7 unexpected things that libraries offer besides books

Public libraries | Services | Access | Advocacy

 

April 1, 2019 | the conversation 

by Mila Gascó-Hernández

Research Associate Professor and Associate Research Director for the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New York

Disclosure statement

Mila Gascó-Hernández receives funding from The Institute of Museums and Library Services. This article is the result of the IMLS-funded project " Enabling Smart, Inclusive, and Connected Communities: The Role of Public Libraries", where she serves as the PI.

Local libraries are often thought of as places to check out books or engage in some silent reading. But libraries offer so much more than just what can be found on their shelves or done in hushed tones.
And, in some instances, libraries have become places to make some noise.

From laptops and 3D laser printers, libraries today are providing the public with access to new technologies and education. In our research project on public libraries in smart communities, in which I serve as the principal investigator, we found that a public library serves as an anchor institution for these communities. It is a role libraries can be expected to fullfil even more in the future as technology continues to evolve in new and fascinating ways.

Here are seven examples from throughout the country of libraries offering more than books.

Robots

The Westport Free Library in Westport, Connecticut – population of roughly 28,000 – has a Robot Open Lab where the public can learn how to program robots to respond to simple commands, catch and kick a small soccer ball and even dance. The library’s two robots, Vincent and Nancy, autonomous, programmable humanoid robots, arrived in September 2014. Since then, more than 2,000 people have learned how to program them. Read more...

 

Members of a band record music at a Chattanooga public library. Author provided.

The Power of the Russian State vs. a Librarian |

Advocacy | Human rights | Libraries

Editorial Observer

By SERGE SCHMEMANN JUNE 10, 2017

Natalia Sharina at a hearing in Moscow in May. Credit Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 

 

 

There is something particularly Orwellian about accusing a librarian of hate crimes because books under her care don’t jibe with government propaganda. That, in essence, is what a Russian court did in giving to Natalia Sharina a four-year suspended sentence because the Moscow Library of Ukrainian Literature, which she formerly headed, purportedly carried literature that didn’t match Russia’s official version of what’s happening in Ukraine.

 

No matter that most of the books seized in the raid on the library in 2015 and cited by the prosecution were in special storage and not available to the public, or that, according to the library staff, the book deemed most offensive by the state was planted there by the police. The case was not about inciting “interethnic enmity and hatred,” nor was it about the spurious charges of embezzlement that were leveled against Mrs. Sharina. Read more...

 

[IFLA-L] Open Societies are Healthy Societies: IFLA rejects unjustified barriers to the free movement of persons | 1st February 2017

Open Societies are Healthy Societies

Libraries are at the heart of healthy societies. By bringing people together – students, researchers, creators, citizens – they support learning, sharing, and the creation of new ideas.

They also support the delivery of key human rights, as set out both in national constitutions and international conventions, most importantly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: freedom of expression and access to information, as well as the right to participate in cultural life and enjoy the benefits of scientific progress.

Libraries have long supported the flow of ideas and information across borders. IFLA has called for reforms to laws that hold this back. Evidence shows that such flows promote innovation and creativity, which in turn drives growth, jobs and equality everywhere.

However, arbitrary and unjustified barriers to the movement of people jeopardise this situation. Such policies run contrary to states’ obligations under international law, which prohibit discrimination of any kind on the basis of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, as set out in the UN’s New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants.

The International Migration Convention also provides the right to temporary absence from the country of residence, a right which can be undermined by barriers to re-entry.

IFLA condemns such policies, wherever they take place in the world.  The recent Executive Order issued by US President Trump temporarily barring entry into the United States by individuals from seven countries is one such policy.

This policy will affect students, workers and academics, families and children. All use libraries to generate new ideas and perspectives which will benefit social, economic and cultural life.  

The policy also adversely affects refugees fleeing extreme poverty, persecution and conflict. Libraries’ doors are open to help them find support and encouragement to learn the language and develop the skills needed to find their place. Focusing on successful integration, rather than rejection, will produce the scholars, artists, workers and engaged citizens of tomorrow.

History has demonstrated that openness and exchange make countries great. We call on governments, for the sake of the future, to protect these principles.  

---

SOURCE: www.ifla.org/node/11176

ALA opposes new administration policies that contradict core values - News and Press Center

Advocacy | Human Rights | Library Ethics

ALA opposes new administration policies that contradict core values - News and Press Center

for Immediate Release


Mon, 01/30/2017


Contact:

Macey Morales

Deputy Director

Public Awareness Office

American Library Association

(312) 280-4393

mmorales@ala.org

CHICAGO
— Today American Library Association President Julie Todaro released
the following statement responding to recent actions by the new
administration and specifically addressing issues regarding access to
information, discrimination and intellectual freedom.


“We are shocked and dismayed by recent executive orders and other
actions by the new administration, which stand in stark contrast to the
core values of the American Library Association (ALA). Our core values
include access to information; confidentiality/privacy; democracy;
equity, diversity and inclusion; intellectual freedom; and social
responsibility.


“The American Library Association strongly opposes any actions that
limit free access to information, undermine privacy or discriminate on
any basis. This includes the temporary suspension of visas and entrance
to the US based on anyone’s nationality or religion as well as the
increased scrutiny of any individual’s communication such as mobile
phone and/or social media activity.


“Our nation’s 120,000 public, academic, school and special libraries
serve all community members, including people of color, immigrants,
people with disabilities and the most vulnerable in our communities,
offering services and educational resources that transform communities,
open minds, and promote inclusion and diversity.


“ALA believes that the struggle against racism, prejudice,
stereotyping and discrimination is central to our mission. We will
continue to speak out and support efforts to abolish intolerance and
cultural invisibility, stand up for all the members of the communities
we serve, and promote understanding and inclusion through our work.


“We will continue to speak out and support our members as they work
tirelessly for access to library and information resources on behalf of
all of their community members, while advocating for privacy,
intellectual freedom, critical global research, information literacy,
ongoing access to scientific research, and fair and equitable treatment
for everyone.


“As our strategic plan states, ‘ALA recognizes the critical need for
access to library and information resources, services, and technologies
by all people, especially those who may experience language or
literacy-related barriers; economic distress; cultural or social
isolation; physical or attitudinal barriers; racism; discrimination on
the basis of appearance, ethnicity, immigrant status, housing status,
religious background, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender
expression; or barriers to equal education, employment and housing.’


“We encourage our members to continue to speak out and show their
support for and work on behalf of our core values, in their communities
as well as with their local, state and national elected and appointed
officials. Additionally, ALA has tools and resources online to help you
advocate for our core values:

• Advocacy: http://www.ala.org/offices/ola/
• Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services: http://www.ala.org/offices/diversity/
• Government Relations: http://www.ala.org/offices/ogr/
• Information and Technology Policy: http://www.ala.org/offices/oitp/
• Intellectual Freedom: http://www.ala.org/offices/oif/
• Libraries Respond: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity/libraries-respond

“ALA is committed to using its national platform for speaking up
and speaking out for its members and constituents in these chaotic,
unprecedented and challenging times. We appreciate the library
community’s continued support.”

# # #

Tags

Advocacy, ALA President, Public Awareness

More than just books, libraries act as equalizers By Craig and Marc Kielburger

A student enters a library. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to rile up a Canadian, threaten to take away their library.

Craig got his first taste of activism speaking out to save our local library. We've noticed ever since then that when provinces and cities experience a budget crunch, libraries are often first on the chopping block. Yet invariably, citizens rise up to protect them from extinction.

Newfoundland's plan to shutter more than half its public libraries sparked a recent protest by thousands at the provincial legislature. Comedian and commentator Rick Mercer lambasted the government with one of his trademark rants.

When the town council of McNab-Braeside, a rural community near Ottawa, decided to cancel an arrangement that gave residents free access to the library in the neighbouring town of Arnprior, almost a third of the entire township signed a petition in protest. Then they voted out all five councillors in the next election.

In the age of e-readers, search engines, and Wikipedia, why do Canadians still cling so tenaciously to these seemingly archaic institutions? Because libraries are so much more than just repositories for books.  Read more...http://www.lfpress.com/2016/05/27/more-than-just-books-libraries-act-as-equalizers

5 Famous British TV Writers On How Libraries Influenced Their Lives

Following the closure of 10 libraries in Lambeth in London, Russell T Davies, Mark Gatiss, Peter Bowker, Sarah Phelps, and Jack Thorne spoke to BuzzFeed News about why they need to protected across the rest of the UK.

posted on Apr. 30, 2016, at 3:27 a.m.

Gareth McLean

BuzzFeed Contributor

Moving “south of the river” after spending 15 years as a Hackney resident was tumult enough, so you can imagine my irritation when, upon my arrival in Lambeth, south London, I discovered that the council in its wisdom was closing 10 libraries – including my local one, the Carnegie Library.

The Carnegie Library was closed at the end of April, with the council promising that it will reopen in 2017 as “a healthy living centre with a self-service neighbourhood library”. For 10 days the library was occupied by protestors upset at the move. They left the building peacefully, and the gates of the Carnegie Library are now locked shut. Behind those gates, books lie unread and stories go untold.

The closure is a tragedy and it’s one that got me thinking what the world – individuals and communities – would be without libraries and what libraries mean to people. So I asked five of the best TV writers in Britain to lend their voices to the anti-closure campaign (#DefendTheTen) and write about what libraries meant and mean to them.

Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time, The League of Gentlemen)

Anthony Harvey / Getty Images and Scott Bryan / BuzzFeed

Read more...

THE NECESSITY OF EXTREMISM IN LIBRARY ADVOCACY AND POLITICAL OUTREACH by pcsweeney March 30, 2016

This is a post that I’ve been working in various forms for about 3 years. There’s a lot of background and explanation here and I’ll even cite my sources where I can. Essentially, I’m going to make the claim that advocacy and politics in America has been hijacked by a sadly necessary extremism and that for libraries to continue to exist as we know them we need to get on board with the rhetoric. If we don’t learn to start to talk about libraries in a severely emotionally meaningful way that engages and activates our most impassioned supporters, libraries will be next on chopping block. We can’t allow this to happen because libraries are one of the few truly great institutions to come out of the American Government.

Before I really get into this, I’d like to point out that this is not a partisan issue. I have seen these tactics in use by every political party. I’d also like to point out that I’m a pretty hardcore moderate and I have a strong and healthy distrust of both progressive and conservative parties as well as low faith in both the government and corporate power structures. I’m going to do my best to pull examples from as many different arenas as possible for a fair and balanced discussion of the issue that should make everyone equally angry.

This all begins with my own blog and why I essentially stopped blogging. The truth is that I was frustrated about what kinds of posts got the most hits. A few years ago I realized that the posts that “did the best” were ones that were inherently mean spirited or controversial for their extreme views. For example, I wrote a post about Second Life that was intentionally mean spirited and to this day it is my most read piece. The thing to realize about this post is that I never really said anything important. There was nothing in there that would move anything forward. Libraries were already dropping Second Life and by the time I wrote the piece the virtual landscape was already a ghost town. On the other hand, I wrote a number of other posts that I think were more important but didn’t have anywhere as close to the same level of emotional reactions, emotion, or rhetoric and they were hardly read at all.  Read more...

The loss of libraries is another surefire way to entrench inequality Mary O'Hara Mary O'Hara

 ‘Having a library within walking distance of home was a way for a young girl from a poor background to access the same breadth of reading material as anyone else.’ Photograph: Getty Images

As someone who grew up in a home without books, no spare cash to buy them and no tradition of reading bedtime stories, my local library offered something unique and indispensable. It’s hard to think of anything that brought me more joy as a primary school-aged child than walking back from the Falls Road library in west Belfast with a bundle of books.

Save Our Libraries: Readers' reports

 

Read more

Having a library within walking distance of home was a way for a young girl from a poor background to access the same breadth of reading material as anyone else – at no expense. It stripped away at least some of the disadvantage that came with being from a low-income family. So every time I hear of another library closure – and there were more than 100 last year alone in Scotland, Wales and England, according to official figures – it hits a nerve. The loss of libraries is simply another surefire way to entrench inequality.

From providing books for people of all ages and backgrounds, to kids clubs and hubs for older people, to computer terminals that those with no access to the internet can use to find job vacancies, libraries are about as democratic and diverse as is possible to imagine. When properly funded and resourced they are educational and social anchors in communities everywhere. Yet, despite knowing all this, in the past five years the relentless funding constraints placed on local authorities have seen library budgets slashed by an astounding amount.  Read more...

February, 2016 is...Library Lovers Month

Stop hugging that library. No wait, my mistake, I forgot that it’s Library Lovers Month – and it seems to have come at just the right time as many local libraries are struggling during the economic downturn.

So why love your local library? Libraries are a sanctuary away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life; they offer security and peace and quiet. They are also a place where you can focus surrounded by likeminded people with the desire to acquire knowledge.

It’s important to understand that not everything is available on the internet (yet), libraries can have vast digital stores of qualitative and quantitative information escaping from opinion led snippets and snapshots from online. There may be some crossover of information but in most cases libraries are a much more economically viable solution when looking for information than the internet.

Love your library for what it is, a community meeting place or treasure trove of ideas. Why not push against the declining attendance of libraries and go and learn something new that will expand your knowledge of who you are, of where you live or what you do?ou live or what you do?

What happens when libraries are asked to help the homeless find shelter By Marc Vartabedian January 27

And staffs are totally unsure how to handle the influx of low-income people with special needs

(iStock)

In 2008, the San Francisco Public Library considered a very unusual question. How, they asked the city’s homeless, can our library better serve you? 

Officials weren’t looking for book club ideas. Over the past decade, the shrinking social safety net has turned many libraries into major care providers for the underprivileged. The homeless, in particular, rely on libraries for daytime shelter. It’s a big job, one that libraries — perpetually cash-strapped and understaffed — aren’t sure they’re equipped to handle.

Take San Francisco. Officials knew that homeless patrons had a range of special needs. Some had immediate medical concerns. Others wanted help finding temporary shelter or using the Internet to apply for unemployment benefits, disability insurance and jobs. These needs required time and full-time staff, not harried librarians.  Read more...

The Secret Life of a Public Library Security Guard By Dana Bialek

Making the rounds at the Portland Public Library means sporadically checking inside the bathroom. It’s not uncommon for security guard Marko Petrovich to uncover suspicious materials, like hypodermic needles and beer cans. Then the gumshoe work begins: Whodunnit? And sometimes whoever done it is still doing it. Long occupancy is call for suspicion. Spend too much time in the john and Petrovich will wind up in there with you, asserting in broken and unabashed English that “you not take shit forty-five minutes.”'

It’s in the bowels of the library where people really sneak around, though. The biography section is tucked deep in the basement, a thicket of high shelves and narrow aisles — a natural hotspot for dubious behavior. There might be drugs slipped between the life stories of Fredrick Douglass and Stephen A. Douglas, and the orange carpeting seems to call to people looking for a nap or even sex, Petrovich says, lowering his voice to a whisper. Troll around with him long enough and you’ll discover that folks do all kinds of things in the library. In a city of more than 66,000, there might be as many as 2,000 visitors every day. Indoor spaces that are actually open to the public are a rare find, and in a city like Portland, Maine — with months upon months of winter and an immense homeless population — the library becomes a living room of sorts. Keeping good guard of the library is delicate work. One must disrupt as few people as possible. Keeping the building safe and comfortable while at the same time truly public can be a precarious balance.

read more:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/72924/secret-life-public-library-security-guard

Libraries are changing international development By Jacob Brogan

Mmankgodi Community Library in Botswana, where the Gates Foundation has helped create library services designed to encourage small business development.

Photo by Fiona Bradley/Flickr Creative Commons

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. On Thursday, Nov. 12, Future Tense will host an event in Washington, D.C., on the future of the library. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.

Discussions of the future of libraries are often surprisingly nostalgic endeavors, producing laments for vanished card catalogs or shrinking book stacks rather than visions of what might be. Even at their most hopeful, such conversations sometimes lose track of the pragmatic functions that libraries serve. Imagined as unchanging archives, libraries become mere monuments to our analog past. But envisioning them as purely digital spaces also misses the mark, capturing neither what they can be nor the way their patrons use them.

According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, low-income and minority Americans are far more likely than others to assert that they would be negatively affected if their local library closed. The survey suggests that this has much, or more, to do with access to computers and the Internet—which is critical for job searchers and entrepreneurs—as it does with the opportunity to check out books. Public libraries aren’t just educational destinations; they also provide access to economic opportunities available through few other venues.  Read more...

What Libraries Can (Still) Do James Gleick

Deutsches Historiches Museum/Arne Psille/Art ResourceHeinrich Lukas Arnold: The Reading Room, circa 1840

Of the many institutions suffering through the world’s metamorphosis from analog to digital (real to virtual, offline to online), few are as beleaguered as that bedrock of our culture, the public library. Budgets are being slashed by state and local governments. Even the best libraries are cutting staff and hours. Their information desks are seemingly superseded by Google, their encyclopedias are gathering dust. And their defining product, the one that lines their shelves, now arrives in the form of a weightless doppelgänger that doesn’t require shelves.

In the technocracy, all the world’s information comes to us on screens—desk, pocket, wrist, goggles—and no one trudges through wind and rain with library card in hand to find a single worn object. After all, when you want the text of Magna Carta, you don’t track down the original. Same with books? “Libraries are screwed,” said Eli Neiburger, a Michigan library director, in a much-quoted presentation at a Library Journal conference in 2010. “Libraries are screwed because we are invested in the codex, and the codex has become outmoded.”

So is the library, storehouse and lender of books, as anachronistic as the record store, the telephone booth, and the Playboy centerfold? Perversely, the most popular service at some libraries has become free Internet access. People wait in line for terminals that will let them play solitaire and Minecraft, and librarians provide coffee. Other patrons stay in their cars outside just to use the Wi-Fi. No one can be happy with a situation that reduces the library to a Starbucks wannabe.

Perhaps worst of all: the “bookless library” is now a thing. You can look it up in Wikipedia.

Read more: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/oct/26/what-libraries-can-still-do-bibliotech/

The Library: a new short film on the wonder of libraries - video

Director Jason LaMotte was profoundly affected by his neighbourhood library in Houston Texas – and the magical feeling it carried was the inspiration behind his new film The Library

Reinventing the library by Alberto Manguel

The Oberlausitzische Library of Sciences in Gorlitz, Germany. CreditFlorian Monheim/Arcaid via Corbis

Plato, in the “Timaeus,” says that when one of the wisest men of Greece, the statesman Solon, visited Egypt, he was told by an old priest that the Greeks were like mere children because they possessed no truly ancient traditions or notions “gray with time.” In Egypt, the priest continued proudly, “there is nothing great or beautiful or remarkable that is done here, or in your country, or in any other land that has not been long since put into writing and preserved in our temples.”

Such colossal ambition coalesced under the Ptolemaic dynasty. In the third century B.C., more than half a century after Plato wrote his dialogues, the kings ordered that every book in the known world be collected and placed in the great library they had founded in Alexandria. Hardly anything is known of it except its fame: neither its site (it was perhaps a section of the House of the Muses) nor how it was used, nor even how it came to its end. Yet, as one of history’s most distinguished ghosts, the Library of Alexandria became the archetype of all libraries.

Libraries come in countless shapes and sizes. They can be like the Library of Congress or as modest as that of the children’s concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the older girls were in charge of eight volumes that had to be hidden every night so that the Nazi guards wouldn’t confiscate them. They can be built from books found in the garbage, like the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., set up in 1980 by the 24-year-old Aaron Lansky from volumes discarded by the younger generations who no longer spoke the tongue of their elders, or they can be catalogued in the mind of their exiled readers, in the hope of resurrection, like the libraries plundered by the Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories of Palestine. It is in the nature of libraries to adapt to changing circumstances and threats, and all libraries exist in constant danger of being destroyed by war, vermin, fire, water or the idiocies of bureaucracy.

Read more: http://nyti.ms/1R0E2G8

Top 10 Things You Need To Know About The Library

Here are 10 important things you need to know about the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University. Know your stuff so you can utilize these amazing resources!

1. Your own personal research assistants! Get help student to student with the A-LIST crew.

Our fellow A-LIST students are here to help you on your academic journey. If you need help starting your research paper, finding a book, or have any questions related to the library find them in their gold shirts on the reference desk on the 3rd floor or around the library. Appointments can be scheduled as well, students helping students.

2. Hidden gems within the library! STARBUCKS-COPIESPLUS-LAUNCHPAD

Cook library has many resources and services inside the library, did you know? You thirsty or need a quick snack while studying? We have a Starbucks in our library, problem one solved. You need to fax papers, resume paper, or copy or print papers in bulk? Copies plus is here to help, problem two solved. Do you have a business start-up? Are you an entrepreneur? Oh wait, we have Student Launch Pad, Problem three solved.  Read more...

Library Card Spokesdog Snoopy helps unleash 2015 Library Card Sign-Up Month

Library Card Spokesdog

Snoopy helps unleash 2015 Library Card Sign-Up Month

By Sari Feldman | September 3, 2015

Are libraries going to the dogs? We all know better than to believe those who deem libraries obsolete in today’s fast-paced, tech-driven environment, but we also know that we need to consistently demonstrate the ways in which libraries are essential, innovative, and—dare we say?—cool. So we were thrilled to welcome Snoopy, the absolute coolest customer, as the 2015 National Library Card Sign-Up Month spokesdog!

Snoopy has inspired all of us at Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Public Library (CCPL) to expand Library Card Sign-Up Monthinto a dog-­tastic extravaganza. We are crowdsourcing a “top dog” to be featured on an official CCPL library card, and we’re giving customers the chance to create their own customized library cards during a special pet photo shoot event. Even my dog, Grady, is looking forward to expanding the fame he’s acquired via my @sari_feldman Twitter feed to have his photo featured on a CCPL library card. But, in an age when customers can simply log in online to request and download content or use an app to check out material, why all this attention on the physical card?

We know that libraries need to create affinity for the “library brand.” The library card, used in all types of libraries, remains a symbol of our brand. It’s a daily reminder that the library is an open, trusted source that belongs to the cardholder; it’s the physical proxy that links the library’s core values of privacy, equity, intellectual freedom, and democracy to the individual library patron. This is perhaps why President Obama recently issued the ConnectED Library Challenge, which calls for library cards for all children to ensure access to a library. A library card is their key to the education, employment, entrepreneurship, engagement, and empowerment opportunities that libraries provide.

If the library card is part of our brand identity, we need to support the brand through strategic marketing efforts. Our profession has always placed a budgetary priority on service over marketing, yet we can no longer rely on earned media and nostalgic sentiment alone. We need to invest in actively marketing libraries to capture mindshare and move the needle on public perception of the value of libraries. The “Libraries Transform” public awareness campaign is built upon the premise that elevating consciousness of the changing face of America’s libraries and engaging individuals and communities will increase support for libraries from a funding and information policy perspective. Read more...