Tuesday, July 28, 2015

STOP CYBER SURVEILLANCE! #StopCISA

For more information: https://www.stopcyberspying.com/

See original page

Thursday, July 23, 2015

8 things you didn’t know about Dr. Seuss

BY Joshua Barajas July 22, 2015 at 1:06 PM EDT

Theodor “Ted” Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, on his last visit to his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1986. Photo courtesy of Springfield Union-News

A long-lost manuscript from the beloved author and illustrator Dr. Seuss will be released next week, marking a quarter-century since his swan song “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” empowered us to move mountains. The posthumous “What Pet Should I Get?” arrives July 28, two years after the author’s widow unearthed the story’s text and sketches. It features the siblings from “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” on a trip to the pet store, which we know is never that sensible with a Seuss book.

Philip Nel, author of “Dr. Seuss: American Icon,” and Guy McLain, director of the Wood Museum of Springfield History, discuss how the author’s advertising beginnings gave way to Zooks and Zummers, pulling children’s literature away from the tsk-tsking of the Dick and Jane books and obliterating the boring belief that young readers ought to be prim and proper.

Thing 1. He got his sense of poetry from his mother. Read more...

“We have reached a point of no return” Russia’s most renowned librarian talks to ‘Meduza’ about state inspections, foreign agents, and cultural exchange

Американский культурный центр, занятия летней школы сценаристов. Июнь 2015-го Фото:

Photo: American Center's vk.com page

Renowned librarian and cultural critic Ekaterina Genieva passed away on July 9 in Israel after a battle with cancer. Genieva had served as the head of the All-Russia State Library of Foreign Literature for nearly a quarter of a century, right up until her death. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she also worked as the President of George Soros’ Open Society Institute in Russia. This week, the Open Society Institute came under government scrutiny for “threatening Russia’s interests.” Authorities had also been paying special attention to Genieva’s library, asking her to shut down the American Cultural Center, one of many international organizations her library hosts. Shortly before she passed away, Ekaterina Genieva was interviewed by Katerina Gordeeva for Meduza. Genieva shared her thoughts about the Ministry of Culture, about Russia’s “spy fever,” and about the importance of cultural exchange.

Requirements imposed on public educational and cultural projects are becoming ever more stringent. Against this backdrop, the Library of Foreign Literature looks almost provocative: it’s a whole community of intellectuals, you have books about tolerance, you host concerts with musicians who have gone out of favor with the state, you also host a dozen foreign cultural centers in this building. How close are you to becoming a “foreign agent?”

Read more: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2015/07/10/we-have-reached-a-point-of-no-return

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

How libraries can compete with Google and Amazon

Every kid needs a tablet nowadays. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Visit the Central branch of New York City’s Queens Library at 12:55 pm on a Tuesday, and you’ll see about 100 people outside, waiting for the doors to open. At 1 pm they file in: Some settle in the comfy saucer chairs, while others rest in armchairs facing four TVs and open a newspaper. Splashes of blue and green interrupt white walls, and computer areas are separated by category: job information, adult learning center, and “young adult learning.”

But the reach of the Queens Library extends beyond the walls of its 65 physical branches. Dotting the borough are thousands of New Yorkers logged into their own mini-libraries, using the library’s mobile app to do research for homework, or the WiFi hotspots they checked out to fill in the holes in broadband access at home, or accessing e-books on one of the libraries’ tablets they can take home.

Throughout the country, library initiatives are emerging to keep up with technological advances. And libraries are finding that one population they can serve better than anyone else is low-income Americans.

Victory for school libraries as Senate passes education bill Posted by: Jessica McGilvray July 17, 2015 in Legislation, School Libraries

The Senate made great strides this week to ensure needed reform to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). After much debate and across the aisle discussion, yesterday the Senate overwhelmingly passed S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act, by a vote of 81-17.

As we discussed in a previous post, the inclusion in the bill of the bi-partisan Reed-Cochran amendment, makes S. 1177 a monumental step forward for schools, their libraries and the millions of students they serve. Most fundamentally and importantly, the amendment (approved 98-0) makes explicit that ESEA funds may be used to support school libraries and “effective school library programs” in multiple ways.

Read more: http://www.districtdispatch.org/2015/07/victory-for-school-libraries-as-senate-passes-education-bill/

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

All Those Techies Who Predicted the Demise of the Public Library Were Wrong

Americans still love libraries more than any other public institution.

By Wayne Wiegand / Oxford University Press

July 16, 2015

The following was written by author Wayne Wiegand as a compliment to his new book, Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library (Oxford University Press, 2015):

Indisputable fact--Americans love their public libraries. Evidence to support this statement abounds. A 2013 report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project noted that in the previous decade “every other major institution (government, churches, banks, corporations) has fallen in public esteem except libraries, the military, and first responders.” The study also found that 91% of those surveyed over sixteen years old said libraries are “very” or “somewhat” important to their communities, and 98% identified their public library experience as “very” or “mostly positive.”

Another Pew study found 94% of parents believe libraries are important for their children; 84% said because libraries develop a love of reading and books. Read more...

Adults Are More Likely To Believe There Are Books That Should Be Banned Than Movies, Television Shows, or Video Games

Percentage who feel some books should be banned has increased 10 points since 2011; Three in ten Americans are more likely to read a book if it’s banned

08:00 AM EDT Jul 8, 2015

NEW YORK, N.Y. – In just four years, the percentage of Americans who believe there are any books that should be banned has increased by more than half: 28% believe this to be the case today, vs. 18% in 2011. One-fourth (24%) are unsure, which leaves nearly half of Americans convinced that no books should be banned completely (48%).

Politically speaking, Republicans are nearly twice as likely as Democrats or Independents to believe there are any books that should be banned completely (42% vs. 23% & 22%, respectively).
In addition, adults who have completed high school or less are more likely than those with higher levels of education to believe there are any books that should be banned (33%, vs. 25% some college, 24% college grad, 23% post grad).

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll® of 2,244 U.S. adults surveyed online and in English between March 11 and 16, 2015.
“The things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed.” ― Mae West
When asked to consider other types of media, adults are less likely to say there are any movies, television programs, or video games which should be banned completely. Only 16% of Americans each believe there are any movies or television programs that should be banned completely, and one fourth say the same about video games (24%). In light of this, perhaps it’s not surprising that seven in ten adults believe a rating system (similar to that used for movies) should be applied to books (71%).
Similar to books, Republicans are more likely than Democrats or Independents to believe there’s ever a call for outright bans in each of these categories.

Movies: 24% Republicans vs. 15% Democrats & 12% Independents

Television: 23% Republicans vs. 16% Democrats & 12% Independents
Video games: 32% Republicans vs. 23% Democrats & 20% Independents
Read more...

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Go Set A Watchman - An Opinion Piece

To Fans of "To Kill A Mockingbird"
We at Brilliant Books want to be sure that our customers are aware that “Go Set A Watchman” is not a sequel or prequel to ‘To Kill A Mockingbird'. Neither is it a new book. It is a first draft that was originally, and rightfully, rejected. The book, and some of the characters therein, are very much a product of this era in the South.

We suggest you view this work as an academic insight rather than as a nice summer novel. This situation is comparable to James Joyce's stunning work 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', and his original draft 'Stephen Hero'. 'Hero' was initially rejected, and Joyce reworked it into the classic 'Portrait'. 'Hero' was eventually released as an academic piece for scholars and fans—not as a new 'Joyce novel'. We would have been delighted to see “Go Set A Watchman” receive a similar fate.

It is disappointing and frankly shameful to see our noble industry parade and celebrate this as “Harper Lee’s New Novel”. This is pure exploitation of both literary fans and a beloved American classic (which we hope has not been irrevocably tainted.) We therefore encourage you to view “Go Set A Watchman” with intellectual curiosity and careful consideration; a rough beginning for a classic, but only that.

Go to homepage: http://www.brilliant-books.net/go-set-watchman-opinion-piece

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

How to talk to your kids about prejudice with the help of 12 of our favorite books

It’s been a big few weeks for America, hasn’t it? From the heartbreak of the Charleston shootings to the landmark #LoveWins Supreme Court decision to the Girl Scouts donor dust-up, people everywhere are talking about prejudice.

While I’ve seen such a beautiful swell of love, support and compassion for all kinds of people all over my social media this past month, I’ve also talked to lots of moms who are wondering how to talk to kids about prejudice and racism. Because even as my kids help me pick out wedding presents for all our friends, prejudice most definitely still exists whether it’s because of the color of your skin or the country your family came from.

Related: 10 outstanding Black History Month books for kids of all ages

One of my favorite go-to tools for starting hard conversations with my kids is by reading books together. Reading a great story is an easy way for me to get my kids talking about concepts like open-mindedness, embracing people who are different from them, and fighting for the rights of people who have been marginalized. Even if marginalization is still a word that’s a little over their heads.

Read more: http://coolmompicks.com/blog/2015/07/07/12-childrens-book-help-talk-to-kids-about-prejudice/

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries by Jen Li

Articles

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

July 14, 2015

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

by Jen Li, INALJ Contributor

I have a ‘library bucket list’. Although my PhD research focuses on three case study libraries in Sydney, my reading and travels have taken me beyond Sydney and those three libraries. I have a mental list of libraries that I would like to visit one day, libraries that I would love to return to, and whenever I’m in a new city I will visit their libraries and discover ones that I didn’t realise I wanted to visit but am glad that I found them. The bucket list is developed through hours upon hours of reading books and articles about libraries, following libraries and librarians on Twitter, and reading websites like BookRiot on an almost daily basis. There are many lists out there that proclaim the ‘Most Beautiful Libraries in the World’ or ‘Libraries You Should Visit Before You Die’, and I like to read them for two reasons: to see how many libraries I can tick off and say, “Yes, I’ve been there!”, and to add new libraries to my list.

A note on these lists, however: these lists typically contain grand, beautiful libraries. There are palatial and majestic libraries out there in the world, libraries with marble floors and columns, and what seem like endless rows of bookshelves. You know the ones. They are spectacular libraries that intimidate. These are generally national libraries, or a city’s first or central library, or academic libraries. My bucket list contains these libraries, and I will never say no to an opportunity to visit them. But I also love the library that never makes it onto those lists; the humble neighbourhood library that perhaps isn’t as well funded, or is open as many hours as its users would like, or whose decor and furnishings might not have been updated for a number of years because its budgetary priorities lay elsewhere. Read more...

Articles

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

July 14, 2015

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

by Jen Li, INALJ Contributor

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

1.5 Million Slavery-Era Records to be Released for Free Online Access

1.5 million digitized images contain an estimated four million names of formerly enslaved people. The names were originally collected by the Freedmen's Bureau, a program established by Congress to help newly freed Black people transition into citizenship post-Civil War. Because the bureau was a government agency, the records were kept by the National Archives until now.

A partnership with National Archives and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will allow the handwritten records to be digitized and archived for public access. The effort to make these records available to the public online free of charge will coincide with the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture at the National Mall in the fall of 2016. Access to these records appropriately coincides with the 150 year anniversary of the abolition of slavery.

Approximately four million names of formerly enslaved people will be released in hopes of helping Black Americans trace their ancestry

These records will allow Black Americans to trace their ancestry further back than previously possible.

Paul Nauta, a spokesman for FamilySearch says, “African Americans who tried to research their family history before 1870 hit a brick wall because before 1870 their ancestors who were slaves and showed up as tics or hash marks on paper. They didn’t have a name. The slave master would just have tick marks.”

Photo: theGrio.com

Joneka Percentie is a junior studying Communications, Africana Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. When she is not working as an editorial assistant with For Harriet, she enjoys blogging for SPARK, singing, dancing, tweeting @jpercentie, eating, and sleeping. E-mail her at joneka.percentie@forharriet.com
Related Items freedmen's bureau records slavery

Where are the books? Libraries under fire as they shift from print to digital.

Laughing students walk into the renovated Woodrow Wilson Library in May. The library is used by local elementary schoolchildren as a space to hang out with friends and use the Internet. (Erin Schaff/For The Washington Post)

by Michael S. Rosenwald July 7 at 9:34 PM

The hallmark of public libraries — the printed book, bound by covers and centuries of page-turning — is being shoved aside by digital doppelgangers.

Around the country, libraries are slashing their print collections in favor of e-books, prompting battles between library systems and print purists, including not only the pre-pixel generation but digital natives who represent a sizable portion of the 1.5 billion library visits a year and prefer print for serious reading.

[Millennials prefer reading in print. Yes, you read that right.]

Some of the clashes have been heated. In New York, protesters outside the city’s main branch have shouted: “Save the stacks! Save the stacks!” In Northern Virginia, the Fairfax County library system chief recently mused that the Friends of the Library were no longer friends — a feud fueled by outrage over a print collection that has shrunk by more than 300,000 books since 2009. The drop in the District is even more dramatic: Nearly 1 million books have vanished since 2009.

An Innovative Library Lifts the Fortunes of a Chinese Town

Li Xiaodong, a prize-winning architect, was inspired by the branches of local fruit trees, which he used to cover the Liyuan library's roof and exterior walls. Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

JIAOJIEHE, China — Nestled among the shimmering chestnut, walnut and peach trees of a deep valley surrounded by craggy hills, the tiny village of Jiaojiehe suffers from being close to the nation’s capital. The young flee easily to the big city, leaving the elderly behind, lonely and poor.

In today’s China, villages like this often try to engineer a sense of well-being by opening a new medical clinic, say, or by upgrading the water supply.

But Li Xiaodong, an award-winning architect who fuses traditional Chinese ideas of design with Western themes, had a different idea for Jiaojiehe. He was captivated by the potential he saw in the village’s most abundant natural resource, the branches of its thousands of trees, which the locals harvest for fuel.

So he built a library — with a twist. At its base, it is a steel and glass box in the vein of a Philip Johnson open-plan creation from the 1950s, but its exterior walls and roof are clad with fruit-tree twigs

Read more:

http://nyti.ms/1H408BG

Thursday, June 25, 2015

The New York Public Library Wars

What went wrong at one of the world’s eminent research institutions?

Alamy

The Rose Main Reading Room in the New York Public Library’s main branch, on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. A group of scholars spearheaded a successful protest to stop radical changes at the library, but now it looks as if they may have lost anyway.

By Scott Sherman

Scholars who use the New York Public Library are boiling with frustration. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2014 the library, under pressure from a coalition that included four senior scholars, abandoned its controversial Central Library Plan, which entailed gutting the stacks at the 42nd Street Library and selling the popular Mid-Manhattan Library across the street. But the situation hasn’t turned out how many critics had hoped.

Paula Glatzer, an independent Shakespeare scholar, has been engaged in research at the library since 1963 and has recently used the collections for her contribution to the new Variorum Shakespeare editions, published by the Modern Language Association. On January 15 she sent a letter to Anthony W. Marx, the library’s president: "Sadly, I have had to tell my Variorum colleagues that the NYPL is over … for now." Many books are stored off-site, some mislabeled as on-site; others have been lost or discarded, she wrote. "I requested a series. It couldn’t be found. I said it was hard to lose 21 volumes. A librarian overheard me and offered to look. He later emailed. All 21 volumes were indeed missing." Read more...

EXPLORING THE MUSEUM ARCHIVES: THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY’S CONTRIBUTION TO NATIONAL ARC

Once upon a time, when Gerald Ford was president, I had a grant to be Assistant Archivist at Columbia University Teacher’s College Archives. Many years later, I was told the archives had closed. By then my career moved on to law librarianship. But that’s another story. I’m always glad to visit archives whenever I get a chance.

The American Museum of Natural History was founded in 1869. Theodore Roosevelt’s father was president of the Board of Trustees. The Museum’s purpose is to provide scientific education and research. On Sunday, October 5, 2014, the American Museum of Natural History Library explained some of its archival holdings as part of National Archives Week.

Having completed a project for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reporting on best standards and practices for long term digital objects, I was eager to find out how the AMNH was approaching this problem, Vicky Steeves, a fellow from the National Digital Stewardship Registry has a grant funded by the Library of Congress to develop a preservation plan for the scientific papers with input from the scientists. Vicky is applying a three pronged approach: following trends in technology; using interoperative file formats and migration to newer formats when required. This is what I learned from my project. AMNH is keeping the original material.

Next I spoke to Barbara Rhodes, the Library Conservator, whose purpose is to repair and restore materials as well as preserve them for research and display purposes. One thing she does is make photocopy facsimiles of materials that are displayed. Barbara had some examples. I particularly liked a facsimile of a work by Anton von Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope (www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwenhoek.html ) she photocopied the original work on handmade paper and then bound it into a book. Except for the binding, it gave a good impression of a 17^th Century work.

Stacy Schiff, the Visual Resources Librarian, explained how they plan to eventually provide online access to the Library’s one million photographic images. These include glass plates and lantern slides. Sometimes the museum gives lectures using the lantern slides. Right now the photographic materials are arranged by size. So there can be all sorts of material in one box. So far the Digital Special Collections (images.library.amnh.org/digital) has curate 8500 items by topic and format. Stacy explained that there were three stages to loading an image onto the database: scanning the image; standardizing the data and adding the cultural context. For that purpose, Library applies Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and Encoded Archival Context (EAC) for metadata. The website’s platform uses Omeka open source software. As a former cataloger, I was interested to learn that the material was described using Library of Congress subject headings, the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html ) and a local controlled vocabulary.

Thomas (Tom) Baione, the Library Director, presided over the Expeditions Table which displayed artifacts from Franz Boas’ ‘(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/70705/Franz-Boas) photo scrapbook form Jessup North Pacific Expedition to Northwest Coast of North America and Siberia. Also displayed was a sweater worn

On the Central Asiatic Expedition to China and Mongolia lead by Roy Chapman Andrew (www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24006). It was a little ragged and still had sand from the Gobi Desert. This expedition found a full set of dinosaur eggs. Later on, in the film preservation section, I saw a film of this discovery. Alas, it turned out the discovery of the eggs was staged or “reenacted” as we now say in documentary film and television.

Also on display was a beautifully stuffed canary that looked ready to fly away except it was in a glass case. Twelve year old Carl Akeley, of the Museum’s Akeley Hall of African Mammals, was the soon to be revolutionary taxidermist. Akeley was also involved with the Field Museum in Chicago (http://www.fieldmuseum.org/carl-akeley). The film preservation section also had film of a camp of one of Akeley’s many expeditions to Africa. You see an African man ironing a table cloth. The expedition members sit down at a table and are served by other men. Along comes Akeley whose chair looked like a throne to me.

Barbara Mathe, Museum Archivist and Head of Special Collections, showed us a scrapbook of photos of Native Americans. In one photo, you can see the photographer in the subject’s eye. Barbara told us that, in discussions with the Zuni, they were told certain photos could not be displayed or otherwise observed as they were taken at a secret ceremony. Even other Zuni may not look at these photos. It’s a good example of how the Museum is sensitive to the people they study.

Then it was on to the film preservation section where Gregory Rami, Special Collections Librarian, explained how they preserved films and then digitizing them. I believe he said it was in the 1980’s they copied the films onto video tape in a format that was obsolete before the invention of the DVD. This is a good example of the difficulty in preserving archival film.

It’s very expensive to digitize from film. It would cost about $16,000.00 to digitize the 1920’s 10 minute films Gregory showed. So digital copies are made from the tape copies played on the obsolete machines. I watched the films with my niece Brynn (soon to be a student at Pratt Library School). We both pronounced them “cool”. The Museum is still sponsoring expeditions which are recorded digitally.

My final stop was the Hidden Collections Table. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Council for Library and Information Resources (CLIR) are funding an inventory and description of all the archives in the Museum Library and Scientific Departments. Becca Morgan is the Project Archivist. Metadata Analyst Iris Lee has what I consider a really fun job. She visits all the departments, talks to scientists, and discovers connections that no one knew existed.

When I was a child, it was a real treat to come to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaur bones. The planetarium was also fun. I am an adult. I know that there is an overwhelming and ongoing amount of treasure in the Museum It was real treat to learn about what is being done to catalog and preserve it.

The Research Library (library.amnh.org) is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 2:00-5:30 and by appointment. Email libref@amnh.org or phone 212-769-5400.

An Historic Moment for Libraries As NYC's FY16 Budget Includes $39M Funding Increase by Davis Erin Anderson, Community Engagement Manager, METRO

In exciting news for our three public library systems, New York City’s FY16 budget includes an additional $39M in funding for library services. This significant increase will keep branch library doors open 6 days a week throughout the boroughs and will bring 500 new jobs. The de Blasio administration has also committed to a ten-year $300 million capital improvement budget for our libraries, a sorely needed commitment given the steady deterioration of our libraries’ infrastructure.

The city’s FY16 budget was announced late on Monday evening by Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. The budget also includes a major increase in funding for the NYPD, the parks department, and the city’s public schools.

This historic increase in funding comes after a multi-faceted advocacy campaign set forth by New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Library. The three systems teamed up on investinlibraries.org, which includes a white paper detailing their infrastructure issues. The libraries also promoted the hashtag #investinlibraries, held rallies around the city, created a letter-writing campaign, and gathered testimonials by the likes of Judy Blume, Junot Diaz, and Tom Wolfe.

Meanwhile, Urban Librarians Unite staged a 24-hour read-in on June 11 at City Hall. In his interview with Library Journal, city council majority leader Jimmy Van Bramer called the read-in “a steady drumbeat” that “made a compelling case that, in a city that sees growing income disparities and has too many people falling into poverty, unemployed, struggling, that public libraries are the first line of defense in the war against inequality and library workers are really at the front line.”
Read on metro.org

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The NYPL's Outdoor Reading Rooms Return For Summer

Photo by Jonathan Blanc/The New York Public Library)

Can't pop open a Corona and stare at the turquoise waters while flipping through your beach read in the sand? Well, the NYPL has a fine, free alternative: their outdoor reading rooms will reopen tomorrow, and this year they've got swanky umbrellas to shade the sun from your pale winter skin.
The Outdoor Reading Room will be located on the plaza of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 5th Avenue, where there will be chairs and artificial grass to sit upon. If solitary reading isn't your thing, they'll also have author talks and other events, food trucks, and librarians who will help you find your soulmatebook.

The reading room will include colorful lounge chairs arranged on a plush "grass" carpet of soy bean based turf. Its mid-century modern design was inspired by the iconic 1970 Slim Aarons photograph Poolside Gossip, which epitomized the chic poolside social scene of the times.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Turning a Long Lost Cookbook Into a Bestseller By Joy Bean | Jun 12, 2015

A cookbook published in 1938 in Yiddish doesn’t sound like a slam dunk to be a bestseller in 2015, and yet that’s precisely what happened with The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook: Garden-Fresh Recipes Rediscovered and Adapted for Today’s Kitchen by Fania Lewando, translated by Eve Jochnowitz (Schocken). The book, released on May 26, debuted at #8 on PW's cookbook bestseller list.

With only about 1,000 copies printed and sold throughout Europe before WWII broke out, the cookbook would have been lost to history if it had not been for two women, Wendy Waxman and Barbara Mazur, who found a copy of the long out-of-print book in the rare book room at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. The women found a champion of the book in Jewish cookbook author Joan Nathan who, in turn, brought the book to the attention of Schocken editorial director Altie Karper.

Bringing new life to a long-forgotten gem is one challenge, but promoting a book in which the author is deceased (Lewando died in 1941 while fleeing from the Nazis), and therefore doesn’t have a current platform, is even trickier. In order to do the book and its history justice, Schocken went back to the cookbook's roots, which are surprisingly current. “With all of Fania Lewando’s excellent advice about using the freshest, best quality fruit and vegetables you can get, and about using every part of the fruit or vegetable, and about not discarding even the cooking water, it seemed as though the book was written last week, and not 70 years ago,” said Karper. “I was particularly intrigued by the vegetable juice and fruit juice recipes. How much more 21st century can you get?” Read more...

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Why Libraries Are Effective Instruments for Social Change | Urban Librarians Unite

We have been advocating for libraries for years and it always comes up in conversation that libraries are “book warehouses” or that we are outdated in the time of Google and ebooks. This could not be further from the truth. Here at Urban Librarians Unite we apply a lot of Library Science to the work we do. These are how we see libraries DIRECTLY addressing some of the most pressing issues in New York City every single day.

Services to Older Adults
New York City’s libraries offer many special programs and events tailored to the 50+ audience. These include lectures, films, performances and educational programs that reflect the wide interests of today’s older adults. Library outreach staff regularly visit nursing homes, senior centers, and adult care centers to run programs and loan books and other library materials.

ESOL/Citizens/New Americans

New York’s branch libraries provide a wide array of services for immigrants and are perhaps the most trusted government institution by foreign-born New Yorkers. Libraries offer English training for those who are not native speakers, preparation for the U.S. citizenship test and computer literacy classes. The libraries partner with immigrant and community groups to put on a wide variety of events and classes, from financial literacy seminars to courses on parenting, health and immigrant and tenant rights. In Queens, the library’s New Americans Program (NAP) organizes nearly 80 cultural programs each year. These programs include festivals, dance shows, music events, performances and much more. We have been advocating for libraries for years and it always comes up in conversation that libraries are “book warehouses” or that we are outdated in the time of Google and ebooks. This could not be further from the truth. Here at Urban Librarians Unite we apply a lot of Library Science to the work we do. These are how we see libraries DIRECTLY addressing some of the most pressing issues in New York City every single day.