September 2016

ut a visit to the downtown library has become, on many days, a walk through a gantlet of misery: Homeless men and women sleep in the lawn while others plead with visitors for change.

Inside the building, signs warned people to avoid restrooms where some homeless use sinks and even toilet water to bathe themselves and wash their clothes. Some of Santa Ana’s down and out used the study carrels to look for jobs — others shot up drugs, with syringes found discarded in planters and even a box of toilet seat covers.

Security guards carry syringe disposal kits on their tool belts.

From A scene of homeless misery greets patrons trying to use Santa Ana’s award-winning library – LA Times

Using automatic text generation software, computer scientists at Italy’s University of Trieste created a series of fake peer reviews of genuine journal papers and asked academics of different levels of seniority to say whether they agreed with their recommendations to accept for publication or not.

In a quarter of cases, academics said they agreed with the fake review’s conclusions, even though they were entirely made up of computer-generated gobbledegook – or, rather, sentences picked at random from a selection of peer reviews taken from subjects as diverse as brain science, ecology and ornithology.

From Robot-written reviews fool academics | THE News

Librarians tend to agree that their libraries deliver value to community members. But what exactly does that mean? What type of value? Time saving value? Life changing value? Those are quite different. What value do libraries offer? New research identifies 30 types of value of four levels in a Maslow’s like hierarchy. We need to be intentional about designing for value delivery.

From When Libraries Don’t Provide Value – Designing Better Libraries

The whole idea for the hunt was motivated by the desire to have more of the public involved in Banned Books Week, which runs this year from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, says Linnea Hegarty, executive director of the D.C. Public Library Foundation. When books are banned, their supporters disguise them and circulate them surreptitiously, she says, and the idea was to capture that spirit.

From In Banned Books Scavenger Hunt, The Prize Is Literary ‘Smut’ : NPR

With the invention of the e-reader and digital downloads of books, you might not be buying as many books as you used to. But what if you have dozens of vintage books from over the years?

Book readers, you can turn your books into art and home decor! Make sure you don’t have any first editions, of course, and then consider the following hints:

From Hints From Heloise: Old books imitate art? – The Washington Post

In announcing his retirement to ALA staff, Fiels said, “It has been an incredible honor to have served my colleagues, libraries, and the public in this position for going on 15 years, during which we have made significant strides—and weathered a few storms. The staff and membership of ALA are the most amazing group of individuals that anyone could ever ask to work with.”

From ALA Executive Director Fiels Announces Retirement | American Libraries Magazine

However, as a result of the lack of funding from No Child Left Behind, several districts have been forced to close libraries or asked teachers to pick up those responsibilities.

“This has hurt the state and schools because school libraries aren’t supported in the state of Michigan,” Lester said. “Currently, only 8 percent of libraries have a full-time certified librarian staffing them.”

The decline first started in 2003 and has steadily been on a downward slant ever since, Lester said.

From Will school libraries soon be gone?

This Tokyo-based Japanese craftsman brings old books back to life by making them look brand new through his amazing technique obtained after more than 3 decades of experience in his shop from the Suidobashi area of Japan’s capital.

From Japanese Craftsman Brings Old Books Back to Life by Making Them Look Brand New – Gypsy.Ninja

The letter on Aug. 23 by Bill Weller is a prime example of entitlement and why our taxes are so high. I’ve been saying for years that libraries should no longer be on the tax roles and under the burden of the taxpayer. I’m not saying libraries are not useful, because they are. I know there are many advocates for libraries, but it should no longer be the responsibility of the taxpayer to supply people with books, videos, computer cafes, and personal entertainment. Most schools have libraries, so your kids already have access to the books they need and we all know who pays for the schools.  

From Letter: Libraries are huge tax burden | Northwest Herald

My small act of countercultural scholarly agency has been to refuse to continue reading or assigning the work of David Foster Wallace. The machine of his celebrity masks, I have argued, the limited benefits of spending the time required to read his work. Our time is better spent elsewhere. I make this assessment given the evidence I have so far accumulated — I have read and taught some of his stories and nonfiction, have read some critical essays on Wallace’s work, and have read D.T. Max’s biography of Wallace — and without feeling professionally obligated to spend a month reading Infinite Jest in order to be absolutely sure I’m right. If I did spend a month reading the book, I would be adding my professional investment to the load of others’ investments, which — if we track it back — are the result of a particular marketing campaign that appealed to a Jurassic vision of literary genius.

From On Refusing to Read – The Chronicle of Higher Education