3h
Cassie Abel writes: “A budget proposal to increase Stephentown (N.Y.) Memorial Library’s funding from $95,000 to $110,000 has been approved in a vote recount, 540–279, according to library officials. The budget proposal failed to pass on Election Day. However, the reported tallies—524 ‘No’ votes and 57 ‘Yes’ votes—raised concerns that the vote count was inaccurate. The library began collecting signed affirmations of those who voted for the budget, and the county began recounting all election votes. According to the library, the funding will ensure the library can continue services, programs, and resources while preventing hour reductions.”
WTEN-TV (Albany, N.Y.), Dec. 10, Nov. 19; Stephentown (N.Y.) Memorial Library, Dec. 9
6h
Anne Ford writes: “Everyone knows Cinderella, the story of the unfortunate young woman who, thanks to her fairy godmother, rides in a pumpkin, misplaces her glass slipper, and ends up marrying a prince. But have you heard the version where she’s aided by a magical fish instead? Or the one where she loses her shoe to an eagle? These are just a couple of the 600-plus global variations of the Cinderella fable. You’ll find many of them at Jonesborough, Tennessee’s Storytelling Resource Place, a repository of books, recordings, costumes, instruments, and other items related to the storytelling performance tradition.”
American Libraries Online, Dec. 12
9h
Cass Balzer writes: “Worldwide, more than 15 million cyberattacks have been reported every year since 2020. At public institutions like libraries, these attacks often shut down core systems, compromise personal information of patrons and staff, and leave communities without access to certain services, all while demanding substantial resources to repair the damage. For libraries that have suffered these attacks, recovery was long, complicated, and costly, but their experiences offer lessons in how libraries can respond and rebuild.”
American Libraries Trend, Nov./Dec.
3d
Benjamin Charles Germain Lee and Kyle Deeds write: “We are excited to share GovScape, a public search system for 10+ million government PDFs. GovScape is built upon the End of Term Web Archive, an incredible multi-institutional effort to document the federal government’s online presence at the end of each presidential administration going back to 2004. GovScape currently includes all renderable PDFs from the 2020 crawl that are 50 pages or under in length. We are already working to incorporate PDFs from the other crawls in the End of Term Web Archive, including the 2024 crawl once it is fully uploaded.”
Data Rescue Project, Dec. 2
3d
Kelly Jensen writes: “It was never a question whether the end of Moms for Liberty’s BookLooks in March would be the end of parental rights groups taking up the mantle on reviewing, rating, and targeting books on library shelves. RatedBooks.org is now developing its own ‘new’ resource of reviews, The National Book Rating Index, [which will] put the reviews done by actual experts in the field beside those done by parents with an agenda. It attempts to elevate those biased reviews to the same level of professionalism and authority as those done by experts.”
Well Sourced, Dec. 6; BookRiot, Mar. 10
4d
Nick Tanzi writes: “When libraries encounter an emerging technology, we seek to identify both the threats and opportunities for our organizations. Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a significant communication challenge for libraries, requiring engagement with multiple audiences.” This post discusses the information about AI that libraries should be communicating to their staff, users, and vendors.
The Digital Librarian, Dec. 4
4d
Mike Masnick writes: “Companies that used to provide real value are now focused on extracting more value from users. There was a time when many people felt more fulfilled after using new innovations that helped them do new things. We’ve replaced that with engagement metrics, growth hacks, and AI slop. The tech industry spent the last decade optimizing for shareholder value and calling it innovation. A group of us decided to articulate what the alternative actually looks like. We’re calling it the Resonant Computing Manifesto, and it’s an attempt to reclaim what innovation should mean.”
Techdirt, Dec. 5
