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Rutgers University has become the first of New Jersey’s institutions of higher education to take action against the rising cost of textbooks by launching the Open and Affordable Textbook Project. The initiative includes a grant program, administered by Rutgers University Libraries, that will give incentives to faculty or department groups that replace a traditional textbook with a free, low-cost, or open alternative. Students could save as much as $500,000 within its first year.
Rutgers Today, Sept. 30
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To commemorate Architectural Record’s 125th anniversary, the editors chose to honor 125 of the most important works of architecture built since the magazine’s founding in 1891. Five of those buildings are libraries: J. P. Morgan Library, New York City; New York Public Library; Stockholm City Library, Sweden; Sendai Mediatheque, Japan; and the Seattle (Wash.) Public Library. The editors write: “While many inclusions are obvious, others may be surprising, or a little controversial—as are some omissions.”
Architectural Record, Sept. 1
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Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced the winners of the 2016 Library of Congress Literacy Awards on September 23 at the National Book Festival gala. The winners are WETA Reading Rockets of Arlington, Virginia; the Parent-Child Home Program of Garden City, New York; and Libraries Without Borders of Paris. The awards recognize groups doing exemplary, innovative, and replicable work, and they spotlight the need for the global community to unite in striving for universal literacy.
Library of Congress, Sept. 23
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Barbara Fister writes: “I’m reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by urban ethnographer and writer Matthew Desmond. It’s a model of narrative nonfiction and ethical storytelling about people whose stories reveal a lot about exploitation and poverty. I don’t know how else to put this: It’s immoral to study poor people and publish the results of that study in journal run by a for-profit company that charges more for your article than what the household you studied has to buy food this week.”
Inside Higher Ed: Library Babel Fish, Sept. 29
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Brian Barrett writes: “First implemented in 2012, the Wireless Emergency Alert system is why everything from AMBER alerts to weather warnings appear uninvited on your smartphone. Currently, WEAs can only be 90 characters long, but the FCC has just allowed them to quadruple, hitting up to 360 characters on 4G networks. It also requires carriers to include embedded phone numbers and URLs in alerts, meaning relevant photos will be just one tap away, and geographic targeting will become more precise.”
Wired, Sept. 29
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Learn about “Online Productivity Tools: Smart Shortcuts and Clever Tricks,” presented by Jaclyn McKewan, in this 90-minute LITA webinar on November 8. McKewan will discuss to-do lists, calendars, and other programs, and will explore ways these tools can be connected. She will describe the use of widgets on your desktop and mobile device to keep information at your fingertips. Register online.
LITA, Sept. 29
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Sedley Abercrombie writes: “Several years back, I wanted to attend a local technology conference. My district is strict on paying for conferences and I’m pretty cheap, so a colleague encouraged me to submit a call to present to get free registration. I wrote something up, and it got accepted. Things went pretty well. The positive feedback encouraged me to try again and I did. I can say that I have done enough conference presentations that I’ve become an authority on what not to do.”
Knowledge Quest blog, Sept. 29
