Latest Library Links
-
The ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section has selected six winners, three honorable mentions, and a notable citation for the 2019 Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Awards. The awards recognize in five categories outstanding printed exhibition catalogs, guides, and electronic exhibitions produced by North American and Caribbean institutions. The winning catalogs will be on display at the 2019 RBMS Conference Booksellers’ Showcase in Baltimore.
-
Sally Pewhairangi writes: “When did you last describe your current project as ‘beautiful’? We know beauty when we see it right? So why not beautiful library projects? Wouldn’t you love to think back on a beautiful library project that you worked on 2, 5, or 25 years ago? I think it’s less about what projects you do, and more about how you do them—the work itself. So if you want to make your next project one that you will recall fondly in years to come, here are seven ways you can do that.”
-
A Geneva Bible, one of 321 rare items stolen from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, has been recovered in the Netherlands. The bible was among the rare books, maps, plate books, and atlases that were discovered missing from the library’s Oliver Room. It has been closed since April 3, 2017, because it is a crime scene. A former archivist at the library and a rare book dealer are accused of stealing more than $8 million of those books. Investigators believe the scheme dates back to the 1990s. The bible, published in 1615, was traced to the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden. It is being returned to the Carnegie Library on April 25.
-
Rebecca Rego Barry writes: “A Little Blue Books bibliography, in the making for more than 15 years, has been published online by Jake Gibbs. Along the way, Gibbs amassed a collection of 20,000 Little Blue Books, according to the bibliography’s preface. He also examined collections at more than 20 college and university libraries. This once ubiquitous series founded by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius appeals to book collectors for many reasons, including affordability. Steven Cox, curator of special collections and university archives at Pittsburg (Kans.) State University, where the Haldeman-Julius Collection is located, wrote a short history of the Little Blue Books.”
-
North Dakota House members have greenlit the plan for a Theodore Roosevelt presidential library, clearing the way for Gov. Doug Burgum’s biggest push this legislative session. The House voted 70–22 on April 24 to authorize a $35 million loan to help pay for operation and maintenance of the library. That money is only available after $100 million is raised in cash or pledged donations. Proponents spoke about the potential tourism impacts and Roosevelt’s legacy when he came to ranch near Medora to recover from his mother’s and wife’s deaths in 1884.
-
ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions will host a new workshop, “Graphic Design Skills for All Library Employees” with Aaron Schmidt, in two 90-minute sessions on June 12 and 19. Schmidt will provide you with an accessible and practical guide to graphic design and help you discover tools that you can use to improve your library’s signs, posters, brochures, and websites. Registration is through the ALA Store. -
ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions will host a new session of its workshop, “Offering Service and Support to the LGBTQIA Community and Allies” with Jessica Jupitus, in two 60-minute sessions on June 12–13. Jupitus, a librarian with experience providing services to many populations, will provide you with informative ways on how you can create a warm and welcoming space with visible allies to serve the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) community. She will offer concrete ideas and strategies for programming, services, collection development, and getting your administration and community on board. -
Stefan Wojcik and Adam Hughes write: “Pew Research Center conducted a nationally representative survey of 2,791 US adult Twitter users who were willing to share their Twitter handles. The survey provides an opportunity to measure the characteristics and attitudes of Twitter users and link those observations to actual behaviors, such as how often users tweet or how many accounts they follow. Twitter users are younger, more likely to identify as Democrats, more highly educated, and have higher incomes than US adults overall. The median user tweets just twice each month, but a small cohort of extremely active users posts with much greater regularity.”
-
A lost “sequel” to Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, in which the author explores the moral panic that followed the release of Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film adaptation of his novel, has been found among papers he abandoned in his home near Rome in the 1970s. The unfinished manuscript of The Clockwork Condition was written by Burgess in 1972 and 1973, after the film was accused of inspiring copycat crimes, prompting the director to withdraw it from circulation. The manuscript, which Burgess described as a “major philosophical statement on the contemporary human condition,” had been left by the author in his home in Bracciano in the 1970s.
-
Saskatchewan’s Regina Catholic School Division has been named the Grand Prize winner of the 2019 Follett Challenge, marking the first time a school or district from outside the United States has claimed the top spot in the contest, now in its ninth year. For its winning entry, “Tinker Tub Project,” the division earns a $60,000 prize in Follett products and services plus a celebration at their school, which will include a visit from New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander, who served as a Follett Challenge judge for the first time.
-
On the second floor of Grove Hall branch of the Boston Public Library in Dorchester, kids stand in line, eager for a chance to try their hand at a turntable. DJ Armando the Truth watches, guiding them as they learn how to scratch and blend records together. This lesson on DJing is a part of a pilot program called “The Breaks,” which teaches young people of color about the history of hip-hop and how it has influenced culture. Every day during spring break, kids were trying out DJing and breakdancing while learning about hip-hop culture in workshops led by local DJs and the Floor Lords Crew, the oldest breakdancing group in Boston.
-
ACRL has published Scholarship in the Sandbox: Academic Libraries as Laboratories, Forums, and Archives for Student Work, edited by Amy S. Jackson, Cindy Pierard, and Suzanne M. Schadl. This collection of case studies and discussions describes efforts to curate student work, explores intellectual property issues, and provides tips for promoting and preserving access to this production through new programming and services that affirm libraries’ roles in intellectual processes. These new priorities open the library to new campus partnerships, making student scholarship and content a common goal.
All links outside americanlibrariesmagazine.org are provided for informational purposes only. Questions about the content of any external site should be addressed to the administrator of that site.