At the University of Nevada, Reno, Donnelyn Curtis, head of special collections, turned to Facebook to connect the university’s archives with students who care about history and the school’s tradition. She began by creating Facebook pages for Joe McDonald and Leola Lewis—two students who attended the university in the 1910s, married a few years later, … Continue reading 8 Tips to Highlight History Using Facebook
Born in Manchester in 1959 but raised in the bleak working-class north England industrial town of Accrington, Winterson and her adoptive family had no phones, no cars, no indoor toilets, and lived in a community where few if any had job security. Her mother was an evangelical Pentecostal who was “apocalyptic by nature” and kept … Continue reading An Interview with Jeanette Winterson
Loeb grew up in Dallas and said that school was important to her and her family. During the summers, her mom would drop off young Lisa and a friend at the library “for fun,” she said, and Loeb would spend time reading Encyclopedia Brown books, among other favorites. She also looked back somewhat fondly at … Continue reading Lisa Loeb’s ALA Sing-Along
Cain began her professional career as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street but quickly realized that she possessed none of those traits. As a lawyer, she often used a constructive tone and thoroughly prepared for negotiations, types of approaches, she said, that were very different from other attorneys she knew. But those skills proved valuable—particularly … Continue reading The Value of Quiet in a Loudmouth World
Protesters, who included the local chapter of the NAACP, held a news conference at the main library on January 13 to voice their opposition, stating that the increasing shift toward digital media will leave behind traditional users and those without money or access to new technology. Members of the community-based initiative Save Our Library (SOL) … Continue reading Emphasis on Ebooks Stirs Community Outcry in Illinois
Introduced October 26 by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261) has a number of high-profile supporters, among them members of the entertainment industry, pharmaceutical companies, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These groups claim the internet currently challenges their ability to innovate because of … Continue reading Wide Backlash Greets Internet Antipiracy Bill
The notion that the research efforts of a group of people with varying opinions, when aggregated, can result in better information than a specific expert could come up with—aka “crowdsourcing”—has been around for some time. It’s one of the ideas on which the 10-year-old Wikipedia is based. So it seemed only natural when one of … Continue reading Libraries Tap into Crowd Power
