Showing posts with label special collections. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

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.

Monday, August 7, 2017

The World’s Most Glamorous Librarian | Podcast

Women librarians | Special librarians | African-American History

07-27-17 Annotated | Bookriot

In this episode: the life of Belle De Costa Greene, the most glamorous and influential librarian in early 20th Century America, who kept a life-long
secret that could have ended her career. http://bookriot.com/listen/worlds-glamorous-librarian/

See also :

Belle-da-Costa-Greene

Saturday, August 20, 2016

The secret libraries of history

After news emerged about an underground reading room in Damascus, Fiona Macdonald discovers the places where writing has been hidden for centuries.

By Fiona Macdonald

19 August 2016

French sinologist Paul Pelliot in the Library Cave at Dunhuang in 1908 reading the manuscripts (Credit: The Musée Guimet)

Beneath the streets of a suburb of Damascus, rows of shelves hold books that have been rescued from bombed-out buildings. Over the past four years, during the siege of Darayya, volunteers have collected 14,000 books from shell-damaged homes. They are held in a location kept secret amid fears that it would be targeted by government and pro-Assad forces, and visitors have to dodge shells and bullets to reach the underground reading space.

It’s been called Syria’s secret library, and many view it as a vital resource. “In a sense the library gave me back my life,” one regular user, Abdulbaset Alahmar, told the BBC. “I would say that just like the body needs food, the soul needs books.”

Religious or political pressures have meant that books have been hidden throughout history – whether in secret caches or private collections. One of those is now known as ‘the Library Cave’.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Locked away: Egypt’s forgotten Jewish literary heritage

By Samar Samir

Inside a library of a synagogue in downtown Cairo, hundreds of Judaic books dating from the medieval ages to 20th century are shelved, unread and un-indexed.

Despite a center dedicated to their preservation, government ministries have stalled, eschewing responsibility for what would be an expensive project to review and record the manuscripts digitally.

Cultural history

Some of the shelved books date back to 17th and 18th centuries, while others are kept inside closed glass boxes, Hebrew Language professor at Ain Shams University Mohamed Hosni told The Cairo Post.

“The books are very important and rare. Some books are hand-written while others were donated by dignitaries,” Hosni added, “There are some books [so fragile they] cannot be touched lest they deteriorate.”

The Jewish Heritage Library in Egypt was established inside Cairo‘s Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue by the Jewish Community Council of Cairo in cooperation with Israeli Academic Center in Cairo during the tenure of former President Hosni Mubarak and was inaugurated on Oct. 25, 1988.

Most Egyptian Jews left the country in the 1950s, and of those who remained, the majority officially converted to Christianity or Islam. There less than 20 self-identified Jews estimated to remain in Egypt.

Head of Jewish Community of Egypt Magda Haroun has previously expressed her concerns over neglecting the library’s archeological and old books and rolls without digitizing and documentation.

Read article...

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Rare Book School at the University of Virginia - NYTimes.com

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

Published: July 23, 2012

Jessica Pigza, an assistant curator for the New York Public Library's Rare Book Division, uses a magnifying glass to determine the type of leather used on a book cover.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — On a steamy morning last week Mark Dimunation, the chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, was in a windowless basement room here at the University of Virginia, leading a dozen people in a bibliophile’s version of the wave.

ArtsBeat: The Rare Book Scholar's Secret Weapon (July 24, 2012)

He lined up the group and handed each person a sheet of copier paper with a syllable written on it. After a few halting practice runs — “Hip-na-rah-toe ...” — the group successfully shouted out, “ ‘Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,’ 1499!”

The phrase wasn’t an incantation ripped from the pages of a lost Dan Brown novel, but the title and publication date of a long erotic love poem printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius and often described as one of the weirdest and most beautiful books ever produced. Read more