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Wayne Seltzer remembers the day a middle-school student named Rebecca Bloom (right) walked into the U-Fix-It Clinic at Boulder (Colo.) Public Library’s makerspace, BLDG 61, carrying her broken electric scooter. The goal of the U-Fix-It Clinic is allowing people to repair broken items instead of throwing them away, as well as inspiring them to learn more about the products they consume and how they work. The event is part of a larger movement to help keep broken items out of landfills and revive the lost art of repair....
American Libraries Trend, Sept./Oct. |
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Kaitlin Throgmorton writes: “As more schools across the nation use open educational resources (OERs), school librarians find that their roles as digital content curators are expanding or even being redefined. Their curation abilities make librarians invaluable for implementing OERs, which can be overwhelming for first-time users browsing a seemingly endless catalog of online resources. Because librarians also work with teachers throughout a school, they are in a position to be OER evangelists.”...
American Libraries Trend, Sept./Oct. |
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Emily Wagner writes: “In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which begins September 15, Google Cultural Institute collaborated with more than 35 institutions to launch a new platform on September 7 within Google Arts and Culture: Latino Cultures. The platform brings more than 2,500 Latino cultural artifacts online and—through immersive storytelling, 360-degree virtual tours, ultra-high-resolution imagery, and visual field trips—offers first-hand knowledge about the Latino experience in America.”...
AL: The Scoop, Sept. 7 |
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The 2017 Annual Conference of the Association of Rural and Small Libraries in St. George, Utah, September 7–9, has already broken ARSL records. More than 550 librarians from across the US are in attendance this year, according to Julie Elmore, director of Oakland City–Columbia Township (Ind.) Public Library and an ARSL board member. These numbers are up from 503 attendees at the 2016 conference. Twenty-four sessions were offered on the conference’s opening day, ranging from programs on programming for youth and seniors to gaming, gardening, summer reading, and poverty....
AL: The Scoop, Sept. 8 |
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Joseph Janes writes: “Even my amateur lexicographic interest ill prepared me for a world in which one of the more trenchant voices of political observation belongs to the Merriam-Webster Twitter feed (@MerriamWebster). If you don’t follow it yet, do so immediately, for its largely straightforward Word of the Day feature as well as its often wry and acerbic commentary on trending lookups based on ‘conversations’ of the moment, not to mention words that aren’t really words (‘covfefe’).”...
American Libraries column, Sept./Oct. |
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Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast as a Category 4 storm near Rockport the night of August 25. Although soon downgraded to a tropical storm the following afternoon, Harvey was responsible for more than 60 deaths and up to $180 billion in damage, according to the latest estimates by the governor’s office. Depending on their location, some public, academic, and school libraries sustained significant damage from the ensuing flood waters, while others escaped with only a little cleanup required. Some synagogue libraries were also damaged. The flood also affected many librarians and other library workers due to damage to their homes....
AL: The Scoop, Sept. 6; New York Times, Aug. 26; WDSU-TV, New Orleans, Sept. 4; Houston Chronicle, Sept. 6; Haaretz (Tel Aviv), Sept. 7 |
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As Hurricane Irma hurtles toward Florida, it’s important that all individuals and cultural institutions prepare now. The Florida Library Association is offering these preparation tips and resources. Colleges across the Sunshine State have scheduled closures in the coming days. What happens if the power goes out and you lose internet connections? If you are receiving text messages. there is a possible solution....
Florida Library Association; Inside Higher Ed, Sept. 8; HumaniNet; Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, Sept. 7 |
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Kate Lechtenberg writes: “Going back to school this fall means talking about politically charged issues with students. For school librarians and teachers, it will be impossible to discuss current events, brainstorm lists of topics for writing assignments, or make connections from history to today without wading through some pretty thorny political terrain. So here’s my list of go-to resources for making deliberate choices to support tough talk about controversial issues in classrooms and libraries.”...
Intellectual Freedom Blog, Sept. 6; American Libraries column, Jan./Feb.
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Sarah Potvin writes: “Peer review maintains an implacable presence in the collaborative enterprise of scholarly production. Widely viewed as the ‘gold standard,’ it is considered a requirement for affirming validity and quality, as well as for codifying disciplinary boundaries. Librarians have a duty to scrutinize both the method and the implementation of peer review, given our canonization of peer review in our own systems of scholarly production and assessment and in our work to organize and ensure access to scholarly corpora.”...
College and Research Libraries 78, no.6 (Sept.): 734–740 |
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Carla Hayden, the first woman and first African American to be named Librarian of Congress, was selected as one of Time’s featured women in its “Firsts” series. In the video interview, Hayden says: “In commercials when they want to show that a product is really snappy, a librarian tastes the gum and goes wild. That’s what people think about the librarian. To have the profession represented by someone who is somewhat culturally diverse, with a short haircut, shows that librarians can be cool. I think it will help with our recruitment.”...
Time, Sept. 6
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Jen Taggart writes: “In 2009, the Bloomfield Township (Mich.) Public Library officially unveiled its Special Needs Collection for patrons with different needs. Striving to offer technology for those with different learning needs, we recently prepared a proposal for our Friends group to create an Inclusive Technology Station. The proposal was approved and funded with a budget of $3,500 for an accessible technology station with active seating and software geared to different learners. Here’s what we put together.”...
ALSC Blog, Sept. 7
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Nick Tanzi writes: “Libraries have long provided specific services to their senior populations, from Music & Memory programs to homebound access. Increasingly, libraries are adopting virtual reality technology into their service model. A recent article described the work of Bett>R With Age, which created a series of cinematic virtual reality experiences intended to be used with seniors experiencing impairment to mobility and/or cognition. These films were largely focused on entertainment: museums, concerts, and travel.”...
Public Libraries Online, Sept. 5; Wired, Apr. 27
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