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In this special bonus episode, Dewey Decibel goes behind the scenes at the 2018 Youth Media Awards, held February 12 at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver. American Libraries Associate Editor and Dewey Decibel host Phil Morehart joins the award-selection committees as they make phone calls to the winners the morning before the award announcement event....
AL: The Scoop, Feb. 15, 16 |
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As soon as she heard “Code Red Lockdown” on her radio in a Florida high school library, Diana Haneski (right) remembered how a fellow librarian saved lives by locking 22 people in a supply closet during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “She was there that day in Sandy Hook and because of her I knew what to do,” said Haneski, a library media specialist at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Her longtime friend Yvonne Cech, was the librarian on duty at the Newtown, Connecticut, school in 2012....
Reuters, Feb. 16 |
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After the 2007 shootings on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, students and staff at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, sent a more than 100-page handcrafted wooden book (right) to the university that is now part of VT’s April 16, 2007, condolence archives. Two then–Stoneman Douglas students collected letters and artwork from fellow students across Florida to fill the large wooden book that says “in memory of 32” on its front. It is the largest condolence book Tech received after the shooting....
Roanoke (Va.) Times, Feb. 16; Apr. 11, 2017 |
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Daniel Nazer writes: “Rejecting years of settled precedent, a federal court in New York has ruled that you could infringe copyright simply by embedding a tweet in a web page. Even worse, the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking, not just embedding tweets. If adopted by other courts, this legally and technically misguided decision would threaten millions of ordinary internet users with infringement liability.”...
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Feb. 15; May 16, 2007; Oct. 24, 2017 |
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Facebook will soon rely on centuries-old technology to try to prevent foreign meddling in US elections: the post office. Baffled in 2016 by Russian agents who bought ads to sway the US presidential campaign, Facebook’s global politics and government outreach director, Katie Harbath, told the National Association of Secretaries of State on February 17 that the company would send postcards to potential buyers of political ads to confirm they reside in the United States....
Associated Press, Feb. 18 |
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February 20, World Social Justice Day, is a good time to celebrate libraries as social justice institutions—places where the power that information and knowledge can bring is available for all. The core functions of libraries are reflected in the right of access to information and the right to participate in the cultural life of the community, both of which appear in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights are part of an overall framework that seeks to promote free, just, and peaceful societies....
IFLA Library Policy and Advocacy Blog, Feb. 20 |
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A growing number of independent organizations strive to provide digital information access where internet access is limited. Arizona State University Library and Bibliothèques Sans Frontières / Libraries Without Borders, with the involvement of IFLA, organized an international summit, January 30–February 1, at the ASU Library in Tempe. As a result of these discussions, the active participants framed the following “Tempe Principles.”...
ASU The Library Channel, Feb. 19 |
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Katherine McConachie writes: “Here at the MIT Media Lab, we are big fans of public libraries. Which is why we’ve recently announced the Public Library Innovation Exchange (PLIX). This project, run by the ML Learning Initiative and supported by the Knight Foundation, aims to foster a community of collaborative innovation—where librarians and Media Lab researchers work together to identify community challenges, dream up new ways to address them, and create easy-to-use programs for public libraries.”...
MIT Media Lab, Feb. 16; Oct. 3, 2017
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Anne Ewbank writes: “Not many libraries have menu collections, but they are still a vital part of the historical record that reveals tastes, trends, and local environmental conditions. Menu collections are often passion projects. Perhaps the most famous examples are Frank E. Buttolph, who collected 25,000 menus that eventually ended up at the New York Public Library, or Louis Szathmary, a chef whose collection is split between two universities and ranges from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural ball (right) to a space-age feast.”...
Atlas Obscura, Feb. 16; Aug. 4, 2017 |
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Matt Grant writes: “Remember the 1996 John Travolta movie Phenomenon? No? Well, neither do I. But I remember the trailer, in which Travolta gets zapped by an eerie light and wakes up with the power to read 2–3 books a day. Lots of speed-reading tricks skirt the edges of legitimacy—not reading the entire page, or skipping less important chapters. Instead, here are some tips for how to read faster that don’t require you to skimp on comprehension.”...
Book Riot, Feb. 18; Sky TV YouTube channel, Sept. 2, 2010 |
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Katey Howes writes: “As a scientist, clinician, author, and parent, observation is one of my most important skills. The tools and perspective we use to observe the world shape our thinking—and in turn shape our actions. Hand a kid a kaleidoscope, binoculars, a magnifying glass—everything changes. A new perspective can make the distant familiar, the universe small, the possibilities endless. Here are 10 picture books that encourage readers to observe the world in new and different ways.”...
Nerdy Book Club, Feb. 3 |
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Sonia Rao writes: “The long-awaited Black Panther will dominate the pop culture scene over the next few weeks, and amid praise for the cast and director, you’re likely to hear one word quite often: Afrofuturism. The term, coined by cultural critic Mark Dery in his 1994 essay ‘Black to the Future,’ refers to an aesthetic that infuses science fiction and fantasy with cultures of the African diaspora. It shakes up our preconceived notions of history and race by envisioning an often utopian future shaped by black technological innovation.”...
Washington Post, Feb. 17 |
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Piotr Kowalczyk writes: “Many people have recently discovered the joy of playing audiobooks on their smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, or Apple HomePod. You don’t have to buy a smart speaker, though. All you need is a free app. If you have a phone or tablet powered by Android, you’ll find plenty of audiobook apps. Here are eight of the most popular and interesting Android audiobook apps.”...
Ebook Friendly, Feb. 13 |
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Sascha Segan writes: “More than other tablet operating systems, Android goes from low to high. The broad flexibility of Google’s OS lets manufacturers build useful products ranging from $50 to more than $500, fitting a broader range of niches and tastes than the Apple iPad, which has dominated the tablet market since it first came out. We’ve rounded up our top picks here.”...
PC Magazine, Feb. 14; Apr. 4, 2017 |
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