Latest Library Links
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Since 2017, Jaffrey (N.H.) Public Library has been adding programs to build food literacy in its community. JPL started with a seed library, then added a Learning Garden in 2019. This year, the library added a new program: the “Farm Fresh Checkout” refrigerator. Produce from the Learning Garden has been joined by donations from three local farms to stock a minifridge near the library check-out desk.
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Boston Public Library was hit with a cybersecurity attack August 25 that crippled its computer network, the library said in a statement August 27. There is no evidence that sensitive employee or patron data has been compromised; affected systems were taken offline immediately, and steps were taken to isolate the problem and shut down network communication. BPL’s IT department is working with the mayor’s Department of Innovation and Technology on restoring services, and law enforcement has been contacted. The central branch as well as about two dozen neighborhood branch locations remain open and workers are manually checking out books.
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Mark Hurst writes: “Google, as the platform that practically invented surveillance capitalism, is not a library. We might more accurately describe it as the antithesis of a civic institution, in that its ultimate aim is exploitation, rather than service, of the community. Regardless of how many pages are captured in its search index, or how many tech sectors it monopolizes, Google deserves no trust, and no authority, in the public sphere.”
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Tina Jordan writes: “You might think of them as solitary creatures, furiously scribbling or typing alone, but as long as there have been writers in New York City, they have socialized together in an assortment of bars, restaurants, apartments, and clubs. Here, we celebrate a few of the most memorable ones.”
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Rebecca Rego Barry writes: “Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries announced August 18 a significant milestone in its digitization initiative. Not only has it reached 1 million images—the millionth being an original notebook of poet Jenny Joseph—but, unlike some libraries, it allows full access and free use of that content, including everything from medieval manuscripts to Victorian board games to 20th-century British political election posters. The Bodleian additionally reported that over the past year, these manuscripts have been the top 10 most downloaded items.”
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The Library of Congress and Harvard Law School have initiated an unprecedented, multifaceted joint collaboration to identify, select and assess the copyright status of materials focusing on national legal gazettes. The effort, initially set for three years, will coordinate access to, knowledge-sharing, and legal analysis of Library of Congress’s collections related to Islamic law, including national legal gazettes, manuscripts, and other materials.
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Nora McGreevy writes: “Anyone with an internet connection can now access more than 3.5 million records documenting the lives of free Black people during the Reconstruction period. Created by genealogy company Ancestry, the free online portal amounts to a treasure trove of information about Black communities in the United States between 1846 and 1878.”
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ALA President Patricia “Patty” M. Wong writes: “There’s an old proverb: If you plant a tree, it provides shade for generations. As Congress prepares a budget package aimed at expanding opportunity, we must plant the tree of knowledge by rebuilding our nation’s libraries. America’s 16,000 public libraries are footholds for working families, especially during uncertain times. They’re centers of lifelong learning, job training, digital access, and lifeline services for folks from all walks of life. But our libraries are in fragile shape, and in many communities, they’re falling behind—or falling apart.”
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Cass Balzer writes: “Libraries have been experiencing First Amendment audits for several years, but there has been an uptick in reported cases during the first eight months of 2021, according to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. And while these audits take the same format as before, libraries report more aggressive, targeted, and organized operations than in years past.”
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Valerie Wirtschafter writes: “Confronted by viral conspiracy theories, climate change denialism, extremist movements, and antidemocratic groups (among others) feeding off false information online, social media platforms have taken steps in recent years to curtail the spread of misinformation. But even as tech companies have come under pressure to crack down on misinformation, one key avenue of information distribution in the digital economy—podcasting—has escaped significant scrutiny, despite the massive scale of the podcast ecosystem.”
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Diné College—a four-year tribal college located on the Navajo reservation with six campuses and two microsites across Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah—has marked a first among tribal colleges by granting faculty status to its librarians: Herman A. Peterson, director of libraries and newly appointed associate professor of humanities, and Rhiannon Sorrell, instruction and digital services librarian and newly appointed assistant professor of English. Faculty status is a common practice at many four-year institutions. It will give the librarians the opportunity to work up through the ranks of assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor.
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From 1619 to beyond, Black craftspeople, both free and enslaved, worked to produce the valued architecture, handcrafts, and decorative arts of the American South. The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive seeks to enhance what we know about Black craftspeople by telling both a spatial story and a historically informed story that highlights the lives of Black craftspeople and the objects they produced. The first and second phases of this project focus on Black craftspeople living and laboring in 18th-century South Carolina Lowcountry and mid-19th century Tennessee.
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