Sylvia Cisneros, president of Reforma: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, delivered 225 Spanish-language children’s books to the Rio Grande Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, September 10, as part of the organization’s effort to help meet the social and emotional needs of unaccompanied children from Central … Continue reading Children in Crisis
IFLA’s World Library Information Congress 2014 in Lyon, France offers a modest-sized but busy exhibit hall. The hall opened Monday to a large crowd sampling new database offerings as well as information about associations and vendors from across the world. ALA’s booth was packed for the opening, and has remained busy. … Continue reading Photos from the Exhibit Hall at WLIC 2014 in Lyon
Sometimes, low tech trumps high tech. At Tuesday morning’s plenary session of IFLA’s World Library and Information Congress 2014 in Lyon, French journalist Florence Aubenas talked about her kidnapping and six-month imprisonment in Iraq in 2005 and the time since. “Very often, the countries at war create conditions that prevent us from using technology tools,” she … Continue reading High and Low Tech at World Library and Information Congress 2014 in Lyon, France
Keynote speaker and French philosopher Bernard Stiegler encouraged the crowd of thousands of librarians with his view that libraries will never die. Though digitization and proliferation of ebooks caused some to predict the demise of libraries, Stiegler noted that libraries are more important than ever. Outside the convention center, Libraries Without Borders, in partnership with … Continue reading World Library and Information Congress 2014 Opens
So much hinges on copyright. The doctrine of First Sale meant that publishers couldn’t lock libraries out of the market. But digital works, like software, got swept under licensing agreements, with the power to place all kinds of restrictions on the sale resting almost entirely with the copyright holder. Typically, it’s worth pointing out, that … Continue reading Used Ebooks
There is money in Azerbaijan and plenty of it. Petroleum wealth mostly. Two-thirds of the country is rich in oil and natural gas, and Western companies are tapping oil fields in the Caspian Sea that the communist regime left untouched during the 70 years Azerbaijan spent as a part of the Soviet Union. Change is accelerating … Continue reading Building a Pipeline to Education in Azerbaijan
Paul Rusesabagina’s last name translates to “he who disperses his enemies” in the Kinyarwanda language. There is no more fitting name for the man responsible for saving 1,268 Tutsi refugees from certain death at the hands of Hutu soldiers during the Rwandan genocide. Rusesabagina was the featured speaker at the always popular Alexander Street … Continue reading Finding Hope Through Tragedy
Emanuel used the event to announce that Chicago Public Library (CPL) had just received a $400,000 grant from the Knight Foundation for its Internet to Go program, which will allow library patrons in six neighborhood branches where digital access is low to check out Wi-Fi hotspot devices for three weeks at a time. The grant … Continue reading Creativity and Play at the Next Library Conference
Have you watched American Libraries Live, our free, streaming library program? If you want to sample it, we have an excerpt in our June issue from our mobile technology in the library program. Hosted by Heather Moorefield-Lang, education and applied social sciences librarian for Virginia Tech, the expert panel included Bohyun Kim, digital access librarian … Continue reading Don’t Let It Stay in Vegas
Earlier this week, I had the privilege of talking about US library ebook lending at the Salon du Livre—the Paris Book Fair. Representing ALA, I served on the panel “La Diffusion du Livre Numérique dans les Bibliothèques aux USA: Points de Vue des Acteurs” (Dissemination of Digital Book Libraries in the USA: Views of the … Continue reading An American in Paris
During the months of January and February 2014, the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine found itself at the center of the anti-government clashes in Kiev…. Severe clashes between the protesters and government forces took place in front of the National Parliamentary Library. The square and streets around it were filled with smoke and fire from … Continue reading Ukrainian Library Association Releases Statement
Cafés, bars, souvenir vendors, and street artists line the narrow and densely populated promenades in the old colonial center of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where hawkers lure customers with promises of bargain prices. At night, throngs of young people stroll the oceanside of the Malecón, eating sweets and listening to street musicians, while the museums … Continue reading A Country of Hope and Promise
