Martin R. Kalfatovic, BHL’s program director, estimates that its 20 member libraries and 22 affiliates have scanned upwards of 147,000 titles, ranging from the 15th century to the present, with information on more than 180 million species. “Though most of them are scientists,” he says, “about 72% of our users are also interested in the … Continue reading Bookend: Finding Flora and Fauna
“Sandy’s willing to take a look at anything, from mending pants to replacing zippers to sewing buttons on a shirt or pants,” says Director Jennifer Tallman of Sandra Vardell (pictured), a former board member who volunteers one Saturday per month to tackle the town’s toughest tailoring. JMML, at the suggestion of Vardell, started its garment … Continue reading Bookend: Tailor-Made Fundraising
Martin’s relationship with Texas A&M began in the 1970s, when he first visited AggieCon, a science fiction and fantasy convention held at the university, says Jeremy Brett (right), curator of the library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection. In 1993, Martin began shipping items to the archives, which now include more than 50,000 pieces. The … Continue reading Bookend: An Archive of Ice and Fire
“I hadn’t realized this kind of work was possible,” she says. “Every opera company has a person called a librarian, but they’re usually an orchestra librarian”—typically a music preparation specialist with ensemble experience who doesn’t, like Cabaniss, hold an MLIS. Hired in 2014 as the company’s first information professional, Cabaniss makes sure the artistic, music, … Continue reading Bookend: The Show Must Go On
This year the archive of more than 1.1 million abstracted segments—including the only known coverage of its kind of the Vietnam War, the Apollo spaceflight program, and Watergate—celebrates its 50th anniversary. “We want people to have an objective record of what has been broadcast,” says Clifford Anderson (pictured), associate university librarian for research and learning, … Continue reading Bookend: News to Peruse
For nearly 20 years, she held yearly used book sales at Orchard Park Elementary School in Indianapolis, where she is the media specialist. As her community grew more economically diverse, she wanted to help children add to their home libraries year-round, and she turned to her students for ideas. They wrote a business plan, set … Continue reading Bookend: Shaking up Book Sales
Bethany Mitchell, technology assistant at Vestavia Hills (Ala.) Library in the Forest, peers through a jester cutout. From left: Aisha Conner-Gaten (instructional design librarian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles), Tracy Drake (archivist at Chicago Public Library), and Aurelia Mandani (technology services librarian at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Boulder Labs Library in … Continue reading Bookend: Midday Masquerade
“The invitations are definitely one of the highlights,” notes Christina Bryant, department head of the library’s Louisiana Division/City Archives and Special Collections. “They are each a miniature work of art and sometimes engineering,” she says of the elaborately paneled and intricately drawn creations. Other standouts in the Carnival collection, dating back to the 1860s, include … Continue reading Bookend: Conservator of Carnival
When researchers need to study these or other pieces of American ephemera created after 1876, they head to the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University Libraries. Founded almost 50 years ago, the library holds one of the largest comics collections in the country, as well as … Continue reading Bookend: Pop Culture Paradise
The Shedd’s library of some 7,000 books is primarily for aquarium staff, interns, and volunteers and is not open to the public. The most popular materials in the collection are the field guides to various fish, plants, insects, aquatic invertebrates, and marine mammals. DeKock says that “staff members take them out on field trips because … Continue reading Bookend: A Friend to the Fishes
As both the academic library for Oglala Lakota Tribal College and the public library for the reservation, the Woksape Tipi Library oversees 13 branch libraries scattered over nearly 3,500 square miles. “We’re all about local access,” says archivist Tawa Ducheneaux (pictured), one of six library employees. If a staff member isn’t present at a branch … Continue reading Bookend: Tribal Heritage
On August 6, Tuliao competed at New York’s Rockaway Beach, where she helped raise more than $1,400 for the American Library Association’s Spectrum Scholarship program, which helps promote diversity in the library profession. “Going to library school meant a lot to me,” Tuliao says. “And those scholarship monies are not always there, so it’s an … Continue reading Bookend: Making a Splash
