Public Libraries

And at the same time, libraries are dealing with rising crime rates, including an uptick in stabbings, shootings, drug use, narcotics sales and even prostitution. On a humid Florida afternoon in 2014, a homeless man crept up behind someone making a copy at the Sarasota County Public Library’s main branch and stabbed him in the back. The victim staggered to the circulation desk, leaving a trail of blood down the stairs. Several months later, at another Sarasota County branch, police caught a homeless couple cooking meth on library grounds. The couple slept in a small homeless encampment behind the library and spent most days inside for shelter.

From What happens when libraries are asked to help the homeless find shelter - The Washington Post

"The role of public libraries in communities across the state continues to expand as needs increase," explains Kendall Wiggin, State Librarian, Connecticut State Library. "The dialogue helped focused on how to leverage the assets of our state's public libraries to build more knowledgeable, healthy and sustainable communities across the state, and how to improve the sustainability of public libraries in Connecticut. The report that is being released today outlines these discussions along with the steps we will be taking moving forward."

From Aspen Institute Issues Report on Outcomes Following the State-wide Dialogue on Connecticut's Public... -- WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

Visiting each of the Toronto Public Library System’s 100 branches sounds like a daunting task, and this literary scavenger hunt aims to navigate you through each one.

Toronto-based graphic designer and web developer Noah Ortmann created the Toronto Library Passport as a way of encouraging local readers to explore each outpost in the city and utilize their free resources. One challenge urges readers to find a book about Roman architecture, while another instructs you to read a mystery novel in the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection—a room in the Toronto Reference Library modeled after Sherlock Holmes’s study. The 36-page booklet also includes branch hours, information about fines, and spaces to jot down your impressions of each location.

From Take a Scavenger Hunt Through Toronto’s 100 Libraries | Mental Floss

 The program makes great sense in urban communities, which thrive on publicly connected spaces and resources. Other cities have similar services—the Berkeley Public Library, for instance, created a Tool Lending Library stocked with weed eaters, hedge trimmers, demolition hammers, and electric plumbing snakes.

Reddit users discussed the idea in the Today I Learned community. They noted some of the non-book items they can check out at their own local libraries.

From Sacramento’s ‘Library of Things’ Lets You Borrow GoPros, Sewing Machines, and Ukuleles | Upvoted

(thanks little_wow)

X-Rated at the Library
The New York Public Library’s erotica collection (yes, it has one) includes seedy Times Square ephemera, early transgender magazines and copies of Playboy.

From X-Rated at the Library - Video - NYTimes.com

But even if a deal is struck or funding released, Drury said the cutbacks could continue at the library if that state funding is reduced.  

"Depending on what the budget number is we may have to make these reductions permanent instead of reinstating them," Drury added.  

Penny Talbert, executive director of the Ephrata Public Library, also in Lancaster County, said state funding for programs like hers has decreased heavily in recent years.  

From Tested by budget battle and funding cuts, Pa. libraries buckle | PennLive.com

KUER's VideoWest/RadioWest's intro to the video Ties the Room Together. "Josh Hanagarne is a writer and a librarian in Salt Lake City who's written beautifully about his experiences with Tourette syndrome. We had him on RadioWest to talk about his 2013 book The World's Strongest Librarian. We want to thank Josh for letting us tag along and pry into his life."

Here's a photo of Josh holding an "In My Book, you're quite a character" card in the beautiful SLCPL .

Shipping is free during December, visit www.inmybook.com for more details.

Good news: the NYPL's Rose Reading Room will reopen in 2016. That will be nearly two years after it closed its doors when a foot-wide piece of plaster (one of the rosettes) fell from the ceiling, but still ahead of the previously scheduled reopening date in 2017.

From Inside The NYPL's Eerily Empty Rose Reading Room: Gothamist

It appears that the way that Kentucky libraries set their tax rates will stand, despite protest from people who say they've been doing it illegally for decades.

The Kentucky Supreme Court issued a decision Friday that it will not hear arguments in the 2012 lawsuit objecting to the way Campbell and Kenton county libraries set their tax rates.

From Libraries suit ends, tax rate method stays

In just the past decade, vexingly different figures have been reported — 1.8 million in The New York Times in 2009, four million by The Associated Press in 2013. The library and its current president, Anthony W. Marx, seemed content until two years ago to put the number at about three million, although the figure of 3.5 million had long been used, and appears in the lead paragraph of a Times article from Oct. 1, 1905. (Puzzlingly, the headline says 4.5 million.)

From A Slippery Number: How Many Books Can Fit in the New York Public Library? - The New York Times

If only Oprah were here.

“And you get a library, and you get a library, and you get a library!”

But alas, three small Clark County libraries will have to do it the hard way.

Ridgefield, Woodland and Washougal are in the hunt for new libraries to feed the minds of their growing cities, and they are all edging slowly toward their targets.

“Right now, if you go into any of those three communities it’s a very tight space, and once we find a space that fits the needs of the community, it opens up opportunities for everyone,” said Rick Smithrud, executive director of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library Foundation.

From 3 small cities strive to book new libraries | The Columbian

A public library is set to open next year in a polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border that hasn't had one for decades because of controlling sect leaders who try to limit followers' exposure to the outside world.

The library is expected to open in March 2016, Washington County Library System director Joel Tucker said. The plan is to put the library in an old schoolhouse the center of town, near the public school and town hall in Hildale, Utah.

The community is dominated by a polygamous sect led by jailed leader Warren Jeffs. He and other sect leaders try to limit members' exposure to the outside world by prohibiting Internet and books.

From Public library set to open in polygamous community in Utah | The Salt Lake Tribune

But unbeknown to most of them, 17 feet below ground, in a concrete bunker worthy of the White House, the library is expanding and updating one of the most sophisticated book storage systems in the world.

Since March, after abandoning a much-criticized plan to move the bulk of its research collection to New Jersey, the library has been working instead to create a high-tech space underground for the 2.5 million research works long held in its original stacks.

The books will begin arriving in April, and by the end of spring library officials expect to be using a new retrieval system to ferry the volumes and other materials from their 84 miles of subterranean shelving, loaded into little motorized carts — a bit like miniaturized minecars carrying nuggets of research gold.

From Beneath New York Public Library, Shelving Its Past for High-Tech Research Stacks - The New York Times

Librarians! Who’s Ready For A Game Of Library Bingo?

From Roz Warren
Roz Warren, "the world's funniest librarian," writes for the New York Times and the Funny Times and she's been featured on the Today Show. (Twice!) Her latest humor book is OUR BODIES, OUR SHELVES: A COLLECTION OF LIBRARY HUMOR. http://ow.ly/LpFgE

From Librarians! Who’s Ready For A Game Of Library Bingo? | HumorOutcasts

"They said, 'We're putting a bike shop in there,'" he said. "I started laughing because I knew management was goofing on me. Even though I'm an avid cyclist, I'm not a huge fan of the zealots around here that have taken over the streets. I thought they were joking. They weren't. They put a bike rack in our old office. There is usually one bicycle in there. We lost our office so we could appease one bicycling co-worker."

From Dori: Libraries waste $9K on bike stations - Dori Monson | MyNorthwest.com

Bicycle pumps and tools are being installed at nine King County libraries, which are expanding their mission to promote eco-friendly travel.

The Renton branch will be outfitted this week with the do-it-yourself repair station, while Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Bothell, Kenmore, Newcastle, Federal Way, and Burien branches, as well as the administrative center in Issaquah, already have theirs, said spokeswoman Marsha Iverson.

From Bike-repair stations coming to 9 King County libraries | The Seattle Times

The barriers to broadband adoption are well-documented, and include digital literacy, relevancy and cost. Digital literacy and relevancy are often addressed simultaneously; libraries and non-profit organizations teach digital literacy skills through relevant use of the Internet and often provide direct training classes. To successfully increase broadband use in communities, all three barriers must be addressed through a diverse set of local partners with established roots in the community.

From How Public Libraries Can Support Broadband Adoption | PublicCEO

A Maryland company that runs public libraries has more than doubled in size in the past decade as governments seek savings. Bibliophile residents complain that an investment in knowledge and culture is being milked for profit.
Library Systems & Services LLC is running into opposition as it seeks to add the 24 libraries in Kern County, California, to its portfolio of 82 in six states, allowing the county to shed a unionized workforce of 118. The county north of Los Angeles would be the largest addition for LSSI since the firm, which is owned by Wayne, Pennsylvania-based Argosy Capital Group Inc., got into the book business in 1997.

From As U.S. Libraries Are Outsourced, Readers See Public Trust Erode - Bloomberg Business

Dartmouth College will use a $3 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to further help small, rural libraries nationwide to improve public understanding of science.

From Dartmouth, NSF aim to turn America's rural libraries into STEM centers | EurekAlert! Science News