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Meet the three candidates for ALA president: (top left) Christine Lind Hage, director of Rochester Hills (Mich.) Public Library; (top right) Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, coordinator for information literacy services and instruction at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and (bottom left) Jim Neal, university librarian emeritus at Columbia University. The sole candidate for treasurer is (bottom right) Susan Hildreth, executive director of the Califa Group, Pacific Library Partnership, Peninsula Library System, and administrator of the NorthNet Library System in San Mateo, California....
American Libraries feature, Mar./Apr.; ALA YouTube, Mar. 14 |
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Miguel Figueroa writes: “Whether it’s emerging adulthood, the unplugged and maker movements, or the growing influence of fast casual restaurants, libraries are taking advantage of trends in the wider environment and putting them to work. This thinking has helped ALA’s Center for the Future of Libraries focus its work on providing library professionals and community leaders with information resources and tools that will help them understand the trends reshaping their libraries and communities.”...
American Libraries feature, Mar./Apr. |
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Larra Clark writes: “On March 9, the White House announced the ConnectALL initiative and a goal to connect 20 million more people to broadband by 2020. The FCC is now considering new rules for the Lifeline program, created in the 1980s to subsidize telephone service for low-income Americans. ALA is one of many digital inclusion advocacy organizations that have called for Lifeline to be expanded to include broadband. Libraries can engage directly in this effort in a variety of ways.”...
District Dispatch, Mar. 14; White House, Mar. 9 |
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Wayne A. Wiegand writes: “‘Don’t join the book burners,’ President Dwight D. Eisenhower implored Dartmouth College graduates on June 14, 1953. ‘Don’t be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.’ Eisenhower’s words shocked many, because they constituted his first public challenge to McCarthyism—an ethos fed by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), who inferred communist conspiracies everywhere in American culture.”...
American Libraries feature, Mar. 15 |
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Dozens of Kansas librarians joined with representatives of small governing bodies in Topeka on March 14 to express displeasure with House Bill 2719 requiring city, county, or voter approval for changes in property tax levies or for the issuance of bonds. Matt Nojonen, director of the Leavenworth Public Library, said the bill would damage a 14-county regional library network. Rejection of financing for the Northeast Kansas Library System—one of seven in Kansas—could compromise the operation of many small libraries, he said....
Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, Mar. 14 |
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On March 15, voters within the Plainfield (Ill.) Public Library District are taking to the polls to decide if they want to support the library’s referendum questions, which ask for a $39 million building bond and a 19% increase to the limiting rate. According to Library Director Julie Milavec, a major opposition group is Americans for Prosperity. “It’s the big Koch brothers–funded super PAC,” Milavec said. “Their Illinois chapter [is] specifically opposing 28 ballot measures across the state of Illinois.”...
Plainfield (Ill.) Patch, Mar. 14 |
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The New York Times editorial board writes: “One of the most ambitious research projects on Abraham Lincoln ever attempted—giving scholars and students online access to every document Lincoln ever wrote or read—is being threatened by an absurd and intractable political and budget morass in the Illinois statehouse. Managers of the project, the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, warn that it is being starved of money, with five of its 12 staff scholars already cut and its future in considerable doubt.”...
New York Times Sunday Review, Mar. 12; New York Times, Feb. 12 |
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Lauren Hockenson writes: “In America, we take the First Amendment very seriously. But when global platforms like Facebook and Google are charged with protecting the value of hate speech, even in places where it’s more common to be mindful of hurtful or embarrassing speech, things can get tricky. Drawing the line was the subject of a panel at SXSW’s Online Harassment Summit, which devoted an entire day’s worth of panels to understanding the ethics and morals surrounding the internet.”...
The Next Web, Mar. 12 |
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Phil Bradley writes: “If you can’t remember the name of a film, it can be a real nuisance. Well, worry not. There’s a new search engine called What Is My Movie. You can simply type in some basic concepts, and it will find matches for you. I tried several, and it found them every time. For example, I tried ‘gunslinger looking for gold in the American Civil War,’ and it came back with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. You can also try it with film quotes: ‘All the towns in all the world’ came back with Casablanca.”...
Phil Bradley’s Weblog, Mar. 15
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Chris Hoffman writes: “Unlike a faster CPU or graphics card, more memory (aka RAM) won’t always speed up your games. If you already have enough RAM, adding more won’t make a difference. So how much RAM do you need for modern PC gaming, anyway? This is a crucial question whether you’re purchasing a gaming computer, buying RAM while building your own PC, or just thinking about upgrading your current computer.” If you need a laptop to tote around the library, here are the 10 best gaming laptops, according to PC Magazine....
How-To Geek, Mar. 14; Apr. 28, 2014; PC Magazine, Mar. 14
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Jennifer Billingsley writes: “I am not a fan of sports by any stretch of the imagination, but I love Sports Anime. This genre tends to focus on character-driven stories with boatloads of delicious drama. The four series featured here don’t assume that you have a great deal of prior knowledge about the athletic activities that they focus on, and each does a great job of deftly integrating necessary information into the narrative without overexplaining or talking down to their audience.”...
YALSA The Hub, Mar. 14
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Donna Block writes: “Any time I feel anxiety over science programming, it’s helpful to remember how easy it can be. It doesn’t need to involve something as amazing as a solar eclipse. It could simply mean asking teens, ‘Hey look at this cool / weird / mysterious thing; any guesses what it is?’ Over the past year, the teens that visit my library have been entertained by a chunk of evaporating dry ice, helium-filled balloons, Pop Rocks, and vegetable oil + water + food coloring + alka-seltzer tablets in a bottle.”...
YALSAblog, Mar. 14; How Stuff Works; Science Kids; The Kitchn; Steve Spangler Science
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