Category Archives: Librarianship

This is How the Vatican Will Digitize Millions of its Documents | Mashable

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Digitizing the Vatican’s 40 million pages of library archives will take 50 experts, five scanners and many, many years before the process comes to a close.

The Vatican Library was founded in 1451 and has around 82,000 manuscripts, some of which date back about 1,800 years. It will work in tandem with NTT Data, a Japanese IT firm, to convert the first batch of 3,000 manuscripts. It is expected to take four years to digitize the initial round, though some of those documents will be online toward the end of 2014.

via This is How the Vatican Will Digitize Millions of its Documents | Mashable

Coldplay Announces Lyrics Scavenger Hunt in Libraries Worldwide| Radio.com

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The good news? Coldplay fans can read the lyrics to the band’s new album before it hits stores. The bad news? They’ll have to find them, first.

The band announced today (April 28) they will hide handwritten lyric sheets of Ghost Stories from frontman Chris Martin in nine libraries across the world, creating a scavenger hunt for fans to discover.

Clues to each sheet’s location will be dispensed on Coldplay’s Twitter account. Once a page is found, a photo of it will be uploaded for others to see.

Additionally, one of the envelopes containing the lyrics also includes a ticket for a free trip to London to see the band’s July 1 performance at the Royal Albert Hall.

via Coldplay Announces Lyrics Scavenger Hunt in Libraries Worldwide | Radio.com

An Amazing Discovery: Andy Warhol’s Groundbreaking Computer Art | WIRED

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An Amazing Discovery: Andy Warhol’s Groundbreaking Computer Art | Design | WIRED

Back in the mid-1980s, Andy Warhol made a series of digital artworks on an Amiga 1000, a personal computer created by Commodore International. The artist, tapped by the company to be a spokesperson for the computer’s multimedia capabilities, created a few public pieces as part of a marketing campaign, but it was unknown if he had made any digital artworks on his own time.

Decades later, we now know he did. Stashed away on dozens of unlabeled floppy disks was a treasure trove of never-before-seen Warhol works that were slowly deteriorating. A multi-year, collaborative effort between a team of artists, museum professionals and the Carnegie Mellon Computer Club unearthed 28 works of art and a host of 1980s graphics software that Warhol used to create these digital pieces. Read more: An Amazing Discovery: Andy Warhol’s Groundbreaking Computer Art | Design | WIRED.

Queens Library Tests Job Application Kiosk with Real-Time Video | The Digital Shift

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Building on the success of its existing job search and job training programs, the Queens Library recently began testing a new touch-screen job search kiosk at its central branch in Jamaica, Queens. The kiosk is driven by Apploi, a mobile app launched in April 2013 by recruitment software and services provider Innovate CV, and is fully funded and serviced by InnovateCV subsidiary Jobs4Five. Queens Library patrons can create a “passport” profile with essential resume information; search for job openings using a variety of filters including location, company, industry, posting date, keywords, or job titles; and record video responses to questions provided by specific employers, which are then included as part of their application. The kiosks can also be used for real-time video interviews.

Applicants and employers “don’t have to wait a week or two weeks for an interview” after submitting an application. “They can do it right then and there,” explained Joanne King, director of communications for Queens Library.

Read more: Queens Library Tests Job Application Kiosk with Real-Time Video | The Digital Shift.

3D Printer Creates Magazine Cover Smaller Than A Grain of Salt | The Escapist

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McGill University’s new 3D printer could produce 2000 copies of the same object before you’d finally spot them without a microscope.

If you thought the tech industry had a strange habit of miniaturizing everything, know that the print industry is now fully capable of catching up in that department. Canadian researchers at McGill University recently put a new microscopic 3D printer through its paces by producing a 0.011 by 0.014 millimeter National Geographic Kids cover, along with a map of Canada measured in micrometers. Obviously these images are impossible to view normally and could only be seen with the aid of a screen projecter. In fact, the magazine printout is so miniscule that if you made 2000 copies, you’d have just enough to cover a single grain of salt.

Read more: 3D Printer Creates Magazine Cover Smaller Than A Grain of Salt | The Escapist.

Going to the Library Can Make You as Happy as a Pay Raise, Study Claims | Bustle

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Apparently, libraries provide patrons with a happiness that money can’t buy. Or at least nothing less than almost two grand in cash. According to a recent study commissioned by the U.K.’s Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, the act of going to the library induces joy equivalent to that brought on by a £1,359 ($1,878) pay raise.

The study was conducted in an attempt to measure which activities have the most positive impact on an individual’s wellbeing. Visiting a library scored among the top joy-generating activities, alongside dancing and swimming, giving us yet another reason to hang-out at our local library.

Read more: Going to the Library Can Make You as Happy as a Pay Raise, Study Claims | Bustle.

5 Good Reasons to Take Your Kids to the Library Today | Christine French Cully | HuffPo

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I learned to print my name almost before I could read it — for the sole purpose of getting my own library card. I was so young I had to stand on tiptoe to see over the check-out desk and hand the librarian my application. When the librarian, in turn, handed me a library card with my own name typed on it — not my mother’s — I was ecstatic. I literally wore out the card in a few months, off and running toward becoming a lifelong reader.

Recognizing the role the library played in my becoming a book lover (and a career children’s editor), I herded my kids into the library as soon as they could toddle. Libraries had changed a lot, of course, but — just as I did — my kids quickly felt at home there. The children’s librarian came to know them, helped them select books, and, even better, encouraged them to also choose their own books. Libraries have played such an essential role in our family that I’m almost gobsmacked when I encounter families who don’t share my enthusiasm. Some say that the children’s rooms of libraries are an anachronism in a world of mobile screens with books on demand. But I say that while childhood has changed quite a bit, children have not. Read more: 5 Good Reasons to Take Your Kids to the Library Today | Christine French Cully | HuffPo

Our Library Ecosystem Is Under Threat | Barbara K. Stripling | HuffPo

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The sounds of libraries today reveal the impact of libraries throughout our lives — from the excited giggles of toddlers in storytimes to the “aha’s!” of young people engaged in inquiry to the quiet conversations of senior citizens discovering new authors and using computers to research. All types of libraries — school, public, and academic — form a library ecosystem that provides and supports lifelong learning.

For example school librarians teach children the 21st-century skills they need to build knowledge, create and share their own ideas, successfully complete their high school education, and prepare themselves for college and career. Academic librarians enable students to complete their college degrees, building on the skills taught by school librarians, and support academic research and scholarship. Public librarians extend the work of school and academic librarians by providing homework help, literacy resources, and after-school and summer programming. Public librarians take up the mantle of support for lifelong learning by providing resources, services, and programs tailored to meet the needs, interests and aspirations of all of their community members.

Under this view of a library ecosystem, all types of libraries work together to deliver learning opportunities for people of all ages. However, a threat to one part of the system stresses the entire system.

At this moment we are facing a serious threat to school libraries, and thus to the entire library ecosystem. Read more: Our Library Ecosystem Is Under Threat | Barbara K. Stripling | HuffPo.

TNT greenlights ‘The Librarians’ franchise as a series | EW.com

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TNT has greenlit 10 episodes for a series based on The Librarians franchise, slated to air in late 2014. The TV movies told the story of a group of extra special librarians who live beneath the Metropolitan Public Library in New York and safeguard mystical relics from forces of evil by slapping them with outrageous overdue fees. The plot is a messy stew of Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and Hell Boy …but the product is less than the sum of its parts. Read more: TNT greenlights ‘The Librarians’ franchise as a series | Inside TV | EW.com.

Why Vinyl Is the Only Worthwhile Way to Own Music | Gizmodo

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The renaissance of the long play record isn’t just an anecdotal trend. Even as physical record sales decline, people are buying more vinyl than they have in decades. In 2013, sales increased 31-percent to about 6 million units year-over-year. It’s not a single-year bump either, either. Sales have climbed to 6 million from after having been at about a million in 2007…The “why” behind it, though, is a little more elusive. People don’t have to buy vinyl, and yet, they’re increasingly choosing to do so. It seems that in a world where CDs are obsolete, and digital files are intangible, the vinyl record still has a physical value that gives you your money’s worth. If the music industry wants to survive, it better pay attention to why people are buying records.

Read more: Why Vinyl Is the Only Worthwhile Way to Own Music | Gizmodo