Page 868 | American Libraries Magazine

Urbanska Sees Positive Signs for Green Libraries

July 12, 2009

"The disease of overconsumption is on its death bed," proclaimed Simple Living host Wanda Urbanska during her Auditorium Speaker Series speech, sponsored by American Libraries. As evidence, she cited three primary indicators, which she nicknamed "Heat, Feed, and Speed." "Heat" refers to decreasing energy requirements for the heating and cooling of homes, which have been … Continue reading Urbanska Sees Positive Signs for Green Libraries →

From Awareness to Geekdom

July 12, 2009

Three weeks into a pilot campaign aimed at moving OCLC's 2008 study From Awareness to Funding from theory to practice, OCLC hosted a session July 11 to talk about where the study has taken them since its publication one year ago and to discuss their new campaign: Geek the Library. The purpose of Geek the … Continue reading From Awareness to Geekdom →

Bringing Technology to the Developing World

July 12, 2009

To anyone attending an ALA conference, viewing the many attendees toting laptops or sporting smartphones and the exhibit hall dominated by high-tech vendors, it’s inescapable how pervasive technology has become in our society; in developing countries, it’s obviously another story. “Technology and the Developing World,” a Saturday-morning program presented by the Library and Information Technology … Continue reading Bringing Technology to the Developing World →

Annual Saturday: (Screen) Casting a Wide Net

July 12, 2009

The RUSA MARS Hot Topics Discussion Group presented a panel discussion on screencasting Saturday: “Casting a Wide Net: Using Screencasts to Reach and Teach Library Users.” Committee co-chair Michelle Jacobs was not in attendance, so–appropriately enough–she introduced the session via screencast. Eric Frierson of the University of Texas at Arlington demonstrated how his library’s online … Continue reading Annual Saturday: (Screen) Casting a Wide Net →

Opening General Session: Christie Hefner on Change, Business, and the First Amendment

July 12, 2009

Opening General Session speaker Christie Hefner drew a clear parallel between businesses and libraries in terms of what they need to do to survive. She noted how, as Playboy CEO, she came to the conclusion that the company “didn’t want to be a magazine company—we wanted to be a company that represented a style of … Continue reading Opening General Session: Christie Hefner on Change, Business, and the First Amendment →

The Medium Has a Message

July 12, 2009

James van Praagh signs a copy of his book for Michigan Library Association Director of Professional Development Denise Cook Despite murmurs of controversy surrounding his Annual Conference appearance Saturday afternoon, survival evidence medium James van Praagh had the undivided attention of several hundred truth seekers curious to hear about “what the dead can teach us,” … Continue reading The Medium Has a Message →

James Ellroy Boosts Books, Blasts Bits

July 12, 2009

Author James Ellroy is an arrogantly proud Luddite who exults in his disengagement with contemporary culture. “I live in a vacuum,” he told a rapt crowd who attended his Saturday-morning Auditorium Speaker Series appearance. “I ignore pop culture, I don’t read a newspaper.” Ellroy, known for L.A. Confidential and other unrelentingly gritty crime novels, saved his highest disdain … Continue reading James Ellroy Boosts Books, Blasts Bits →

Chatting with Christie Hefner

July 12, 2009

ALA Annual Conference keynote speaker Christie Hefner took a few minutes to chat with me before her Opening General Session speech. Hefner is the director of the Center for American Progress and longtime CEO of Playboy Enterprises, the company founded by her father, Hugh Hefner, and restructured and expanded by Christie. Asked what her major message to … Continue reading Chatting with Christie Hefner →

A Tale of Four Panelists

July 11, 2009

[July 16, 2009] UPDATE: Commentary continues to appear both in and out of the biblioblogosphere speculating about the actions that precipitated the cancellation of the "Perspectives on Islam" panel. On July 14, the Huffington Post ran a story by CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab that purports to tell the real behind-the-scenes story. In turn, Jihad … Continue reading A Tale of Four Panelists →

The Medium Has a Message

July 11, 2009

Despite murmurs of controversy surrounding his Annual Conference appearance Saturday afternoon, survival evidence medium James van Praagh had the undivided attention of several hundred truth seekers curious to hear about "what the dead can teach us," which serves as the subtitle of his latest book, Unfinished Business (HarperCollins). Even as a toddler, van Praagh said, … Continue reading The Medium Has a Message →

Opening General Session: Christie Hefner on Change, Business, and the First Amendment

July 11, 2009

Opening General Session speaker Christie Hefner drew a clear parallel between businesses and libraries in terms of what they need to do to survive. She noted how, as Playboy CEO, she came to the conclusion that the company "didn't want to be a magazine company—we wanted to be a company that represented a style of … Continue reading Opening General Session: Christie Hefner on Change, Business, and the First Amendment →

Chatting with Christie Hefner

July 11, 2009

ALA Annual Conference keynote speaker Christie Hefner took a few minutes to chat with me before her Opening General Session speech. Hefner is the director of the Center for American Progress and longtime CEO of Playboy Enterprises, the company founded by her father, Hugh Hefner, and restructed and expanded by Christie. Asked what her major message to … Continue reading Chatting with Christie Hefner →

Latest Library Links

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Robin Camille Davis writes: “It wasn’t until seven years into my career as a user experience librarian that I realized I’d been accidentally excluding a sizable segment of users from my user research. Interviews, surveys, and usability studies favor people who are gifted at oral and written communication. What about people who are more gifted at visual communication? In the context of user research, this participatory design invites participants to design their own response to a given prompt.”

Choice 360 LibTech Insights, June 30
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Stories from communities nationwide come to life on ALA’s new Show Up for Our Libraries interactive site map. The stories illustrate the real-life consequences of potential funding cuts to rural, research, city, state, and university library programs and, in turn, to the hundreds of millions of library users across the country. Services such as summer reading programs, telehealth resources, interlibrary loan, and ebooks have all been affected. ALA collected the stories in conversation with patrons, library professionals, and advocates across the country to better understand the impact of federal funding cuts since the President’s executive order to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, June 25
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On June 27, the Supreme Court upheld the Universal Service Fund, which funds the E-Rate program. ALA issued a statement regarding the ruling that reads, in part, “The ALA applauds the Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision to uphold the Universal Service Fund. The system of telecommunications subsidies administered by the Federal Communications Commission includes the E-Rate program, which provides libraries and schools billions of dollars each year for broadband access and connectivity. More than half of all public libraries apply for funding to subsidize the cost of internet connectivity through E-Rate each year.”

AL: The Scoop, June 27
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On June 27, ALA announced its new executive director, Daniel J. Montgomery. ALA’s announcement read, in part, “Montgomery has worked on behalf of public education and the rights of workers for more than two decades. He was elected to a three-year term as president of the 103,000-member Illinois Federation of Teachers in October 2010 and has been unanimously reelected every three years since then. He will start at ALA on November 10. The steering committee chose Montgomery because of his commitment to public institutions, his comfort working across diverse and difficult political situations, his service to both cities and rural areas, and his experience managing a complex, member-driven organization.”
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Oliver Moody writes: “In the €100 million Oodi library, which looms over central Helsinki like a cruise ship from the future, robots called Tatu, Patu, and Veera trundle back and forth between the shelves and the reading rooms. Against this backdrop, foreign visitors might be surprised to see how many children and teenagers are engaged in an almost unsettlingly archaic activity: reading and borrowing books. In the age of TikTok, Netflix, and Candy Crush, it is not just Finland’s public libraries that are booming, but also demand for their physical paperbacks and hardbacks.”

The Times (London), June 20
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Amit Agarwal writes: “Angus owns a beautiful apartment near the university campus. With the new semester around the corner, he wants to create brochures to attract students as tenants. But here’s the challenge: the university has students from all over the world who speak different languages. Angus needs to create brochures that speak to everyone—from students from Japan to those from France, and everywhere in between. While he could create PDF brochures in multiple languages manually, that process would be both time-consuming and error-prone. This guide explains how you can automate it all.”

Digital Inspiration, June 18
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Emma Roth writes: “A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in an artificial intelligence (AI) copyright case, ruling that training its AI models on legally purchased books without authors’ permission is fair use. It’s a first-of-its-kind ruling in favor of the AI industry, but it’s importantly limited to physical books Anthropic purchased and digitized. Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California also said in his decision that the company must face a separate trial for pirating books from the internet, and did not address whether AI model outputs infringe copyrights, which is at issue in related cases.”

The Verge, June 24

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