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Ellen Satterwhite writes: “The FCC published its new net neutrality rules in the Federal Register in late February. This publication usually sets the clock ticking for the 60 days from which new regulations will take effect. In this case, however, the FCC must first get approval from the Office of Management and Budget, then publish a notice in the Federal Register announcing OMB approval and announcing the effective date for when net neutrality protections will end. That date is still unknown.”...
District Dispatch, Apr. 22; Ars Technica, Feb. 22 |
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The Institute of Museum and Library Services released the latest data from its 2016 Public Libraries Survey on April 23. The Public Libraries Survey examines key indicators of public library use, financial health, staffing, and resources. Explore the FY 2016 data and supplementary tables. Each year since 1988, the survey has provided a national census of America’s public libraries....
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Apr. 23 |
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Aurora (Ill.) Public Library officials apologized April 22 after a poetry exhibit drew harsh criticism for including an Islamophobic display encouraging violence against Muslim women. The display featured the poem “Hijab means Jihad” by Lewis University philosophy professor George Miller superimposed over a Confederate flag. The poem was described as satire by both Miller and library officials. Library Board President John Savage had the exhibit removed on April 22....
Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald, Apr. 22 |
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A swastika and the word “heil” were scrawled on a bulletin board at the Glencoe (Ill.) Public Library. The vandalism was found April 10 in a second-floor room in the library and reported to police the next day, library executive director Andrew Kim said in a statement. Kim said he did not believe the graffiti indicates a larger bias problem in the village. After the discovery, library staff turned the “heil” into the word “hello” and made the swastika into another design....
Chicago Tribune, Apr. 20 |
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David Beard writes: “MLS-trained researcher Alice Crites (right) has been a part of a half-dozen Pulitzer teams. Her latest prize was announced in mid-April for an investigation of Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama. What if, in addition to librarians embedded in newsrooms, there were journalists embedded in libraries? That was one of the ideas batted around this weekend when 80 librarians and journalists met at Simmons College in Boston. The conference brainstormed ways to expand librarians’ role as fact checkers and consider their place in encouraging or co-creating local news content.”...
Poynter, Apr. 24 |
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Pau Giner writes: “Translation across hundreds of language Wikipedias is so important because it allows multilingual editors to reuse efforts made by other volunteers to cover a topic. The Wikimedia Foundation developed a content translation tool that helps editors easily translate articles by automating many of the boring steps. In early April, content translation reached a new milestone: More than 300,000 articles were created since the tool was released in 2015.”...
Wikimedia Blog, Apr. 23; Apr. 8, 2015 |
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WikiWhere is a fun geographical game designed to test how well you know the world’s major cities and where they are located in the world. The game asks you to pinpoint the location of five major cities on an interactive 3D globe. However, before you guess the location of each city, you need to guess each one purely from its Wikipedia entry. You will get points for each answer based on how close you get to the city’s real location and how many hints you use....
Maps Mania, Apr. 23 |
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Alison Hudson writes: “The British Library holds over 150 million collection items and counting. They include most known languages, but many are in English. So what is the oldest example of the English language held at the library? The answer is more complicated than it might appear. Many Old English texts only survive in later copies, while the vast majority of our oldest manuscripts from early medieval England are in Latin, the principal language of learning in western Europe at this period.”...
British Library: Medieval Manuscripts Blog, Apr. 23 |
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If you’re looking for a way to take storytime up a notch with the kids in your life, why not turn to astronauts? That’s the premise of Story Time from Space, a project from the nonprofit Global Space Education Foundation that features astronauts reading beloved children’s books from the International Space Station. Patricia Tribe, former director of education at Space Center Houston who came up with the project, said that the idea came about after she did some research on literacy and science skills in the US....
HuffPost, Apr. 13 |
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Emily Temple writes: “Last week on the internet, people were upset over this GQ listicle, in which the editors asked a handful of well-regarded contemporary authors to pick a book ‘you don’t have to read’ and suggest a better one in its place. What is there, at this late date, to get so incensed about? The following 10 things aren’t just about the most recent book list at GQ. This is about all the book lists, period. This is a public service announcement. In list form, obviously.”...
Literary Hub, Apr. 24; GQ, Apr. 21
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Annika Barranti Klein writes: “I lived in New York City for about half of my teens, and to this day (at nearly 40) I find that novels about teenagers in New York are like candy to me: I just can’t get enough. Here are a few of my favorite young adult novels set in New York City and some I’m looking forward to reading. These are mostly contemporary and mostly realistic, but not all. The vast majority take place in Manhattan or Brooklyn.”...
Book Riot, Apr. 24 |
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Michael Crider writes: “Properly formatting bibliographies has always driven students crazy. With modern versions of Microsoft Word, though, the process is streamlined to the point of almost being automatic, and today we’re going to show you how to add citations and bibliographies to your Word documents. When you’re working on any Word document, place your cursor where you want the citation to be placed. Switch to the References tab on the ribbon, and then click the Insert Citation button.”...
How-To Geek, Apr. 23 |
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