6 Ways to become a power library user | via BookRiot

Public libraries | Library services | Research

by Kelly Jensen 08-22-14

You have a library card and you know the library is more than just a “Netflix for books.” Maybe you know about your library’s e-book offerings and maybe you know you can borrow audiobooks or DVDs. But how can you make the absolute most out of your local library? Here are 6 tips for becoming a power user of the public library.

Worth noting: not all public libraries offer the same services, so not everything mentioned here will be available to all users. Some libraries offer more and some may offer less. These variations exist because of funding differences, library size, location, and a host of other factors, most of which are out of control of the library itself. The one common denominator among these tips, though, is that they’re all things you can ask about at your library.

Likewise, this is geared toward the American public library system, so your mileage in other countries may vary.

1. Get to the top of the holds list for hot titles
Did you know many libraries order books well in advance of their publication date? Librarians are knowledgeable about what’s coming out, and they often put in purchase orders for titles weeks, if not months, before publication. This is especially true for books that are garnering buzz or are new titles by popular authors.  Read more...

You can now call your elected officials through Facebook | March 27, 2017

Activism | Social Media | Politics

By Brian Fung

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)

 

 

Since the election in November, U.S. lawmakers have received a deluge of phone calls from Americans weighing in on the GOP's congressional agenda. Now, those floodwaters may rise even higher as Facebook rolls out new tools making it easier for users to contact their representatives. The tools, which were being beta-tested but went live to all Facebook users Monday, could lead to a lot more calls from constituents who are pleading to be heard.

One of Facebook's new tools, Town Hall, allows you to find out who your local, state and federal representatives are. You can get to it by visiting facebook.com/townhall, by looking under the "Explore" section of your News Feed on a desktop, or by looking in the menu of your Facebook app on your phone. Read more...

Long Overdue: Why public libraries are finally eliminating the late-return fine | February 6, 2016

Public libraries | Library services | Access

by Ruth Graham

Photo illustration by Slate. Images via jmbatt, simo988/iStock.

In 1906, a reporter for the Detroit Free Press described a scene that had become all too common at the city’s public libraries. A child hands an overdue book to a stern librarian perched behind a desk, and with a “sinister expression,” the librarian demands payment of a late fine. In some cases, the child grumbles and pays the penny or two. But in others—often at the city’s smaller, poorer library branches—the offender cannot pay, and his borrowing privileges are revoked. “Scarcely a day passes but it does not leave its record of tears and sighs and vain regrets in little hearts,” the reporter lamented.

More than a century later, similar dramas are still enacted in libraries across the country every day. In some districts, up to 35 percent of patrons have had their borrowing privileges revoked because of unpaid fines. Only these days, it’s librarians themselves who often lament what the Detroit reporter called “a tragedy enacted in this little court of equity.” Now some libraries are deciding that the money isn’t worth the hassle—not only that, but that fining patrons works against everything that public libraries ought to stand for.  Read more...

Facebook and Google: most powerful and secretive empires we've ever known | 28 September 2016 |The guardian

Google | Facebook | Social media | Citizen journalism | Technology | Internet

We are living in the web['s goldfish bowl. Photograph: Alamy

Google and Facebook have conveyed nearly all of us to this page, and just about every other idea or expression we’ll encounter today. Yet we don’t know how to talk about these companies, nor digest their sheer power. 

We call them platforms, networks or gatekeepers. But these labels hardly fit. The appropriate metaphor eludes us; even if we describe them as vast empires, they are unlike any we’ve ever known. Far from being discrete points of departure, merely supporting the action or minding the gates, they have become something much more significant. They have become the medium through which we experience and understand the world.

As their users, we are like the blinkered young fish in the parable memorably retold by David Foster Wallace. When asked “How’s the water?” we swipe blank: “What the hell is water?”

We pay attention, sometimes, to racism, death threats, outrage. Other than that, we have barely started feeling their algorithmic undertow. We have trouble grasping the scope of it: the vast server farms, the job cuts, the barriers to entry, the public-private partnerships, the manufacturing of data, the knowing cities, the branded self, the slavish service to their metrics, the monoculture. Read more...

Sign In Universal Declaration of Human Rights | March 22, 2017

Human Rights | Tolerance | Libraries

Simple really, and libraries are one of the highest expressions of these rights:

From: Stephen's Lighthouse / Stephen Abram

 

I’d suggest that this would make a great poster for every library although I know there are contingents who sadly disagree and try to take away other’s rights.

http://www.upworthy.com/i-love-you-america-but-this-list-should-not-make-you-uncomfortable-6?c=ufb2
Stephen

Rotary Club and Calgary police promote early literacy in schools | March 19, 2017

Library alliances | Community outreach | Literacy programs

by Ryan Rumbolt

Former Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson (L) and Sgt. Travis Juska read to kids from Ranchlands Elementary School at the Central Library in downtown Calgary, Alta. on Wednesday October 1, 2014. The two took part in a celebration of the award winning "It's a Crime Not to Read" program where officers read to kids sparking their love for reading. Stuart Dryden/Calgary Sun/QMI Agency

Members of the Rotary Club are promoting literacy by raising funds for the It’s a Crime Not to Read program.

Started in 2002 by the Rotary Club of Calgary East with Calgary Public Libraries and the Calgary Police Service, the program sends police officers to visit elementary schools to read books with youngsters once a month.

Dan Goldberg, fundraising director for Rotary Club of Calgary East, said the program promotes early literacy, develops reading skills and builds self-esteem in Calgary kids while strengthening community ties with police. It’s a Crime Not to Read is currently running in 21 Calgary schools with Grade 1 and Grade 2 students.

“This program helps to decrease barriers and gets the police building relationships,” Goldberg said. “I think it’s amazing that (police officers) volunteer their time to do this, because without them this couldn’t happen.”

Const. Henry Bekkering has been volunteering his time to It’s a Crime Not to Read for three years and said reading with the kids at St. Damien school in Forest Lawn helps “humanize” police officers and has had a “trickle-down effect” in the community. Read more...

A Public Library That’s Nicer Than The Fanciest Tech Offices | Feburary 17, 2017

Libraries | Library design | Community outreach

by Diana Budds

Libraries are like the Madonnas of the architectural world–changing, evolving, and morphing with the times. Now they’re in the midst of a technological reinvention. And as they shed their physical media and go digital, libraries’ most significant contribution to a community is often not as a repository of books–but a beacon that draws people together.

Thionville–a city in Northeastern France near the Luxembourg border–opened a new library last year that embodies this shift. Designed by the Strasbourg-based firm Dominique Coulon and Associates, the space is brimming with details designed to foster a sense of community. The architects hope it becomes the city’s collective living room; to appeal to the different types of people who might use the library, they filled it with lots of unique moments, like rooms that have distinctive personalities, differing furniture, and plenty of outdoor spaces. Read more...

What Donald Trump Doesn't Understand About Libraries |

Advocacy | #IMLS | Funding | Libraries | Museums

His proposed budget would eliminate all federal funding for the Institute of Museums and Library Services. 

GETTY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you introduce yourself as a librarian at a dinner party — as I have been doing for my whole adult life — you usually receive one of two responses: either the dreaded “But wait … aren’t libraries, like … dying? Because of Google?” or the well-intentioned, but gently incorrect “You must love books, huh?” It’s not that librarians don’t typically love books — most of us do! But our (not even remotely dead) profession’s true backbone isn’t mere bookishness — it’s a near-pathological enthusiasm for helping people. And, contrary to the frequent reports of our demise at the hands of Google, Americans need the help libraries and librarians supply more than ever now. When previously, librarians were needed to answer questions as simple as “Did Jules Verne write Alice in Wonderland?”, the problems we’re needed to tackle now are much more complex, like what can we do to bridge “the word gap” between poor toddlers and their wealthy peers, or how can we bring broadband service to rural communities that otherwise lack access?  Read more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Crop of Young Adult Novels Explores Race and Police Brutality | March 19, 2017

Book review | Race | Young adult novels

by Alexandra Alter

Students in Philadelphia waiting for an autograph from Angie Thomas, whose novel, “The Hate U Give,” won critical raves. Credit Mark Makela for The New York Times 

 

Angie Thomas started writing her young-adult novel, “The Hate U Give,” in reaction to a fatal shooting that took place some 2,000 miles away. But to her it felt deeply personal.

Ms. Thomas was a college student in Jackson, Miss., when a white transit police officer shot Oscar Grant III, an unarmed, 22-year-old African-American man, on a train platform in Oakland, Calif., in 2009. She was shocked when some of her white classmates said he had probably deserved it. She responded with a short story about a teenage girl who is drawn to activism after a white officer shoots her childhood best friend.

That story grew into a 444-page novel, as shootings of unarmed young black men continued.

Ms. Thomas worried that no one would publish a young-adult novel about such a raw and polarizing subject. Instead, 13 publishers bid in a frenzied auction. Balzer & Bray bought it in a two-book deal, and Fox 2000 optioned the film rights. Read more...

 

 

Women’s History Month: The Legacy of Hannah Richards | March 8, 2017

Black History Month | Women's History Month | Library of Congress | Archives

March 8, 2017 by Wendi Maloney
 
(The following guest post was written by Beverly W. Brannan, curator of photography in the Prints and Photographs Division.)

Tintype of Hannah Richards from the William Henry Richards Collection

The Library purchased the collection of William Henry Richards (1856–1941), a law professor at Howard University, in 2013. The collection includes manuscript and visual materials, including a tintype of Hannah Richards, William’s grandmother, who was born in captivity but later freed. Research into her life—a story of determination and resilience—suggests she may have motivated William’s successful career. Besides being a law professor, he was a civil rights activist and a supporter of temperance and women’s right to vote and own property in the District of Columbia.

The library edition of Ancestry.com shows that Hannah Richards was born in Virginia, probably near Danville, around 1800. She belonged to Gabriel Richards (1739–1826), who moved to Roane County, Tennessee, in about 1805. He later relocated to McMinn County, Tennessee, where he died in 1826, freeing Hannah in his will. But there is more to the story.

Freed slaves were always at risk of being re-enslaved after being kidnapped or jailed for trivial offenses. Hannah almost lost her freedom for keeping company with a man. She was arrested in 1828, according to databases, and charged with harboring “a certain Negro slave Sandy without either written or verbal authority from . . . the said boy’s master” for two years. Papers filed in McMinn County court stated that Sandy had been “with her at her place of living on Sunday nights.” Hannah was fined $2.20 for “harboring and entertaining” Sandy, $2.00 for her jail fee and $0.75 for the justice of the peace. She was warned that if she did not pay all the costs as well as an additional $2.00, she could be sold into slavery for nonpayment of debt.

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The most famous author from every state | March 9, 2017

Book lists | American writers | American literature

by Melia Robinson

George R.R. Martin, whose book saga was adapted for "Game of Thrones," was born and raised in New Jersey.Kevin Winter / Getty

 

 

 

First, we looked coast to coast to find the most famous book set in every state. Now we're hitting the books to discover the most famous author from every state.

Not all the choices were cut and dry. To qualify for this list, the famed authors had to be born in their respective states, but not necessarily live out their years there.

We considered the authors' fame in terms of ubiquity, acclaim, and financial success — and awarded bonus points if the author showed state pride by setting their works there.

Melissa Stanger contributed reporting on a previous version of this post.
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How a book club for middle school girls is giving them the chance to grow | March 8, 2017

Books | Women | Mentoring

Luisa Porter / The Commercial Dispatch/AP

 

 

by Isabelle Altman

March 7, 2017 Columbus, Miss.—Four years ago, eighth graders Wrishija Roy, Laurel Yarborough and Damare Baker all read "Fat Chance" by Leslea Newman in a girls' book club at Columbus Middle School run by Emma Thompson, then a senior at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.

Now MSMS seniors themselves, they're back at the middle school reading the same novel, which tells the story of a girl with an eating disorder. This time, though, they are leading the book club.

"It's been nice to give back to the girls because I know how helpful it was for me," Yarborough said. "And I just hope I'm having the same effect."

The Women Influencing Lives Through Literature – or WILL – program is Thompson's brainchild. She wanted a way to mentor younger girls using literature.  Read more....

365 Books by Women Authors to Celebrate International Women’s Day All Year | March 8, 2017

Books | International Women's Day | Reader's advisory | Women writers

by Gwen Glazer, Librarian, Readers Services, NYPL

For over a century, International Women's Day has been observed on March 8 — and this year, we've compiled 365 books by women authors from across the globe to keep the celebration going all year long.

This list includes a vast range of women authors, and we hope you find some old favorites and some new discoveries. And we hope that readers can draw strength and inspiration from these 365 books — and the women who wrote them — in the year ahead.

And if you've ever heard someone say they “just couldn't find” a great woman author to read, now you have not one, but 365 suggestions.

1. Leila Aboulela, The Kindness of Enemies
2. Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water
3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
4. Etel Adnan, Sea and Fog
5. Marjorie Agosín, A Cross and a Star
6. Ama Atta Aidoo, An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems
7. Naja Marie Aidt, Rock, Paper, Scissors
8. Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
9. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
10. Elizabeth Alexander, The Light of the World

Read more...

Facebook has quietly rolled out its long-awaited solution to fake news | 4 March 2017

Fake news | Media literacy | Social Media

by Emma Hinchliffe

Since people first started complaining about "fake news" on Facebook, the phrase has evolved—from a useful way to identify false-information-masquerading-as-traditional-news, to a term that means basically nothing, now wielded by President Donald Trump against stories he doesn't like, and also, drunk people in bars screaming about things and/or sports results they disagree with.

But the original problem still genuinely exists. And Facebook finally came out with its long-awaited response to beginning to cut away at the issue.

Spotted on Twitter on Friday night, the tool identifies links to sites known to produce misinformation. The tool cites third-party fact-checking organizations like Snopes and Politifact—the kind of sites that Trump supporters also like to dispute.  Read more...

Want to Encourage Debate? Maybe Don’t Ban Howard Zinn’s Books | March 6, 2017

Banned Books | Revisionism | Political debate

A.J. O'Connell

Last week, Arkansas Representative Kim Hendren (R-92) introduced a bill that would ban the works of Howard Zinn —the late historian whose books examine history from the point of view of its victims — in public and charter schools. If HB 1834 is passed into law as is, all of Zinn’s work from 1959 to 2010 would be banned in public and charter schools.

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The ‘Rock Star’ Librarians Who Choose What Your Kids Read | March 5, 2017

Books | Children's literature | School librarians

by Ellen Gamerman

John Schumacher showed Lake Anne Elementary School students a new paperback version of a book during his visit. Photo: April Greer for The Wall Street Journal 

 

 

Most kids don’t know who John Schumacher is. But their librarians do.

“He’s a rock star in the library world,” said Kim Sigle, a librarian at Lake Anne Elementary School in Reston, Va., who recently hosted Mr. Schumacher for a reading event for roughly 500 students. She “won” the former grade-school librarian in a lottery after taking a picture of herself with a life-size cardboard cutout of him and posting the shot on Twitter, competing with dozens of other librarians who did the same.

In the milk-and-cookies realm of picture books and middle-grade fiction, Mr. Schumacher is an influential voice, one of several current and former elementary-school librarians with big social-media followings and considerable sway over what kids read. Publishers can’t advertise in classrooms and marketers can’t reach kids who haven’t yet hit social media, but these experts enjoy a direct line to school gatekeepers. Publicists inundate them with so many free books that in some towns, kids are toting advance copies like New York publishing ​professionals. The book industry seeks their notice, eager for exposure as newspapers cut back on book reviews and book stores continue to confront financial pressures. Read more...

Our Futures in Times of Change: How values guide our understanding of trends and transition | March 1, 2017

Library Trends | Library Activism | Library Values

by Miguel Figueroa

For many futurists and trend spotters, “futuring” is fundamentally about the study of change.

“We can learn a great deal about what may happen in the future by looking systematically at what is actually happening now,” wrote Edward Cornish, one of the founders of the World Future Society.
We study change so we can prepare for the many futures that might happen. We start seeing what’s coming next. We study so that we won’t be surprised. And we study so that we’ll be better prepared to start creating the future.

That’s good news for library and information professionals. We are expert in finding, organizing, processing, and prioritizing information. From wherever we are in our organizations, we all have opportunities to observe changes in our communities and consider the implications over the long term.

But observation is simply not enough. One of the biggest lessons my colleagues and I have learned while developing the Center for the Future of Libraries is that studying change is useless without considering values. We need to look at trends and changes with consideration of our own professional values (confidentiality and privacy, diversity, equitable access, intellectual freedom and expression, preservation) and the values that we seek to provide to our communities (a civic commons, democracy, discovery, education and literacy, public discourse).  And so, looking at changes, we need to ask ourselves what they might mean for intellectual freedom, for education, for equitable access, or for any of the other values that drive our work. Read more...

Scientists Are Standing Up to Trump Because They've Always Stood Up to Bullshit | 2 March 2017

Science | Activism | Fake news | Environment

by Alejandra Borunda

Rachel Carson, whose book “Silent Spring” played a pivotal role in catalyzing the modern environmental movement, testifies before a Senate Government Operations Subcommittee in D.C. on June 4, 1963. (AP Photo)

 

 

 

 

There’s this pervasive idea that science is somehow exempt from the ugly political world in which the rest of us wallow. But even a perfunctory look at the history of American science shows that this hasn’t always been the case—and the circumstances that pushed scientists into the public sphere in the past aren’t that different from those scientists are facing today.

Since Trump’s election, many scientists have found themselves in an unfamiliar position: actively advocating for their work, their jobs, and the very idea of free scientific inquiry. Scientists are mobilizing and organizing en masse, planning marches and running for office. They’re pushing back on potential nominees and boycotting conferences.

Kelly Ramirez, a microbiologist and one of the founders of the 500 Women Scientists network, never thought of herself as an activist before. “I had my head down,” she said. “You do your work, you publish your papers—it’s not encouraged to take political positions.” But after the election, she realized that she had to take a more active role. “Now, it’s a good time to start being louder,” she said.
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American Libraries Dewey Decibel Podcast Episode Two: “Library Security: Making Your Space Safer”

Library security | Podcast

Fighting Fake News: How libraries can lead the way on media literacy | December 27, 2016

Fake news | Information literacy | Journalism

by Marcus Banks

Illustration: Rebecca Lomax/American Libraries

 

 

Librarians—whether public, school, academic, or special—all seek to ensure that patrons who ask for help get accurate information.


Given the care that librarians bring to this task, the recent explosion in unverified, unsourced, and sometimes completely untrue news has been discouraging, to say the least. According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of US adults are getting their news in real time from their social media feeds. These are often uncurated spaces in which falsehoods thrive, as revealed during the 2016 election. To take just one example, Pope Francis did not endorse Donald Trump, but thousands of people shared the “news” that he had done so.

Completely fake news is at the extreme end of a continuum. Less blatant falsehoods involve only sharing the data that puts a proposal in its best light, a practice of which most politicians and interest group spokespeople are guilty.

The news-savvy consumer is able to distinguish fact from opinion and to discern the hallmarks of evasive language and half-truths. But growing evidence suggests that these skills are becoming rarer. A November 2016 study by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) showed that students have difficulty separating paid advertising from news reporting, and they are apt to overlook clear evidence of bias in the claims they encounter. These challenges persist from middle school to college.

According to SHEG Director Sam Wineburg, professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, “nothing less than our capacity for online civic reasoning is at risk.”

Librarians and journalists: natural allies

Read more...

Psychology journal editor asked to resign for refusing to review papers unless he can see the data | March 2, 2017

Fake news | Research | Academia | Data sharing

by Rob Beschizza via BoingBoing

Psychologist Gert Storms doesn't want to review scientific papers if their authors refuse to share with him the underlying data. The American Psychological Association (APA), which publishes the journal he edits, has asked him to resign.

Nature.com's Gautam Naik reports that the effort to force him out is a test of The Peer Reviewer's Openness Initiative, a move crafted to "increase transparency in the field beset by reports of fraud and dubious research." Read more...

Photo credit: Gert Storm

Photo credit: Gert Storms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Psychologist Gert Storms doesn't want to review scientific papers if their authors refuse to share with him the underlying data. The American Psychological Association (APA), which publishes the journal he edits, has asked him to resign.
Nature.com's Gautam Naik reports that the effort to force him out is a test of The Peer Reviewer's Opennness Initiative

Psychologist Gert Storms doesn't want to review scientific papers if their authors refuse to share with him the underlying data. The American Psychological Association (APA), which publishes the journal he edits, has asked him to resign.
Nature.com's Gautam Naik reports that the effort to force him out is a test of The Peer Reviewer's Opennness Initiative, a move crafted to "increase transparency in a field beset by reports of fraud and dubious research."

Psychologist Gert Storms doesn't want to review scientific papers if their authors refuse to share with him the underlying data. The American Psychological Association (APA), which publishes the journal he edits, has asked him to resign.
Nature.com's Gautam Naik reports that the effort to force him out is a test of The Peer Reviewer's Opennness Initiative, a move crafted to "increase transparency in a field beset by reports of fraud and dubious research."

Photo credit: Gert Storms

Joan Nathan’s new cookbook on global Jewish cooking couldn’t be more timely | February 28, 2017

Book review | Cookbooks |Immigration Ban

by Jill Warren Lucas

Joan Nathan, who has won numerous awards for her cookbooks, is a keynote speaker at UNC’s “Jewish Food in the Global South” symposium this weekend. Her new book, “King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World,” will be published on April 4. GABRIELA HERMAN

 

 

 

 

 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/article135475149.html#storylink=cpy

Joan Nathan didn’t expect her book about how the Jewish diaspora influenced global cuisines – and how those cuisines and local ingredients affected Jewish cookery – to hit store shelves amid a surge of anti-Semitism, growing distrust of foreigners and stepped-up immigration enforcement.

Then again, she never imagined such provocations would end.

“It’s part of a cyclical pattern, a fear of the other,” says Nathan, the award-winning cookbook author of “King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World,” which will be published on April 4. 

“You’re not going to change the mind of somebody who doesn’t see you as a human being,” Nathan said. “All you can do is find like-minded people and try to not be that way about other people."

Joan Nathan’s new book, “King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World,” will be published on April 4. Her 11th collection has a historical overview and thoughtful anecdotes that precede most recipes GABRIELA HERMAN

 

 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/article135475149.html#storylink=cpy

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