Two investigations are now underway after the FOX 8 I-Team obtained a tape of a Cleveland library guard hitting a man repeatedly who was on the ground in the snow.
The guard in question filed a police report saying he was the victim of an earlier assault.
E-book lending has been a thorny issue for libraries, but a panel at Digital Book World yesterday moderated by Library Journal’s Josh Hadro suggested perhaps there really wasn’t much of an issue. Despite Hadro’s introduction, which quoted a recent feasibility study about e-books in which librarians expressed deep anxieties, and a recent talk from Ann Arbor, MI, librarian Eli Neiburger entitled “Libraries are Screwed,” the panel was decidedly upbeat.
Parents of students at Public School 290 on the Upper East Side received a group e-mail from a fellow parent recommending a book that debates aspects of the Holocaust.
The Battle Against Info-Overload: Is Relevance or Popularity the Best Filter?
The rise of social media has led to an exponential proliferation of content online and widespread demand for tools to filter that information. Popularity and relevance are the most common metrics through which to filter that content – but are they the best?
RWW asked three people building cutting-edge social software what they think the relationship between relevance, popularity and filtering is going to be in the future. They offered three very different responses. What do you think the future of information filtering will look like?
The Enfield Public Library and town officials have reached a compromise that will allow a screening of the Michael Moore documentary “Sicko” about the American health care system.
Mayor Scott Kaupin tells The Associated Press that the library will show the movie in the next few weeks as part of a series that will include multiple points of view on controversial topics.
The library last week canceled a planned screening of the movie, which is critical of the U.S. health care system, after the Republican mayor and some town council members objected.
That led to accusations of censorship.
Kaupin says the issue was not whether the film should be shown, but whether the library should offer just one side of the health care debate.
NECN reports.
There are 43 libraries in Oxfordshire, England. Members of the Oxfordshire county council intend to stop funding half of these libraries and hand them over to volunteers to run. Earlier this month, Philip Pullman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy) gave a speech at an Oxfordshire library campaigners meeting and strongly critiqued this potentially disastrous move for libraries. Pullman said, “”Does he [Keith Mitchell, the leader of the county council] think the job of a librarian is so simple, so empty of content, that anyone can step up and do it for a thank-you and a cup of tea? Does he think that all a librarian does is to tidy the shelves?” The speech was met with great response by the public and was shared via social networking sites and read 20,000 times in two days, says the Guardian.
NEW YORK — All New York City public Libraries and the Statue of Liberty are closed due to the winter weather. The city was hit with close to 20″ of snow.
The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island are closed Thursday for snow removal.
Is your library open? Delayed opening? Closed? Please comment with your location to let us know…
From Yale: If the roughly 12.5 million volumes in Yale’s libraries weren’t enough for Yale students, they will now have access to 17 million more thanks to the Harvard Library. The decision comes nearly 10 years after the rest of the Ivy League began participating in the interlibrary sharing system Borrow Direct.
Harvard is the last Ivy League college to take part in the program, which allows students and staff to request volumes from other schools’ libraries. There are more than 45 million volumes currently in the system.
Some, like professor of German art and culture Jeffrey F. Hamburger ’79 GRD ’87, who chaired a Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences library advisory committee, told the Crimson that the university had concerns its library would be a net lender rather than a borrower.
“That said, there are areas in which other libraries have stronger collections than we do, and I think time will tell whether it’s the right decision,” he added.
The elusive “LOC Nest Monster”, a Cooper hawk that had been roosting in the rotunda of the Library of Congress’ Main Reading Room for the last week, has met her match. The hawk that has been avoiding capture inside the LOC was finally corralled Wednesday morning by bird experts. Report from NBC Washington. Click READ MORE for video.
And more from NPR on how the capture went down.
The elusive “LOC Nest Monster”, a Cooper hawk that had been roosting in the rotunda of the Library of Congress’ Main Reading Room for the last week, has met her match. The hawk that has been avoiding capture inside the LOC was finally corralled Wednesday morning by bird experts. Report from NBC Washington. Click READ MORE for video.
And more from NPR on how the capture went down.
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Recent blogs about the Kindle and library eBooks have sparked interesting comments from library users and non-users, showing new perceptions of libraries and eBooks. Check out ”Will Kindle ever add support for library books?” at Stephen’s Lighthouse and the Kindle Blog for more details. Libraries are constantly battling the perception of library obsolescence, and the comments in these blogs are no exception.
There seems to be some new elements to the library obsolescence myth, which generally refers to the misconception that libraries can be replaced by the Internet. A new perception of users and non-users is that library eBook selections are paltry. This impression is actually true for many libraries, because libraries have had many years to build their print and AV collections, and have only recently started building eBook collections in the last few years. It is going to take time for libraries to build up their eBook collections to equal their print collection levels, keeping in mind that libraries continue to serve print and AV users, and library collection budgets are spread across electronic, print, audiobook, DVD and music formats.
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