For daily ALA and library news, check the American Libraries website or subscribe to our RSS feed.
|
|
|
Marijke Visser and Cynthia Aguilar write: “About 33 miles north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, sits the Santo Domingo Pueblo Library, at the heart of its community. But to access Wi-Fi you have to step out the front doors onto a ceramic, Santa Fe–style portal and count 14 titles to the right, the only sure spot for an internet connection. Until this past summer, the library had such poor broadband service that it routinely missed deadlines for grant applications. SDPL turned those missed opportunities into a vision.”...
AL: The Scoop, Oct. 4 |
|
Maddie Hines writes: “Unless you’re already established within your field, most employers won’t outright pay for an expensive conference attendance (although many will pay for your membership fees). However, the old adage, ‘It doesn’t hurt to ask’ always applies. But money can be tight. This is where grants come in. ALA has a nice list of grant funding available for all kinds of niche librarianship fields. Here I’ve curated a list for travel and professional development specifically for newbs like us.”...
NMRT Notes, Oct. 3 |
|
Join the Freedom to Read Foundation for “Fake News or Free Speech: Is There a Right to be Misinformed?” a webinar on October 12. This is a webinar version of the Intellectual Freedom Committee program that Moderator Emily Knox and other panelists (Nicole A. Cooke, Joyce Valenza, Damaso E. Reyes, and Mary Minow) offered at the ALA 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans. Register online....
Freedom to Read Foundation, Oct. 3 |
|
Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Qatar Computing Research Institute believe that the best approach for detecting fake news is to focus on the news sources themselves. They have demonstrated a new system that uses machine learning to determine if a source is accurate or politically biased. “If a website has published fake news before, there’s a good chance they’ll do it again,” says postdoctoral associate Ramy Baly, adding that the system needs only about 150 articles to reliably detect if a news source can be trusted....
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab news, Oct. 4 |
|
|
Kristin Pekoll writes: “There are some books that make teachers love to teach. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien is one of those books for English teachers in South Jordan, Utah. A recent report brought to light a parent’s concerns about the semi-autobiographical short stories about the Vietnam War being taught in the college preparation English course for seniors in high school: ‘Is it appropriate for those kind of details, for that kind of language, for the sexuality to be taught to minors in a public school setting?’”...
Intellectual Freedom Blog, Oct. 3; KTVX-TV, Salt Lake City, Sept. 19 |
|
OCLC has been awarded a $249,714 National Leadership Grant by IMLS to collect and share knowledge and resources to support public libraries and their community partners in addressing the opioid crisis. In partnership with PLA, OCLC Research will produce eight case studies of communities in which the public library is already playing a role in responding to the opioid crisis. The project team will also create a call-to-action white paper, host a WebJunction webinar series, and curate content and resources for library staff....
OCLC, Oct. 2 |
|
|
Alison McCarty writes: “Seattle’s Downtown Library is offering a new service for the phoneless, chargerless, or coinless—free public telephones. These new, free telephones replace the pay phones previously offered by the library. SPL worked with several departments, including IT, Facilities, and City Telephone Services, to install the phones. The library purchased the phones and the dedicated lines are part of the city’s phone network. The phones cost $400 each and the lines cost about $60 per month.”...
Public Libraries Online, Oct. 2 |
|
Flexible learning spaces lend themselves to more modern instructional approaches and meet various needs, such as small-group collaboration, large-group instruction, and individual study. School leaders should consider the entire building, not just classrooms. A recent study by researchers at Iowa State University demonstrates how classroom design directly affects student engagement, such as mobile chairs facilitating communication and collaboration. Here are five learning-space trends on the horizon for classrooms....
eSchool News, Oct. 3; Nov. 27, 2017; Journal of Learning Spaces 6 (2017): 26–33 |
|
Kanopy, a free-to-user streaming platform, is partnering with the Goethe-Institut, an organization promoting German cultural exchange, to sponsor 48 significant films for “Wunderbar: A Celebration of German Film.” Part of Deutschlandjahr, the Year of German-American friendship, the festival will include a curated list of German-language films throughout the month of October. Among those included are Metropolis (1927), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Beuys (2017), Marlene (1984), and A Coffee in Berlin (2012)....
Kanopy, Oct. 3; Goethe-Institut Washington YouTube channel, Oct. 2 |
|
Jeffrey L. Wilson writes: “From the 1930s until roughly the mid-1990s, comic books were produced almost entirely with paper, typewriters, pencils, brushes, inks, and dyes, with only a few digital blips along the way. But as electronic tools became increasingly affordable and powerful, the comic book creation process shifted from an analog to a digital process. In contemporary times, there’s a good chance that no aspect of your favorite title is physical until the finished pages start rolling off a printing press.”...
PC Magazine, Oct. 4 |
|
|
Jamie Lausch Vander Broek writes: “I’m the librarian for art and design at the University of Michigan, where I curate the university’s collection of artists’ books, works of art in book form. American Cheese: 20 Slices, by Ben Denzer, consists of slices of individually wrapped American singles bound like an old-fashioned library book with a bright yellow fabric cover. Our copy is number 9 of 10, and is the only copy held by a library. Some people—especially librarians, particularly catalogers—were mad when I bought the cheese book. This surprised me.”...
Saveur, Oct. 4 |
|
Kelly Jensen writes: “Here is a really rad collection of Dewey Decimal–themed wares to build yourself the most bookish, nerdy, and librarian-approved wardrobe you can imagine. I take full credit for the fact your wallet is going to be crying shortly, but I also take full credit for helping you dress your 646 best. Bookmark this list and know that anything here would likely make for an excellent gift for the librarians and library lovers in your life for birthdays, holidays, or ‘just thinking about you’ days.”...
Book Riot, Oct. 5 |
AL Direct is a free electronic newsletter emailed every Tuesday and Friday to personal members of the American Library Association.
Editor, AL Direct: George M. Eberhart, geberhart@ala.org
|
Send news and feedback: aldirect@ala.org
Direct ad inquiries to: Michael Stack, mstack@ala.org
AL Direct FAQ: americanlibrariesmagazine.org/al-direct
All links outside the ALA website
are provided for informational purposes only. Questions about the
content of any external site should be addressed to the administrator of
that site.
AL Direct will not sell your email to outside parties, but your email may be shared with advertisers in this newsletter should you express interest in their products by clicking on their ads or content. If the advertisers choose to communicate with you by email, they are obligated to provide you with an opportunity to opt-out from future emails in compliance with the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation of 2018. Read the ALA privacy policy.
American Libraries
50 E. Huron St.
Chicago, IL 60611
800-545-2433, ext. 4216
ISSN 1559-369X
|
