How to Stream Thousands of Free Movies Using Your Library Card | NY Times

Movies | Library Card | Free Streaming

by Monica Castillo

Aug. 24, 2017UPDATED Aug. 31, 2017

From top: “The Great Beauty,” “I Am Not Your Negro” and “Tower.”Janus Films; Magnolia Pictures; Kino Lorber

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Stream thousands of movies, including hundreds of Criterion Collection titles, for free? And all you need is a library card? Surely, it can’t be this simple, right?

It is. More than 200 public library systems in the United States have teamed up with the streaming platform Kanopy to bring some 30,000 movies to library cardholders, free of charge. Kanopy’s emphasis is on documentaries and international films, all of which can be streamed on your computer, through a Roku box or on iOS and Android phone apps.

Be careful not to plan a mega binge-watch just yet, though. Each library imposes its own limit to the number of free movies a single cardholder can watch each month, from three to 20 titles per card, a spokeswoman for Kanopy said. Once they’ve registered their library cards with Kanopy, viewers can keep track of how many movies they have left in the upper right-hand corner of the onscreen interface. The limit for New York Public Library cardholders is 10 free movies a month, while Brooklyn Public Library allows six. Outside of New York, the Los Angeles Public Library, for example, has a 10 movie limit. Read more...

New York City’s Libraries Will Forgive All Children’s Fines

Public libraries | Fines | Borrowing privileges

The Hamilton Grange branch of the New York Public Library, where about half of children have their borrowing privileges suspended because of unpaid fines. An amnesty at the city’s libraries will allow all children to check out books again. Credit David Dee Delgado for The New York Times

Library books are free, until they aren’t: Patrons who rack up $15 in late fees at the city’s public libraries are blocked from taking out more books until the fine is paid.

Among those with suspended privileges are 160,000 children, most of them from the city’s poorest neighborhoods, who cannot afford to pay.

“Learning is a right. Reading brings you to new worlds,” said Octavia Loving, a 17-year-old student at Special Music High School, as she stood amid the stacks at Countee Cullen Library in Harlem, one of the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of children with blocked cards, according to library officials. “They shouldn’t block us from reading because of money.”

On Thursday, the city’s three library systems — the New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island; the Queens Library; and the Brooklyn Public Library — will forgive all fines for children 17 and under and unblock their cards. The one-time amnesty is being underwritten by the JPB Foundation, a philanthropy that supports civic causes, which will make up $2.25 million of the shortfall in revenue from the forgiven fines.

The amnesty “is a dramatic way to message to kids and young adults that we want you back, and we want you reading,” said Anthony W. Marx, the president of the New York Public Library. The forgiveness is not conditional on returning any overdue books or DVDs. “We want you to be responsible, but we don’t want to penalize you just because you are too poor to pay the fines.” Read more...

Now rescue N.Y.'s library branches

Advocacy | Public libraries | Budget

By Scott Sherman | New York Daily News | October 9, 2017

Necessary investment (James Keivom/New York Daily News)

 

Last month, the New York Public Library announced a remarkable $55 million gift that will enable it to finish a large-scale renovation of the Mid-Manhattan Library, at 5th Avenue and 40th Street. The Mid-Manhattan is a tarnished jewel in the NYPL system, and the gift will allow the facility, which has been decrepit for decades, to reach its full potential.

Library officials say that when it reopens in 2020, the new library will contain — in addition to books, periodicals, and computers — meeting rooms, a café, and a rooftop terrace.

From the headlines, one might have assumed that the money came from a well-heeled donor in the five boroughs. But in fact the money was bequeathed by a foundation in Athens, Greece. In 2020, NYPL officials will give the Mid-Manhattan Library a new name: the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.

The Greek connection highlights the problematic way in which public libraries are repaired and upgraded in New York City. Read more...

How Citizen Action Saved the New York Public Library

Libraries | NYPL | Advocacy

Grassroots activists thwarted a costly and destructive renovation scheme—but the NYPL still lacks effective governance.

by Scott Sherman  | The Nation

(CC BY-SA 2.0)

One morning in the spring of 2010, while standing in line in the New York Public Library’s majestic Rose Reading Room, I was approached by a middle-aged librarian, a man I had known for years; we had common interests and would frequently chat while he was on duty. He read The Nation and knew I wrote for it. On this particular morning, he leaned over and whispered into my ear: “Our trustees are planning to sell the library across the street”—by which he meant the Mid-Manhattan Library, a decrepit facility on 40th Street and Fifth Avenue. “It stinks,” he continued. “You should look into it.”

I was busy with other projects and let his tip go. But a year later, I received an assignment from this magazine to profile Anthony Marx, the New York Public Library’s incoming president. Early in my research, I quickly grasped what the librarian had tried to tell me a year earlier: The NYPL’s leadership—aided by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton—had conceived a wildly ambitious transformation plan. The grand library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue would undergo a massive renovation in which 3 million books would be removed from the historic stacks in the center of the building and sent to an off-site storage facility; the stacks would then be demolished, and a new, modern library (designed by the celebrated British architect Norman Foster) would be built in the space that, for a century, had held the books. Foster would create a library within a library, one that carried a heavy price tag: $300 million. To pay for this Central Library Plan (CLP), two nearby libraries that occupied prime real estate—the Mid-Manhattan Library and the Science, Industry, and Business Library on 34th Street and Madison Avenue—would be sold. In a soaring Manhattan real-estate market, the NYPL (which is the subject of Frederick Wiseman’s latest film, Ex Libris) would not be excluded from its share of the spoils. Read more...

 

Podcast: Nancy Pearl on The Librarian Is In |NYPL

YA Literature | Podcasts |Book recommendations

The legendary book recommender joins to discuss writing her first novel and share her favorite books.

The Librarian Is In Podcast, Biblio File

Missing Persons & Nowhere Girls: The Librarian Is In Podcast, Ep. 54 by Frank Collerius, Library Manager, Jefferson Market Library September 6, 2017

Welcome to The Librarian Is In, the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Google Play

On the show this week: Gwen reads a book that makes her see the world a little differently, and Frank gets so lost in his book that time disappears.

George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl 

Famed Documentarian Frederick Wiseman Turns His Camera on NYPL in Ex Libris | NYPL

Advocacy | Documentary | Public Libraries | Films

by Lauren Weiss September 6, 2017

And check out early reviews for the film, which is screening at the Venice Film Festival:

• “Wherever Wiseman plants his camera—in the thick of board meetings, at public talks and performances, in kids’ reading labs—he samples the stunning diversity of services on offer from this huge modern library… As the camera flips through a gallery of faces belonging to every age group, social class and ethnicity, it becomes clear how central the library is in the lives of all New Yorkers.” - Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter.
• “[T]here’s a little jolt of excitement each time Wiseman cuts to a new library branch — over time, the value “Ex Libris” helps us to see in The New York Public Library melts into a visceral appreciation for the intrinsic value of all libraries.” - David Ehrlich, IndieWire.
• “Frederick Wiseman's latest long-form doc shows The New York Public Library as a vibrant place of lectures, workshops and community outreach.” - Jay Weissberg, Variety.
• “If this ends up being Frederick Wiseman’s last film I can think of no better swan song.” - Jordan Hoffman, The Guardian.

Additionally, Wiseman himself is coming to LIVE from the NYPL to discuss the film at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on September 14. He will be joined by fellow master of documentary Errol Morris. Get your ticket to this unique meeting of minds today.

Frederick Wiseman
Photo by wowe