
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On September 8, International Literacy Day, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, together with the International Publishers Association, the International Authors Forum, and the Reading and Writing Foundation, has issued a joint statement on literacy and reading (PDF file). The statement calls on the United Nations member states to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals by implementing coherent and appropriately resourced national comprehensive literacy strategies....
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Sept. 8 |
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Rose Eveleth writes: “Jason Scott has something of a reputation. He’s a historian who works for the Internet Archive, and he’s known in some circles as the guy who can save bits of history right before they disappear. So when he found out that a small store in Maryland that sold manuals for machinery was going out of business, and was going to get rid of its collection of nearly 200,000 obscure booklets in just a few days, Scott got to work.”...
The Atlantic, Sept. 1 |
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Chris Hoffman writes: “Windows 10 is a great upgrade. Microsoft paid a lot of attention to the feedback they ignored while developing Windows 8, and it shows. Unfortunately, some parts of Windows 10 are inexplicably bad and hostile to users. While Windows 10 as a whole shows Microsoft listening to feedback, parts of it show the same old Microsoft that dug its feet in and announced products like the original Xbox One and Windows 8 without appearing to care about many users.”...
How-To Geek, Sept. 7 |
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