Cash Cayen spends a lot of time at the local library in Timmins, Ontario. She was excited when she saw it was going to offer a session about robotics, and went to sign up. But the library said she wasn’t allowed — it’s for boys only. READ MORE: This Girl Taught Her Local Library A Lesson After They Blocked Her From A Robotics Class | BuzzFeed News
Tag Archives: libraries
The New York Public Library Wars | The Chronicle of Higher Education #NYPL
Long form, thought-provoking read about change in library services, open governance and the influence of activism.
What went wrong at one of the world’s eminent research institutions READ: The New York Public Library Wars | The Chronicle Review | The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Sioux Falls Man Donates Collection Of Nearly 18,000 #Books | KDLT.com
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The University of Iowa has struck gold. Not the kind that lies in the federal reserve, but one of paper in a Sioux Falls man’s basement. After 20 years of collecting, he is donating his one-of-a-kind collection of 17,500 books worth an estimated three quarters of a million dollars. READ MORE: Sioux Falls Man Donates Collection Of Nearly 18,000 Books | KDLT.com South Dakota News
Browse More Than 1,000 Original Sketches Of Mid-Century Fashion | Co.Design
Image Credit: The New York Public Library Digital Collections: Art and Picture Collection
In 1957, three New York designers Walter Teitelbaum, Leo Boren, and Howard Steel founded a company called Creators Studio that produced fashion design concepts. With the tagline “Not yesterday’s but tomorrow’s fashions today,” they’d draw up original garments based upon notable fashion trends, and design manufacturers would receive these sketches on a subscription basis.
Walter Teitelbaum gifted the New York Public Library with 1,067 of these drawings of women’s and children’s ready-to-wear fashions from 1957 to 1969, and the collection has been digitized for you to explore online.
READ MORE: Browse More Than 1,000 Original Sketches Of Mid-Century Fashion | Co.Design | business + design.
A Cat Library in New Mexico Encourages Office Workers to Check Out #Kittens | Mashable #cats #libraries
IMAGE: CBS
A county office in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is home to one of the most ingenious stress-relief ideas ever: a cat library, where office workers can check kittens in and out like books.
City officials installed a kitten playpen in lobby of the building in May 2012 as a way to promote the adoptable cats from local shelters. Inside the playpen are several cat condos, scratching posts and toys — and plenty of rescue kitties.
Visitors to the cat library can simply sign in, play with a kitten, then sign back out. READ MORE A cat library in New Mexico encourages office workers to check out kittens | Mashable
Why Do Presidents Get Their Own #Libraries? | Atlas Obscura #POTUS #museums
In May, the Obama Foundation announced that Chicago will be the future location of the Barack Obama Presidential Center, which will include a library and museum. The center will become the 14th institution in the National Archives and Records Administration’s presidential library system, which includes centers dedicated to all presidents from Herbert Hoover onwards.
Over the years, millions of public and private dollars and ostensibly, man hours, have been spent curating these institutions. Which begs the question: why?
Franklin D. Roosevelt began this tradition when, in 1939, he decided to hand over his personal and presidential records to the federal government when leaving office. Two years later, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum was built in Hyde Park, New York to house these records. READ MORE: Why Do Presidents Get Their Own Libraries? | Atlas Obscura.
Big-Hearted Book Lovers Across Brazil Donate 5,000 Books To Fulfill Girl’s Library Dream | HuffPo #books #libraries
Image Credit: Biblioteca da Mell on Facebook
“One book is worth 100 books in my heart.”
“Books have three qualities: having them, exchanging them, and their smell. You can journey through literature, and be in Mexico, or anywhere else, while sitting still.”
These are quotes from a little girl named Ana Mell Araújo Rocha Silva — better known by her nickname, Mell. At just seven years old, she dreams of opening a public library in her city of Mata Grande, a small municipality in the state of Alagoas, Brazil, with a population of just over 25,000. READ MORE: Big-Hearted Book Lovers Across Brazil Donate 5,000 Books To Fulfill Girl’s Library Dream | HuffPo Brazil
A Glimpse Inside the Hidden Vault Where Harvard Keeps Millions of Books | Gizmodo #libraries
Harvard’s flagship library, Widener, is an imposing granite cube built quite literally as shrine to the book. A central alcove cuts through the stacks to show off a prized relic: an original Gutenberg bible. But this is not the heart of Harvard’s libraries. No, that would be its cold storage site, an anonymous concrete building few students or even faculty know about.
The Harvard Depository, some 30 miles from the Cambridge campus, better resembles an Amazon warehouse than a library. The 200,000 square foot facility houses the vast majority of Harvard Library’s collection—some 9 million books, films, LPs, magnetic tapes, and pamphlets sorted not by the Dewey decimal system but by size.
A fascinating new interactive documentary, Cold Storage, glimpses inside this little-known world.
READ MORE: A Glimpse Inside the Hidden Vault Where Harvard Keeps Millions of Books | Gizmodo
The Rise of DIY Libraries | VICE
In March, a group of New York library officials released a statement declaring that a “staggering infrastructure crisis” has crept up on the city’s public library system. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, one branch is “routinely forced to close on hot days” due to problems with air conditioning. Others are plagued with water-damaged books and facilities that are too small to accommodate everyone in their community.
General interest public libraries are no less necessary than they were in 1901, when Andrew Carnegie donated the equivalent of $147 million to construct 65 of them across New York City, but their focus is increasingly shifting away from books and toward things like English classes, job training workshops, community meeting spaces, or just places to read the news online for those without internet access.
While the public must continue to fight for these more practical resources, a number of oddball independent libraries cropping up around the North American continent offer an experience that can’t be found in their traditional counterparts. These boutique libraries are working to stretch our very idea about the word “library,” creating a real living community around the often very lonely act of reading.
READ MORE: The Rise of DIY Libraries | VICE
How One Man And His Horse Created A Mobile Library In Indonesia | HuffPo #libraries #literacy
In Indonesia, one man and his horse have created a walking, braying mobile library to bring books to the remote villages on Java island.
Ridwan Sururi, 42, travels between schools and villages with a tamed wild-horse called Luna who is loaded with boxes of donated books. Sururi named his project Kudapustaka, meaning ‘horse library’ in Indonesian, according to the BBC.
Illiteracy remains high in the rural heartlands of Central Java, despite huge strides to improve literacy rates across the country. “I love horses, and I want this hobby to bring benefit to people,” Sururi told the BBC. READ MORE: How One Man And His Horse Created A Mobile Library In Indonesia | Huffington Post
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