Hollywood loves books
When you hear the words “Los Angeles,” you immediately think “books.” It’s a book town. They have this huge book festival every year, sponsored by the L.A. Times, which is staffed by book lovers who emcee book awards and moderate panel discussions about books. I saw it with my own eyes. Los Angeles is a place utterly devoted to literature, to the glamour of text. There are people in L.A. right this minute sitting through a movie, or watching rushes of a film in production, and thinking: This would make a great book.
April 2012
Mayor asks library board why it allowed Occupy Bangor to break citys after-hours park rule
Mayor asks library board why it allowed Occupy Bangor to break city’s after-hours park rule
Five months after the Occupy Bangor movement occupied Peirce Park and the Bangor Public Library grounds for almost a month, the library’s administration and board faced some tough questions during a City Council budget session.
As Book Sales Grow, Publishers Flock to India
As Book Sales Grow, Publishers Flock to India
David Davidar recalls the advice once given to him by the writer R.K. Narayan about publishing books in India. “Don’t worry, you’ll be gone in a few years,” Mr. Narayan warned. “There aren’t enough writers here.”
Imagine that: An India lacking in writers.
Cape Cod Library Book Thief Resells Booty
HARWICH — Librarians across Cape Cod are checking their book collections after a Hyannis man was allegedly caught stealing books last week at Brooks Free Library. Arthur Souza, 52, was charged with larceny of library materials valued at more than $250, but police and librarians believe he has stolen from at least four Cape libraries and sold the books to a Chatham antiques dealer who in turn auctioned them on eBay.
Here’s a photo of the perp:
Red flags first went up the weekend before last, when Lucy Loomis, director of Sturgis Library in West Barnstable, received an email from a bookseller in South Carolina. The man had seen a book for sale on eBay, an online auction site, that clearly bore library identification markings.
Libraries Are Obsolete: An Oxford-Style Debate
We mentioned this Oxford Style Debate on LISNEWS on April 12. The debate happened on April 18. The full video is now available. You can see more details about the event here.
Dirty books reveal secret lives of people living in mediaeval times
Dirty books reveal secret lives of people living in mediaeval times
For the first time a new scientific technique has allowed us into the minds and motivations of mediaeval people – through their dirty books.
A new technique invented by Dr. Kathryn Rudy, lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews, can measure which pages in mediaeval manuscripts are the dirtiest, and therefore, the most read.
A machine called a densitometer allows the dirt contained within the pages of books centuries old to reveal the inner thoughts of our ancestors.
Former library finance chair mum on credit card scandal
Former library finance chair mum on credit card scandal
Alex Cameron has resigned as chair of the Windsor Public Library board’s finance committee.
The move comes in the wake of a credit card scandal involving Al Maghnieh, the former chair of the library board who resigned after it was learned he used a library-issued credit card to make nearly $9,000 in personal purchases.
‘The written word endures’ at archives
‘The written word endures’ at archives
Photos of sod shanties. Newspaper clippings. Naturalization papers. Court testimony. A letter to President Ulysses S. Grant. Actual government red tape.
Volunteers who are digitizing Nebraska’s homestead records at the National Archives are encountering more than a treasure trove of historical and genealogical information.
“You never know what you’ll find,” said Jackie Budell, an archives specialist who supervises the volunteers. “That’s what we call ‘psychic pay.’ ”
Kindles Most Highlighted Passages of All Time
Most Highlighted Passages of All Time
Interesting list from Amazon… The top books are Catching Fire, Hunger Games, Pride and Prejudice, Mokingjay and Cutting for Stone. “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” from Catching Fire was Highlighted by 17784 Kindle users.
Harvard Releases Big Data for Books
Harvard’s library is making public the information on more than 12 million books, videos, audio recordings, images, manuscripts, maps, and more things inside Harvard’s 73 libraries.
Harvard can’t put the actual content of much of this material online, owing to intellectual property laws, but this so-called metadata of things like titles, publication or recording dates, book sizes, or descriptions of what is in the video is also considered highly valuable material. Frequently descriptors of things like audio recordings are more valuable for search engines than the material itself. Search engines frequently rely on metadata over content, particularly when it can’t easily be scanned and understood.
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