Neil Gaiman: Libraries are cultural 'seed corn' | Books | The Guardian

The author tells Toby Litt how these ‘safe spaces’ were vital to him as a child, and why their closure endangers our future


Love letters to libraries: share your tribute to your favourite

 
Neil Gaiman with ‘a little empathy machine’.
Photograph: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Li/Alamy

A feral child who was raised in libraries

Toby Litt: You’ve described yourself as a “feral
child who was raised in libraries”. What age were you when you were
first drawn into a library, and why do you think they hooked you?

Neil: I was probably three or four when I first
started going to libraries. We moved up to Sussex when I was five, and I
discovered the local library very, very quickly. But I wasn’t really
hooked until I got to the point where I was old enough to persuade my
parents to just take me to the library and leave me there, which would
have probably been about seven or eight. And at that point it was like
being given the keys to the kingdom.  Read more...

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BBC News - Cutting edge architecture for Birmingham's books

All images subject to copyright. Photos by Ed Ram and Martin Barber. Audio by Nicola Stanbridge. Listen to her report in full on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday 31 August.
Music by KPM Music. Slideshow production by Paul Kerley.

Related:
Today - BBC Radio 4
Library of Birmingham
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.

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One Way To Get Streaming Content from the Library: Ephrata PL Looks to Expand Roku Lending Program - The Digital Shift

One Way To Get Streaming Content from the Library: Ephrata PL Looks to Expand Roku Lending Program - The Digital Shift: One Way To Get Streaming Content from the Library: Ephrata PL Looks to Expand Roku Lending Program
By Matt Enis on February 20, 2013
From Library Journal

A Roku lending program launched last year by Ephrata Public Library (EPL) in Pennsylvania has proven so popular that the library is planning to invest in several more of the media streaming devices in the coming months.

“We’re adding our third and our fourth [soon], and I would say this year, we will probably add six to eight,” said EPL Executive Director Penny Talbert. “There are always holds on them, and they’re circulating for a week.”

EPL purchased two Rokus last Spring at the suggestion of the library’s technology manager. As Talbert noted, the units didn’t require a huge initial investment to try. The basic Roku LT units cost $50. For each unit, the library purchases dedicated subscriptions to Netflix and/or Hulu Plus, which currently cost $7.99 per month each, as well as other content from TED, Allrecipes.com, the BBC, and other sources. Subscriptions are set up so that patrons can’t use EPL’s account to make additional purchases while they have the units. Read more...

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English literature's 50 key moments from Marlowe to JK Rowling | Books | guardian.co.uk

English literature's 50 key moments from Marlowe to JK Rowling

What have been the hinge points in the evolution of Anglo-American literature? Here's a provisional, partisan list

• 

Literary turning points ... Christopher Marlowe and JK Rowling. Photograph: Hulton Getty/Murdo Macleod

BBC Radio Three is currently broadcasting a fascinating series on the "50 key works" of classical music. This is a spin-off from Howard Goodall's BBC2 television series and its tie-in book, The Story of Music (Chatto), and it crystallises – for the amateur listener – the turning points in the evolution of the classical tradition in the most enthralling way. Did you, for instance, know that Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale contains a harmonic line that is pure Bach? Read more...

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