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Alan S. Inouye writes: “The theme of this year’s CES (formerly the International Consumer Electronics Show) was ‘Whoa.’ And the event—which attracted more than 184,000 attendees to Las Vegas January 9–12—was impressive in scope. Session topics covered sleep technology, quantum computing, karaoke systems, and tech advances in autos in addition to the more library-related areas of artificial intelligence, net neutrality, the future of video, and a book club featuring interviews and signings with big-name tech authors.”...
AL: The Scoop, Jan. 23 |
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Author and activist Anthony Graves will deliver the keynote address at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and Sunrise Celebration during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in the Colorado Convention Center on February 12. Graves spent more than 18 years in prison—including 12 years on death row—after being wrongfully convicted for murder. Upon his exoneration in 2010, he founded the Anthony Graves Foundation, a nonprofit that works towards furthering criminal justice reform....
Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services, Jan. 22 |
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UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is ready for the future. The archival and architectural treasure is home to the university’s renowned collection of rare books and manuscripts from England’s Tudor period through the 18th century, including the world’s largest repository of materials related to Oscar Wilde. After being closed for more than two years for seismic retrofitting and ADA compliance, on January 21 the Clark officially reopened to the public and scholars....
UCLA Newsroom, Jan. 22 |
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A brazen theft of museum-quality books in broad daylight. A librarian tied up and incapacitated by a stun gun. The loot destined for the New York art world. It may sound like the plot of a movie, and now it is one. The feature-length film American Animals, based on a 2004 book heist by four thieves at Transylvania University Library in Lexington, Kentucky, was among the films that had their debut at the Sundance Film Festival....
Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Jan. 22; American Libraries news, Dec. 9, 2005 |
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Retired Tasmanian Supreme Court Librarian Dorothy Shea is devoting her spare time to helping preserve a cache of historic documents that she found wrapped in brown paper two decades ago. Inside the parcels were original copies of legislation dating back to 1833 when Tasmania was known as Van Diemen’s Land. Many of the acts are written on vellum and bear the signatures of lieutenant-governors including George Arthur and John Franklin. Shea has been the driving force behind a project to restore and archive the documents....
ABC Radio Australia, Jan. 21 |
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Barbara Fister writes: “As I was idly poking into library history, I came across something that surprised me. At a 1901 meeting of the American Social Science Association, Melvil Dewey predicted this would happen by 1926: ‘Books, except a few rarities, will be regarded less as fetiches to be protected with a kind of sacred awe, and more for use. . . . Students will cut up books freely for notes and scraps.’ Librarians are known to quote Ranganathan’s laws, including ‘Books are for use,’ but this is going a bit far.”...
Inside Higher Ed: Library Babel Fish, Jan. 22; Journal of Social Science 39 (Nov. 1901): 139–157 |
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David Beard writes: “America’s journalists, relentlessly attacked by President Trump, are also taking a beating in public opinion. However, their information-gathering cousins, librarians, are riding a cloud of popularity. Is there something journalists can learn from librarians? The Knight Foundation and Gallup weighed in a mammoth poll showing only 33% of Americans have a positive view of the news media. Contrast that with a Pew Research poll in August, in which 78% of Americans found public libraries helpful.”...
Poynter, Jan. 19; Knight Foundation, Jan. 15; Pew Research Center: Fact Tank, Aug. 30, 2017 |
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YouTube is now a registration agency for the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI), the ISO certified global standard number for identifying millions of contributors to creative works and those active in their distribution. YouTube is the first ISNI registration agency in the music space. YouTube will request an ISNI, a unique identifier, to be assigned to all creators whose works are used on the platform—including performers and songwriters—helping to reconcile data and ensure attribution....
Broadband TV News, Jan. 22
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Brewster Kahle writes: “By working together, librarians who are digitizing their collections can minimize duplication of effort in order to save time and money to preserve other things. This month we made progress with 78rpm record collections. The goal is to bring many collections online as cost effectively as possible. Ideally we want to show each online collection as complete but only digitize any item once. We are now doing this with 78rpm records in the Great 78 Project.”...
Internet Archive Blogs, Jan. 21 |
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Preservation specialists and bookbinders in the Bibliothèque National de France ensure that the National Library’s rare books remain in the best physical shape. These skilled craftspeople perform little miracles to allow future generations to open the antique books. They also work tirelessly to recondition, strengthen, and preserve those works that are simply too damaged to go on display. Watch the video (6:14)....
France 24 English YouTube channel, Jan. 19 |
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Jill Duffy writes: “Getting the right note-taking app is as much about finding one that clicks with you as it is about the nitty-gritty details of the service. In general, however, a reliable note-taking app lets you jot down all the things you want to remember quickly, easily, no matter where you are, and likewise lets you refer to all those notes anytime and anywhere. Evernote and OneNote aim to do it all, but there are alternatives.”...
PC Magazine, Jan. 22 |
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Jeremy Bailenson writes: “Since I first started studying virtual reality in the late 1990s, I’ve developed some safety tips, based on the VR demos I’ve given to many people over the past two decades. With well-timed catches, I have saved more than a handful of VR newbies from serious injury. The beauty of VR, as well as its curse, is that once immersed, you immediately forget the physical world exists. This is great for the mind but perhaps not so much for the body. So here are my eight rules for staying safe in VR.”...
Slate, Jan. 17 |
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