Bookoisseur
I read. I write. I spend all together too much time on the internet. I talk incessantly about books, TV and movies. I write for Hello Giggles and
-
-
shhh! no running in the library!: Today in reasons-why-libraries-and-archives-are-awesome news, I have a story to pass on that I just heard about.
One of my aunts is a sort of freelance historian and archivist who has spent the last several years of her life working primarily on her own to more fully document and record the history of a Native American tribe in our state. Over the years, this has meant…
-
Ten Awesome Gifts for Librarians
Oh, just ideas. For librarians you might know and love dearly and want to shower with classy, expensive, bookish presents.
-
NTY’s 100 Notable Books of 2012
Give presents!
-
More than 200 libraries close as cuts pick up pace, survey finds
More sad news from the UK.
This is the intriguing part: “Visits to libraries declined by six per cent, while borrowings for all books fell apart from children’s fiction, which saw a very small increase.” Which libraries? Where are they located? Is something keeping people from these libraries? Six per cent out of what greater number? Is six per cent a national average? This article not giving us a lot other than, “Libraries are in trouble and here’s some depressing info.” Thanks, but this is a glorified press release. Give us some links and not just the word of whoever obviously just cut and pasted this shit online for the Telegraph.
You have to subscribe to CIPFA for that level of access. It is, indeed, a press release. But an important blip on the news radar worth taking note of.
-
Because kids don’t have a political voice, they have been neglected—and have replace the elderly as the most impoverished age group in our country. Today, 22 percent of children live below the poverty line.
—Nicholas Kristof, “Profiting From a Child’s Illiteracy”
22% is a frightening, shameful number.
(via thelifeguardlibrarian)
(Source: The New York Times, via thelifeguardlibrarian)
-
When a humanitarian catastrophe occurs, international organizations and governments set up medical outposts, drop emergency food supplies from helicopters, and hand out clothing in disaster zones. Naturally, absolute priority is given to what we call ‘basic needs’: food, water, shelter, and health. While there is no question that organizations and governments must devote the majority of their efforts to promoting the physical well-being of disaster victims, more attention should be given to nourishing the mind as a second measure to help victims cope with catastrophe and move forward.
The fulfillment of basic needs is undoubtedly the first priority in humanitarian situations. Yet from LWB’s work in Haiti, we know that access to books and information resources improves outcomes for displaced persons. Books and expression help sustain intellectual stimulation and promote self-worth and resilience amid crisis. Whether through books, computers, legal assistance or training, access to information and cultural resources empowers individuals and gives them the tools to reconstruct what has been lost. Furthermore, libraries can improve communication within communities and among aid workers by providing phones, community mapping tools, and places for family reunification and community organizing. These types of resources can also play a decisive role in restoring a sense of normality in post-emergency situations.
With the strong belief that books, writing, and learning should not be denied to victims of humanitarian disasters, Libraries Without Borders, through this call to action, seeks to increase awareness about the need for access to information and books in post-disaster situations. Furthermore, LWB calls on international organizations to 1) expand reading, cultural and educational programs, which activate the human spirit and help individuals cope with trauma; and 2) make the provision of access to information and books a priority for international humanitarian relief.
-
In early days, I tried not to give librarians any trouble, which was where I made my primary mistake. Librarians like to be given trouble; they exist for it, they are geared to it. For the location of a mislaid volume, an uncatalogued item, your good librarian has a ferret’s nose. Give her a scent and she jumps the leash, her eye bright with battle.
—Catherine Drinker Bowen. Adventures of a Biographer, ch. 9. 1959 (via ebookworm)
This is actually totally true. I did some research for my brother at the Library of Congress when he was getting his PhD. Mostly photocopying original sources he couldn’t borrow and that kind of thing. Anyways, one of the documents was missing and not shelved where it was supposed to be. When three librarians went into the back - going back and forth about where it might be - I turned to the guy at the desk and said, “I’m so sorry. This must be such a pain for you guys.”
His response:
“Oh no. They love this. They’re going to be talking about this at lunch and the other librarians will be jealous.”
They found the document. They were very proud.
(Source: libraryaccounts, via melissarochelle)
-
Despite Ruin, Library Offers Books and Community
Although public libraries in the Rockaways were badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, library staff and a mobile bus have helped fulfill their mission to provide useful information.
-
Oxford debates the role of its librarians and libraries
Anger has been growing in the past few months over developments at the Bodleian Libraries that have led to vast humanities collections being rehoused, including the History Faculty Library being incorporated into the main collections. Matters came to a head last week with a discussion in Congregation — Oxford’s academic “parliament” — about “the libraries and their future.”
Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s librarian, described how “since 2000 six new libraries have been constructed and 19 libraries have been merged into larger units.” But Hugh Doherty, a fellow in history at Jesus College, Oxford, worried that current trends threatened to turn “a multiplicity of integrated libraries, specialized, browsable and staffed, into a series of flagship book depositories, clean, cheap and faceless.”
Georgy Kantor, tutorial fellow in ancient history at St. John’s College, Oxford, warned that “if we do not take care with how we’re changing our libraries,” the university risked their losing their “attractiveness.”
» via Inside Higher Ed
Continues:
Gill Evans, emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge and a regular user of Oxford’s collections, noticed at the start of term that staff in the reading rooms with “embarrassed expressions” were sporting big yellow badges saying “ask me.”
“They were issued with T-shirts too, though a fair few of those could be seen discreetly hung over the back of chairs.”
But the library responded that the badges and T-shirts were not worn under duress and were designed to “enhance the visibility of staff” and aid “apprehensive” users. “We wanted to find a simple way to reduce that apprehension and encourage readers to seek assistance when needed,” a spokeswoman said.
My uninformed, knee-jerk reaction: get over it, Oxford.
cc: Zach
I love that your knee-jerk reaction was “Get over it.” :-D
-
shhh! no running in the library!: Charge Amazon, Starbucks and Google unpaid tax to fund libraries, says Winterson
A fiery Jeanette Winterson has called for the hundreds of millions of pounds of profit which Amazon, Starbucks and Google were last week accused of diverting from the UK to be used to save Britain’s beleaguered public libraries.
In an impassioned speech at…
-
HEY TUMBLR, it's the Tumblr vs Twitter race to $1000 for EveryLibrary!
Attention tumblarians, library-loving tumblrers, and all the internet friends: today kicks off a one-week fundraiser to $1000 to benefit EveryLibrary, the first and only national organization dedicated exclusively to political action at a local level to create, renew, and protect public funding for libraries of all types.
In order to maximize our efforts,Tumblr is taking on the Twitter community in a race to $1k, from today until next Tuesday, November 20th.
Help today, help tomorrow.
Why does EveryLibrary need our help? Funding raised this week will go towards the necessary personnel and resources needed to do voter analysis on library ballot measures which were voted on across the country during the election. What EL learns from this election will have a critical impact on our strategy of support for future library endeavors on the ballot. Cool and important, right?
Even cooler, if you can’t give cash right now, we’ve partnered with Urban Libraries Unite (an incredible org, check it out) in supporting their book drive which is currently seeking new and good condition used children’s books and new unmarked children’s coloring and activity books (with crayons if possible), to go out to young victims of the storm who are currently in shelters in New York City. Material donations should be directed here.
If you’re feeling particularly philanthropic this week, ULU is also looking for cash donations, as is the New Jersey Library Association Relief project.
Please consider giving what you can. Chip in $5 or $10—or donate books to support Sandy victims.
To contribute to the #tumblarian EveryLibrary race to 1k (WHICH I HAVE EVERY CONFIDENCE WE CAN CLEAN UP WELL BEFORE NEXT TUESDAY), please click through the link above or here.
Give us a like, a reblog, a shout out to your friends and family. Think about it: all we need is about 100 folks to find $10 or so for the cause. Let’s have fun, do good work for EveryLibrary, and flex these Tumblarian muscles. Let us also show Twitter what’s up.
To learn more about EveryLibrary (and to share the good news with your generous friends) please visit here.
-
I Voted for Libraries
Many props and thanks to Rachael for advocating for libraries on a national stage. And get this, folks, she’s not a librarian. Congrats on the piece!
You’re a tumblarian FOR SURE, GF.
*squee* I just blushed.
-
We think because we have words, not the other way around, and the greater our vocabulary, the greater our ability to think conceptually. The first people a dictator puts in jail after a coup are the writers, the teachers, the librarians -because these people are dangerous. They have enough vocabulary to recognize injustice and to speak out loudly about it. Let us have the courage to go on being dangerous people.
—Madeleine L’Engle (via sweetnsourflower94)
Yoooooooo WHERE IS THIS FROM?
(via thelifeguardlibrarian)(via thelifeguardlibrarian)
-
The Amazon KOLL experience is undesirable, and so is the library ebook experience. However, libraries have a lot more going for them, and only if their future is completely tied to circulating ebooks will that future be in jeopardy.
