LISNews: Librarian News

From New York's "Picture Newspaper", the Daily News:

" The New York Public Library’s newest branch is going to sparkle like fine crystal. "

The W. 53rd St. center will be an airy, vibrant structure with multiple public spaces, modern computer labs, an audio-video collection, and walls of books, library officials said Monday as they unveiled new renderings of the three-story facility designed by Enrique Norten’s TEN Arquitectos.

The new library will also feature a sizable auditorium.

Meanwhile, the city is sucking dry its existing libraries. The Daily News also reports:

"Not only the Queens Library, but the city’s three library systems — Queens, Brooklyn and New York (which serves the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island) — that have had a tough time over the last five years, as Bloomberg has made it an annual ritual to propose major cuts to their budgets. It’s true that much of the cuts are restored by the City Council, but never in full.

One would think that Bloomberg, who supposedly values efficiency and cost-effectiveness, would go out of his way not to put the libraries through budget hell every year.

After all, they have really been able to do more with less: Despite their shrinking resources, over the last 10 years New York’s public libraries have seen a 40% increase in program attendance, and 59% in circulation, according to a Center for an Urban Future study. -- Read More

Article in the NYT about sequestration and the Library of Congress

Since Kickstarter launched in 2009, everyone from indie bands to technology developers to non-profit organizations has asked themselves, “Will crowdfunding work for me?” Libraries, which often turn to more civic-minded crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo and Fundly, are no exception. But the question remains: does it work?

Cassandra Elton got the idea to establish the Antelope Lending Library in a well-traversed mall on the Southeast side of Iowa City while she was working at an after-school program in a local elementary school. Elton found that her students—primarily from low-income and immigrant families—did not have access to the literary culture for which the city is known.

Full article

How to attract library patrons, build the community and show people that librarians are cool? One of the ways to do this is organising Bicycool Library in your town.

Bicycool Library is a bike ride for book and bike lovers usually organised by librarians. The idea of the event was born in Poland and first edition was organised in May 2010. In 2012 it was organised in almost 100 places in Poland. This year it will be organised between May 1st and June 9th in many places all over the world.

One of main goals of organising the Bicycool Library is to promote reading and riding a bike as a way of spending time. Promoting libraries and fighting against stereotypes about librarians is also very important to organisers. They would like to show people that library is the place where they can find not only books, but many unusual interesting events as well.

The Bicycool Library is also helpful in library advocacy. This action helps libraries to collect community and show that library connects people and give them oportunity to do something together and simply to have fun.

There are many ways library can organise it and make local event attractive. Variety of ideas and inspirations for organisers are avaliable on the project website: bicycoollibrary.org. Local organisers can also register there their local edition. This is the way to let organisers and librarians all over the world know how many local events will be organised. Also everybody will be able to see that a town is taking part in it, because every city, town and village will be marked on a special map showing “bicycool” places.

Soon more useful materials will be released on a Bicycool Library’s website, so make sure to visit the website regularly or simply like the project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bicycool.Library.

If you are interested in organising Bicycool Library in your town, let people know and register your local edition on the website. -- Read More