Tag Archives: community

Chicago Artist Theaster Gates and the Stony Island #Art Bank | CityLab #crowdfunding #community #buildings #historic #archives

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Chicago’s first-ever Architecture Biennial served as a staging ground for wild pavilions, exhibits, and installations. The fair also coincided with the debut of a major new artwork: the Stony Island Art Bank. Theaster Gates bought the Prohibition-era Stony Island Trust & Savings Bank building from the city of Chicago for $1. Yes, there was a catch: The artist had to raise the $3.7 million it would take to rehabilitate the building and put it to new use. Gates did the thing that you’re never supposed to do with a historic building: He started pulling it apart, piece by piece. READ MORE: Chicago Artist Theaster Gates and the Stony Island Art Bank | CityLab

#Library Builder’s Monument of #Books | BBC News #libraries #literacy #education #reading #nonprofit

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At some point this year, a child somewhere in the developing world became the ten millionth beneficiary of Room to Read, a non-profit organisation created 15 years ago after a high-flying Microsoft executive quit his job to help children in Nepal. The charity, which works to eradicate child illiteracy and gender inequality in education, builds libraries and stocks them with books. It’s no surprise that its founder, John Wood, invokes the spirit of the 19th Century library-building steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie. In a sense, Room to Read has outstripped its spiritual mentor, building 17,500 libraries to Carnegie’s 2,500. READ MORE: Library builder’s monument of books | BBC News

Officials threaten to destroy a #LittleFreeLibrary in Texas | LA Times #LFL #libraries #free #books #community

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More LFL in trouble…

Who would want to hurt a Little Free Library? Officials from the Department of Code Compliance in Dallas, that’s who. READ MORE: Officials threaten to destroy a Little Free Library in Texas | LA Times

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These Public #Libraries Are for Snowshoes and Ukuleles | NYT #makerspaces #services #innovation

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Libraries aren’t just for books, or even e-books, anymore. They are for checking out cake pans (North Haven, Conn.), snowshoes (Biddeford, Me.), telescopes and microscopes (Ann Arbor, Mich.), American Girl dolls (Lewiston, Me.), fishing rods (Grand Rapids, Minn.), Frisbees and Wiffle balls (Mesa, Ariz.) and mobile hot spot devices (New York and Chicago). Here in Sacramento, where people can check out sewing machines, ukuleles, GoPro cameras and board games, the new service is called the Library of Things. READ MORE: These Public Libraries Are for Snowshoes and Ukuleles | The New York Times

No Library For You: French Authorities Threatening To Close An #App That Lets People Share Physical #Books | Techdirt #libraries

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[O]ver in France, they really are taking the idea of attacking new forms of libraries to incredible new heights. There’s a French startup called Booxup that is taking the above personal lending library concept and making it digital. You get an account, scan your books, upload a list of those you’re willing to lend to others, and the service connects willing lenders with willing borrowers, putting books that would otherwise be collecting dust on shelves to good use actually being read and educating and entertaining the public. Neat. Except… not so neat, according to French authorities who are claiming the whole thing could be illegal: READ MORE: No Library For You: French Authorities Threatening To Close An App That Lets People Share Physical Books | Techdirt

Indianapolis’s own ‘Big Free Libraries’ | TeleRead #LFL #littlefreelibraries #libraries #free #art #community

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I stumbled onto a brilliant new art installation program in downtown Indianapolis called The Public Collection, designed to make books freely available to the general pubic, modeled after the “Little Free Library” project but on a much larger scale. READ MORE: The Public Collection: Indianapolis’s own ‘Big Free Libraries’ | TeleRead

U.S. #DHS and Local #Governments Cracking Down on #Libraries | #email #privacy #intellectualfreedom #community #LittleFreeLibrary #WTF

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First Library to Offer Anonymous Web Browsing Stops Under DHS Pressure | Gizmodo
A library in a small New Hampshire town started to help Internet users around the world surf anonymously using Tor. Until the Department of Homeland Security raised a red flag.

Local Governments Crack Down On The Monstrous Evil of Tiny Free Lending Libraries | io9
It’s good to know that people are focusing on what’s really important. Local governments in a few different U.S. cities and towns have looked past the problems of homelessness, crumbling city services and displacement, to tackle the real crisis: people are putting up tiny “take a book, leave a book” libraries. This is clearly a major crisis in our culture, and one that can only be addressed by the full busy-bodiness of local busybodies.

 

#Librarians on Bikes Are Delivering #Books and #WiFi to #Kids in “Book Deserts” | GOOD #libraries #access

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“Food deserts” refer to low-income areas where convenience stores are often the only viable food source and fresh produce is a rarity. But nutritious foods aren’t the only thing kids need to thrive and grow. Many of these undernourished kids also live in so-called “book deserts”—areas without easy access to libraries and reading material to nurture their imaginations and development (just think of the 12-year-old boy in Utah who asked his mailman for junk mail to read because he couldn’t get to a library). To combat these problems, creative-thinking librarians and literacy supporters are using inventive solutions to expand access to books and promote a love of reading. READ MORE: Librarians on Bikes Are Delivering Books and WiFi to Kids in “Book Deserts” | GOOD

‘Trashy’ #Books: Garbage Collector Rescues #Reading Material for Colombian #Children | Times Colonist #kids

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A second-grade education has not stopped garbage collector Jose Gutierrez from bringing the gift of reading to thousands of Colombian children. Gutierrez started rescuing books from the trash almost 20 years ago, when he was driving a garbage truck at night through the capital’s wealthier neighbourhoods. The discarded reading material slowly piled up, and now the ground floor of his small house is a makeshift community library stacked from floor to ceiling with some 20,000 books, ranging from chemistry textbooks to children’s classics. READ MORE: ‘Trashy’ books: garbage collector rescues reading material for Colombian children | Times Colonist.

John Green: The Nerd’s Guide to #Learning Everything #Online | TED.com

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Some of us learn best in the classroom, and some of us … well, we don’t. But we still love to learn, to find out new things about the world and challenge our minds. We just need to find the right place to do it, and the right community to learn with. In this charming talk, author John Green shares the world of learning he found in online video. WATCH: John Green: The nerd’s guide to learning everything online | TED Talk | TED.com.