Latest Library Links
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The University of Pittsburgh Library System has acquired the August Wilson archive with the help of Wilson’s widow, Constanza Romero, executor of the playwright’s estate. Wilson, a prolific playwright who left his native Pittsburgh in 1978, achieved worldwide acclaim for his American Century Cycle—10 plays that convey the Black experience in each decade of the 20th century. All 10 have been produced on Broadway and two—Fences and The Piano Lesson—earned Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
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Erin Negley writes: “In the James Buchanan Presidential Library, you’ll find an invitation to his Inauguration Ball in 1857. There are letters to and from Buchanan’s niece, Harriet Lane, whom some consider the first to be called a First Lady. There are documents that show the politics of a divided country. By the time Buchanan left office, seven states seceded and the start of the Civil War was weeks away. The newly digitized library is free and online at lancasterhistory.org.”
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Miguel Ruiz, supervising librarian at Evanston (Ill.) Public Library’s Robert Crown branch, says he’s always been a believer in the power of public libraries, but now, they’re more crucial than ever. On WTTW-TV’s Chicago Tonight: Latino Voices, he gets la ultima palabra—the last word—on all that public libraries do to support communities. “I believe in and love libraries because they’re truly palaces for the people,” Ruiz says.
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The National Woman’s Party said earlier this month that it was donating a large collection of artifacts, many from the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in Washington, to the Library of Congress and the National Park Service. The artifacts are “the materials that the National Woman’s Party and its predecessor organization, the Congressional Union, assembled as their work, as part of how they demonstrated, how they fought for women’s rights,” according to Kristen Hammerstrom, the site’s collections manager.
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Erin Rushing writes: “You asked and we delivered. A new set of digital jigsaw puzzles is finally here! We’re so glad you enjoyed our last round of puzzles and hope you find these equally entertaining. This time we’re featuring a few scenes that remind us of fall—from beautiful foliage to slightly creepy snakes and spiders. Play them on our blog or use the links to play full screen. Each puzzle is set at 60 pieces but they are customizable to any skill set. As with our last set, all of the images are freely available in our Digital Library, Image Gallery or Biodiversity Heritage Library. Feel free to explore and make your own!”
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When Tasmania, Australia, library worker Tyron Waugh donned his Hulk costume for Burnie Library’s Book Week, he had no idea that by the end of the day, he would be considered a superhero in real life, too. A man had suffered a cardiac arrest on the street and Waugh—dressed as the Hulk—was one of those who performed CPR. Waugh used the library’s defibrillator to shock the patient and continued CPR until the ambulance arrived.
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Caroline Leavitt and Christina Ianzito write: “Lights on! Doors locked! It can be fun to fray your nerves when the source is fictional (or is it?!). We asked some booksellers and other bibliophiles to recommend their all-time favorite scary stories. Here are 20 of them.”
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Richard Byrne writes: “Recently, YouTube made some changes to the way that the caption editing process works. Those changes are for the better as they’ve made it easier to adjust the correlation between timestamps and your edited captions. In the following video I demonstrate how to edit the captions and adjust the timing of the captions on your YouTube videos.”
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The Chronicling Resistance Project is a new archival effort to document more than 300 years of resistance history in Philadelphia by collecting letters, photographs, reports, scrapbooks, and other materials from civil, women’s, and LGBTQ rights struggles. An artistic response to the 2016 presidential election’s impact on minority communities, Chronicling Resistance—recently awarded a $600,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—aims to uplift people who are underrepresented in US archives. The curated materials eventually will be housed in an exhibit at Philadelphia Free Library’s Parkway Central branch.
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Red paint was smeared on doors and windows of Austin (Tex.) Public Library’s Central location on Cesar Chavez Street early October 26. City officials said the on-duty security guard discovered the vandalism at around 5 a.m. and said the act happened around 2 a.m. The culprits also wrote anti-voting sentiments on the walls of the library, but staff members were able to cover it up with brown paper in the early daylight hours.
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Schools nationwide are struggling to recover unreturned library books, seven months after the coronavirus pandemic shut down buildings and displaced students. A Morris County (N.J.) schools superintendent recently issued a plea to parents after more than 1,100 school library books in his K–12 district went missing. In Osceola, Florida, school officials announced last month that they were seeking 37,801 overdue books worth an estimated $756,020. An AASL survey in September found that 54% of school districts were bracing for a collection loss of up to 10%.
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Each year, American Libraries tracks dozens of library referenda across the country, using the ballot box as a means of tracking support for public and school libraries. Because next week’s presidential election is expected to generate high voter turnout, some communities may be pushing harder than usual to get local referenda in front of taxpayers, even as the ongoing pandemic lends uncertainty to, well, everything. To get the ball rolling, here we present library referenda that have appeared since last year’s roundup.
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