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Larra Clark writes: “ALA has been working closely with allies to support Senate legislation to restore 2015’s strong, enforceable net neutrality rules. The bill is a Congressional Review Act resolution from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that would block the FCC’s December repeal of net neutrality rules. The CRA currently has bipartisan support from 50 of 100 senators and would be assured of passage if just one more Republican backs the effort. Getting past this #OneMoreVote milestone in the Senate is the first step.”...
District Dispatch, Feb. 26; Sen. Ed Markey, Dec. 14, 2017; PC Magazine, Feb. 26 |
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The woman who was stabbed to death on February 24 while she sat at the Winchester (Mass.) Public Library has been identified as a first-year student in the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. Winchester police said Deane Kenny Stryker was sitting in the library when Jeffrey Yao stabbed her in the back with a 10-inch hunting knife. Library staff and patrons, including a 77-year-old man who was also injured, attempted to intervene. They were able to corral Yao until police arrived....
WBZ-TV, Boston, Feb. 24–25; Boston Herald, Feb. 27 |
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Kevin Cullen writes: “As horrific as the massacre at the Florida high school was, the murder of Deane Stryker in the Winchester (Mass.) Public Library hit me even harder, in a visceral way I didn’t expect. It seemed more real, more familiar, less nightmarishly remote. I’m in libraries two to three times a week. The biggest similarity between what happened in Florida and what happened in Winchester is that the perpetrators are mentally ill in a country and culture that cares little about such people.”...
Boston Globe, Feb. 26; WBZ-TV, Boston, Feb. 25; WBUR-FM, Boston, Feb. 26 |
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The Newberry Library in Chicago has announced a major revision to its policy regarding the reuse of collection images. Any image from its collection is now available to anyone for any lawful commercial or noncommercial purpose without licensing or permission fees to the library. The revised policy is intended to encourage users to interact more freely with collection items as they produce new scholarly and creative work....
Newberry Library, Feb. 27 |
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In an office building steps away from the White House, a small team of librarians at the White House Historical Association is working on a massive puzzle. The group has spent two years digitizing approximately 25,000 previously uncataloged slides of photographs that document years of White House history. The photos were taken between 1962 and 1987, the Kennedy through Reagan administrations. They have become historical detectives, matching up what they know about the photo with other historical information....
CNN, Feb. 24 |
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After centuries of separation, one of the most valuable collections of manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, the Bibliotheca Palatina, has been virtually reunited. While some of the 5,000 printed books and 3,524 manuscripts are now held by the University of Heidelberg, the bulk of the original collection is now an integral part of the Vatican Library. Heidelberg University Library digitized not only the German manuscripts in its own holdings but the Latin codices housed in Rome as well....
Medievalists.net, Feb. 21 |
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Every year in February the Association of Research Libraries hosts a week-long celebration of Fair Use and its crucial role in a balanced copyright system. Fair Use is central to free expression and the vibrant creativity of the web. In this essay, Stan Adams explains what Fair Use is—using other people’s words entirely....
Center for Democracy and Technology, Feb. 26 |
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Andrea Jamison writes: “Beaverton (Oreg.) School District is creating quite a buzz but for all the wrong reasons. The school superintendent decided to ban Andrew Smith’s YA novel Stick from the majority of its students. The district revealed that a formal complaint, requesting reconsideration of the book’s availability to students, was made by a concerned parent.” The Office for Intellectual Freedom and the Oregon Library Association sent a joint letter urging the school board to return the book to libraries and classrooms....
Intellectual Freedom Blog, Feb. 26; KATU-TV, Portland, Feb. 14
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San Francisco’s 28 library branches offer patrons 1,460 open hours weekly, 21% more than city law and voters require—but a new study shows there is demand for even more. A report recently completed for the San Francisco Public Library by the city controller’s office recommends that the library should consider adding hours to “reduce gaps in system-wide coverage and alleviate high demand on some days and times at specific libraries.” It recommends adding hours on Sundays and Fridays....
San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 25 |
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Richard Theodore Greener (1844–1922), the University of South Carolina’s first African-American faculty member, returned to campus on February 21 in the form of a nine-foot-tall statue officially unveiled outside the Thomas Cooper Library. In addition to teaching philosophy, Latin, and Greek at USC, Greener served as librarian and helped to reorganize and catalog the library’s holdings, which were in disarray after the Civil War. Greener was the first African-American graduate of Harvard College in 1870....
Orangeburg (S.C.) Times and Democrat, Feb. 25; Harvard Library, May 26, 2015 |
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Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library on February 27 announced a monthly reading program for young readers at LC. From March through August, the Library’s Young Readers Center will host a free storytime on the last Friday of each month in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The announcement came during a presentation by the Imagination Library during which Parton presented the 100 millionth book it has given away to the Library of Congress....
Library of Congress, Feb. 27; Library of Congress YouTube channel, Feb. 27 |
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Abbey Bender writes: “Golden Exits, the newest film from indie director Alex Ross Perry, focuses on the loosely connected lives of two Brooklyn households and centers around archivist Nick (Adam Horovitz) and archival assistant Naomi (Emily Browning). Golden Exits deserves some credit for being the most archive-centric film in a long time, possibly ever. Naomi swoops into Nick’s life and suddenly makes archives work look like a perfect piece of precious Brooklyn hipsterdom.”...
The Outline, Feb. 26 |
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Emily Bayci (right) writes: “I love being a children’s librarian. But who can honestly say it’s all peaches and roses 24 hours a day? Everyone is going to have a case of the Mondays sometimes. Especially when winter seems to be dragging on for a million months, the to-do list is never-ending, and there are 8,642 programs in a week but you already have to plan six months ahead. Here are some of my favorite hacks that make these tough days a little easier and some tips for getting through them.”...
ALSC Blog, Feb. 27 |
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Richard Byrne writes: “Solve Me Puzzles is a free site provided by the nonprofit Education Development Center. It offers free math puzzles for students to play and templates for teachers to use to create math puzzles. To create a puzzle, simply choose ‘build’ instead of ‘play’ after you select a puzzle on the home screen. You will need to create an account on the site in order to save your work.”...
Free Technology for Teachers, Feb. 27 |
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