ex-libris

July 28, 2025 200 × 139 The Stacks on Screen

Patrons in a busy reading room in a screencap from Ex Libris

Latest Library Links

8h

American Libraries shares library news from around the world, including a plan to construct more than 100 school libraries in Indonesia; the daytime heist of Matisse artworks from an exhibition at a Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo, Brazil; and Russia’s censorship of an online anime and manga database due to its LGBTQ+ content.

American Libraries Online, Dec. 16
13h

Ariel Barreras writes: “In October, the Association for Library Service to Children announced an exciting partnership with The Pokémon Company International for youth services librarians to implement Pokémon Clubs at their own libraries. I am one of the librarians that applied for and received a kit to start this program. My program will start in the new year and in this post, I will share with you what each kit includes and how I am preparing to run this club as a Pokémon novice.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 11, Oct. 13
15h

Christine Juedes writes: “What makes a librarian a librarian? Certification, function, or both? Do the professionals within the field or patrons determine who a librarian is? Or both? If a library specialist is providing essential, daily library and patron services, could they be considered a librarian by merit of their function and work? What library work encompasses is indeed broad and continuously changing, varies widely depending on the context, and is often learned on the job rather than in the classroom.”

College & Research Libraries News, Dec.
1d

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
2d

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
2d

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.
4d

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

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