Save your local! Should volunteers help keep our public libraries open?

Public libraries | UK | Volunteers

Alison Flood  | Tuesday 8 August 2017

Kensal Rise Library in London, where volunteers have set up a community library. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian 

 

 

 

Readers checking a book out of the village library might not immediately notice much of a difference, but Congresbury is the latest public library to haven been handed over “to the community”. You may be used to libraries being run by volunteers – maybe your local is – but this structure is relatively new. Over the last decade, as many libraries began closing across the UK due to swingeing cuts to local authority funding by central government – 121 libraries closed last year alone – some have instead been handed over by councils to the community to run.

Since librarian Ian Anstice began charting the cuts to UK libraries on his campaigning website Public Libraries News in 2010, 500 of the UK’s 3,850 remaining libraries have now been taken over, at least in part, by volunteers. “I’ve been looking at the count going up steadily for the last few years,” says Anstice. “In 2010, there were a handful – perhaps 10 in the whole country. So this is quite a staggering change.”  Read more:

Anyone With A Library Card Can Now Stream Thousands Of Feature Films, Including The Criterion Collection

Public libraries | NYPL | Streaming media

by Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 3, 2017 10:59 am

Vivre Sa Vie, 1962

In July, LAist announced that you could stream hundreds of movies from the Criterion Collection for free if you had a Los Angeles Public Library card. We immediately reached out to the New York Public Library inquiring about our own hidden benefits as library card holders, and at the time they did not offer access to Kanopy's streaming service, which the LAPL uses. But lo and behold, they have now decided to add it (you're welcome?)—starting Friday August 4th, anyone with a library card (both NYPL and Brooklyn Public Library) will have access to hundreds of movies. Here's what you need to know....

Don't have a library card? You can get one instantly through the NYPL's SimplyE app; that card will get you immediate access to hundreds of thousands of NYPL e-books, but for physical materials and any other databases (like Kanopy), you will need to go to a branch, and "upgrade" your e-card to a full access library card.

More information on getting a NYPL card can be found here; and more on getting a BPL card can be found here.

4 important things users want from a library (and how to offer them)

Public Libraries | Library Services | Phone Reference

 

 

Sometimes, there is a big imbalance between what the users wish to have in a library and what they really get. As Mick Fortune mentions in our previous post, for many years libraries measured their success primarily by footfall and they only focused on that. Only in the last few years, libraries have really started focusing on getting to know their users better. Even so, all the studies, such as those made by The Pew Internet, Carnegie UK Trust, Museums Libraries & Archives UK, etc. end up showing the same results.

In the following blog posts, we’re going to explore the various things users want from a library and suggest a few ways how libraries can set this right. In this first post, we will focus on the 4 most important things users want from a library.

 

1. A good range of books

Read article 

 

 

How public libraries help build healthy communities | March 30, 2017

Public libraries | Library services | Community | Health

March 30, 2017

by Marcela Cabello and Stuart M. Butler

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Increasingly in the United States, you also can’t judge a library’s value to its community by simply its books. Let us explain.

In a previous blog post, we’ve noted the importance of “third places” in strengthening communities – meaning those places that are neither one’s home (first place) nor workspace (second place). A range of such third places, from churches to beauty salons, play an important role in community building. They are the informal spaces that are often mainstays in a neighborhood, places where both random and intentional in-person relationships are made. Read more...

Long Overdue: Why public libraries are finally eliminating the late-return fine

Public libraries | Access | Community outreach

by Ruth Graham

A thing of the past? 
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...

2562 68 Beyond books: Eight things you may not know about libraries

USA TODAY NETWORKRamon Padilla, Adam Shapourian, Nicole Vas, Berna Elibuyuk and Mary Bowerman9:48 a.m. EDT April 21, 2016

As people become more reliant on devices and less likely to crack open a paperback, libraries have been forced to adapt.

Most modern libraries offer e-book and e-magazines, plus movies on DVD and other digital items. But did you know that many also provide such services as free Wi-Fi, used bookstores, and even unique items borrowing.

Coming off of National Library Week, here's a look at eight things you might not know about your local library: Read article:

Inside the New York Public Library's new $23 Million Subterranean Book Vault

The New York Public Library just spent $23 million to create a gigantic storage space beneath Bryant Park to stash millions of books. Our Michael Scotto takes look.


This book is winding its way through the New York Public Library on a high-tech $2.6 million track system that cuts through 11 levels of the main library on 5th Avenue.

"This allows us to deliver multiple items versus having to have someone carry, physically carry it up the building to its delivery point," Gerry Oliva, who works for the library's department of facilities management.

The tracks replace an old conveyor belt system that had grown obsolete. They will soon be shuttling books to the famous reading room, which will re-open next month after a multimillion-dollar renovation.

"This is the circulation system of the largest collection at the New York Public Library," said Matt Knutzen. Read more...