Latest Library Links
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Sarah Mangiola writes: “On January 20, 2021, Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as president and vice president, respectively, of the United States. It’s a historic moment for the country, as Kamala Harris will be the first female, first Black, and first Indian American vice president. The kids in your life can join in the celebrations with these stories, including books written by Kamala Harris, a new picture book about White House dogs Champ and Major, and more.”
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As shared by the official Twitter account of Ursula K. Le Guin’s estate, the author is getting her own commemorative stamp from the United States Post Office. The stamp, the 33rd in USPS’s Literary Arts series, features a portrait of Le Guin in front of an illustration from a scene in The Left Hand of Darkness, her 1969 novel.
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The Food Timeline is an obsessively catalogued, exhaustively comprehensive resource on the history of what humans have been eating from from 17,000 B.C. onward. The site was the life’s work of reference librarian Lynne Olver, and it languished after her death in 2015. A profile in Eater last summer revived interest in the site from archivists, and now the Special Collections and University Archives department at Virginia Tech University has acquired Olver’s 2,300 books (right) and management of the site.
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In Episode 58, Call Number with American Libraries looks at library efforts to prevent COVID-19 contamination with OCLC’s Sharon Streams, director of REALM project, which is studying how long the virus that causes COVID-19 survives on common library materials, and Stephen Territo, head of library operations at Vernon Area Public Library in Lincolnshire, Illinois, about how the library installed UV lights and enhanced HVAC filtration solutions in its air handling units to kill airborne pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2.
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Someone is leaving baked potatoes on the lawn of the Wayland (Mass.) Free Public Library. And not just any potatoes: “Perfectly lovely baked russets,” according to the library’s Facebook page. A single potato appeared on the library’s lawn January 11. A second potato appeared January 13, and no one seems to know where they came from.
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Tom Roston writes: “It’s hard to imagine the internet without Wikipedia. Just like the air we breathe, the definitive digital encyclopedia is the default resource for everything and everyone—from Google’s search bar to undergrad students embarking on research papers. It has more than 6 million entries in English, it is visited hundreds of millions of times per day, and it reflects whatever the world has on its mind: Trending pages this week include Tanya Roberts (R.I.P.), the Netflix drama Bridgerton, and, oh yes, the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution. It was also never meant to exist—at least, not like this.”
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Andrew Albanese writes: “The law firm that successfully sued Apple and five major publishers for colluding to fix ebook prices in 2011 has now filed a class action suit against Amazon, accusing the company of colluding with the Big Five publishers to restrain price competition in the ebook market. The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York on January 14 by Seattle-based firm Hagens Berman, comes a day after a Wall Street Journal article disclosed that Amazon was under investigation in Connecticut for potentially anti-competitive behavior in the ebook market.”
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When eight-time Grammy Award–winning reggae artist and philanthropist Ziggy Marley released Family Time, a well-received children’s album, in 2009, he didn’t plan to do more projects geared toward youth. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year, he found himself at home full-time with his own kids and a new puppy. Marley spoke to American Libraries ahead of his appearance at ALA’s 2021 Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits Virtual about his creative process during a lockdown, oral traditions, and voting for the first time.
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Molly Higgins and Rachel Keiko Stark write: “Without understanding how bias operates in the systems in which we work, our individual efforts can be overtaken by how bias acts on librarians and library patrons. For example, the Dewey Decimal Classification has been criticized for reinforcing bias through its structure, its treatment of queer subjects, and its treatment of race. Like other knowledge-organization systems, the Dewey Decimal Classification reflects the biases of the people who created it.”
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ALA announced the first 200 libraries to receive grants through Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries. These public, academic, school and tribal libraries represent 43 US states. See the full list. ALA will distribute 450 more LTC: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries grants in 2021. Apply at the website.
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January 19 is the fifth annual National Day of Racial Healing. ALA is joining forces with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation enterprise to engage our member community in racial healing as an opportunity to broaden and deepen our personal and joint commitment to social justice in equity, diversity, and inclusion. Read the proclamation.
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