May 2015

Series novels are common in many genres of fiction, none more so than crime, mysteries and thrillers. The formula of a lone detective investigating a new murder in each book has changed little in the decades between Agatha Christie and Lee Child. Serials, which tell one ongoing story with the same cast of characters that continues through each volume, are considerably rarer. But it’s exactly this serial format that has come to dominate the fantasy genre.

From Fantasy must shake off the tyranny of the mega-novel | Books | The Guardian

That’s why one of college’s most important functions is to learn how to hear and deal with challenging ideas. Cocooning oneself in a Big Safe Space for four years gets it exactly backwards. “Safety” has been transformed by colleges from “protection from physical harm” to “protection from disturbing ideas.”

From Life Is Triggering. The Best Literature Should Be, Too. | The New Republic

The meeting sparked headlines warning of a “full” internet and the potential need for data rationing, but the reality is more nuanced. The crunch is real, caused by fast growth of online media consumption through the likes of Netflix and Youtube, but physics and engineering can help us escape it. The internet just needs a few tweaks.

From The internet is running out of room – but we can save it – tech – 15 May 2015 – New Scientist

From Rare book experts join forces to stop tome raiders | Books | The Guardian Lawyers and librarians, booksellers and auctioneers will descend on the British Library next month for a major conference whose title – The Written Heritage of Mankind in Peril – conveys the seriousness of the problem.

THE IRONY of Cerf’s concern is that the digital age is anything but dark. We are in the era of big data, exploding with exponentially more bits and bytes each year. By one back-of the-envelope estimate, the number of digital photos we snap in two minutes exceeds all the photographs taken during the entire 19th century. Faster computing speeds; sensors on our phones, cars, and transit systems; and falling costs of technologies to sequence genomes and launch satellites contribute to the data deluge. We’re entering the era of the “Internet of Things,” in which virtually any object or organism on the planet could one day collect and transmit data.

From The race to preserve disappearing data – Ideas – The Boston Globe

The Barack Obama Foundation selects Chicago as home for future Barack Obama Presidential Center. The President and First Lady reflect on their roots in Chicago’s South Side and announce plans to bring the future Obama Library, Museum and Foundation home to Chicago.

From Obama Foundation Announces South Side as Home for Library – YouTube

In most Buffalo neighborhoods, getting listed on the National Register opens up tax credits for the restoration of old buildings, both residential and commercial. Property owners typically depend on professional architectural historians to write National Register nominations. In turn, professional architectural historians depend on the Library’s collection for historical evidence, visual and otherwise, to make the case for National Register eligibility. We have the region’s largest collection of period photographs, atlases, and architectural drawings.

From Impact of the Library |

Macrina, 30, is not your grandmother’s librarian. She has a kaleidoscopic illustration from a Mother Goose book tattooed on her arm, occasionally poses for selfies in red lipstick, and wears a small piece of hardware called a security token around her neck like a pendant. Macrina has worked as a public librarian for nearly a decade, but she’s not shelving books; she’s fighting Big Brother.

From Librarians Versus the NSA | The Nation

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Thursday revived a challenge to a controversial National Security Agency program that collected the records of millions of Americans’ phone calls, saying the program was not authorized by Congress.

From NSA phone surveillance not authorized: U.S. appeals court | Reuters

Librarians have long understood that to provide access to knowledge it is crucial to protect their patrons’ privacy. Books can provide information that is deeply unpopular. As a result, local communities and governments sometimes try to ban the most objectionable ones. Librarians rightly see it as their duty to preserve access to books, especially banned ones. In the US this defense of expression is an integral part of our First Amendment rights.

From What Every Librarian Needs to Know About HTTPS | Electronic Frontier Foundation