David Weinberger is senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and has been instrumental in the development of ideas about the impact of the web. Shortly before his recent keynote presentation at OCLC’s EMEA Regional Council Meeting in Florence, he spoke with Sarah Bartlett about the library-sized hole in the Internet and how a ‘library graph’ might help librarians to fill it.
From Is there a library-sized hole in the internet? – Research Information
Marginalia are on the march. The New Yorker reported this fall on Oxford’s Marginalia Group, which “now has two thousand five hundred and three members, making marginalia to Oxford something like what a cappella is to Princeton.” They specialize in finding the snarkiest of the notes that generations of Oxford students have entered in their assigned books. The creator of the Oxford group, April Pierce, noted that the great libraries of London also house books full of readers’ written reactions.
From Scrawled Insults and Epiphanies by Anthony Grafton | The Gallery | The New York Review of Books
While elite universities, with their deep resources and demanding coursework, surely produce great professors, the data suggest that faculty hiring isn’t a simple meritocracy. The top schools generate far more professors than even just slightly less prestigious schools. For example, in history, the top 10 schools produce three times as many future professors as those ranked 11 through 20.
Rising salaries, electronic book costs and a steep decline in book fines are putting financial pressure on the Richmond Public Library.
On Monday, the city’s finance committee approved a $200,000 temporary boost to the library’s collections budget, but not before questioning its practices.
“The whole idea of late charges wasn’t to make money or revenue. It was to ensure the material is fairly distributed. But then you become dependent on it,” said Buss, who told councillors there are opportunities to make money via 3D printing.
From E-books proving costly for Richmond Public Library – News – Richmond News
THE BRIEF
Libraries are in rough shape these days. Long treasured as bastions of knowledge, they’re being assailed on two fronts: funding cuts and technological disruption. Why borrow a book when you’ve got the Internet and a Kindle?But rumors of the library’s demise are greatly exaggerated. The challenges that libraries face have spurred their radical reinvention as makerspaces and digital archives built to last thousands of years.
The libraries of the future will preserve and transmit knowledge as always. You just might not recognize them.
But other titles were less predictable — a book on salesmanship was tops in Hell’s Kitchen, zombies are big in The Bronx, and a book about the infamous Kitty Genovese murder in Queens was the most checked out in Great Kills, Staten Island.
Here are the most popular books at a selection of library branches, based on January 2015 data for the NYPL
From The most popular books at some of New York’s public libraries | New York Post
An historian has unearthed the first unseen Sherlock Holmes story in more than 80 years that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote to help save a town bridge.
Walter Elliot, 80, found the 1,300-word tale starring the famous detective in a collection of short stories written for a local bazaar.
From Lost Sherlock Holmes story discovered in man’s attic – Telegraph
Here’s an unusual way of recommending books to visitors – British chain Waterstones has just overhauled its website and it’s hidden a reading list for developers in the source code.
From Waterstones’ Source Code Has Reading List for Developers
“This is a new direction,” said Erin Berman, community programs administrator for technology and innovation for San Jose Public Library. “We’ve done programmatic things before, but we’re trying to broaden the scope and have a real understanding of privacy.”
From San Jose: Public library gets $35k for online privacy literacy prototype – San Jose Mercury News
That’s a perfect metaphor for presidential libraries, which memorialize our leaders — and their often-monumental egos — in brick, concrete and stone. Like the ancients, presidents start planning these shrines before their rule comes to an end. So early this year, President Barack Obama will decree whether his own library will be in Chicago, New York or Hawaii.
From Presidential libraries are a costly scam | Tampa Bay Times
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