November 2016

The New York Times has announced the winners of their annual contest. Send these peeps your best.

The 2016 I Love My Librarian Award recipients include three academic librarians, four public librarians and three school librarians. This year’s winners are:

Danielle S. Apfelbaum,
New York Institute of Technology,
Old Westbury, New York

Andrea Bernard,
Tyler Memorial Library,
Charlemont, Massachusetts

Olga Valencia Cardenas,
Stanislaus County Library,
Modesto, California

Elissa Checov,
Gwinnett Tech. College / Gwinnett County Public Library,
Lawrenceville, Georgia

Kathryn Cole,
Northside Elementary School,
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Tabatha “Tabby” Farney,
University of Colorado, Colorado Springs,
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Sherri Ginsberg,
Hillsides Library,
Pasadena, California

Lia Kharis Hillman,
San Francisco Public Library

Jamille Rogers,
Marguerite Vann Elementary School,
Conway, Arkansas

Roosevelt Weeks, Sr.
Houston Public Library

You work at the college library. You’re in the middle of a quiet afternoon when suddenly, a shipment of 1,280 books arrives. The books are in a straight line, but they’re all out of order, and the automatic sorting system is broken. How can you sort the books quickly? Chand John shows how, shedding light on how algorithms help librarians and search engines speedily sort information.

From What’s the fastest way to alphabetize your bookshelf? – Chand John – YouTube

The Chicago Public Library and Chicago Transit Authority are partnering to offer free content to CTA riders, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office said.

By using the CTA’s 4G wireless network, train and bus riders will be able to access Chicago Public Library content like e-books by Chicago authors, blog posts about Chicago and other material all for free.

The city said this is a new way to spotlight a new generation of Chicago writers.

From the New York Times a lovely story about a Bronx librarian and his weekly visits to read to children in the homeless shelter.

Colbert Nembhard looks more like a traveling salesman than a librarian in his dark suit with his rolling suitcase. He strolls 10 minutes to the Crotona Inn homeless shelter from the Morrisania Branch Library, where he has been the manager for 25 years. As he dug through the dozens of books stuffed inside the suitcase, an announcement crackled over the intercom inside the shelter, where 87 families live: “Mr. Nembhard is here to read stories and sing songs to your children.”

“The past week has mad me feel like I’m living my life all over again — that we have to fight some of the same fights,” Lewis said. “To see some of the bigotry, the hate, I think there are forces that want to take us back.”

When he later accepted his medal for young people’s literature, for his work with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell on March: Book Three, Lewis drew from memories of his own childhood for a tearful speech.

“I remember in 1956 when I was 16 years old, going down to the public library, trying to get library cards, and we were told that the libraries were whites-only and not for coloreds,” Lewis said.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/16/502349046/colson-whitehead-and-rep-john-lewis-among-winners-of-national-book-awards

I recommend listening to the piece so you can hear the emotion with which Lewis gives his speech.

“Head to the library” says the LA Times (or maybe you’re already there).

In small towns and large, in red states and blue, libraries poll better across the political spectrum than any public trust this side of the fire department. In districts where millage increases don’t require a two-thirds vote (and frequently where they do, as in California) modest library bonds usually win.

Librarians may be the only first responders holding the line between America and a raging national pandemic of absolutism. More desperately than ever, we need our libraries now, and all three of their traditional pillars: 1) education, 2) good reading and 3) the convivial refuge of a place apart. In other words, libraries may be the last coal we have left to blow on.

At an event to honor Harry Belafone one guest stated that he was stopped and questioned upon his entrance to library, story from The New York Post.

Book — Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers

From beloved New Yorker cartoonist Bob Eckstein, Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores invites you into the heart and soul of every community: the local bookshop, each with its own quirks, charms, and legendary stories.

This collection of seventy-five of the most cherished bookstores from around the world features evocative paintings by Eckstein paired with colorful anecdotes about each shop, featuring a roster of great thinkers and artists of our time, including David Bowie, Tom Wolfe, Joe Frank, Tracy Chevalier, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Palin, Roz Chast, Deepak Chopra, Bob Odenkirk, Robin Williams, Patricia Marx, Philip Glass, Paul McCartney, Dave Berry, Michael Jackson, Jonathan Ames, Terry Gross, Mark Maron, Neil Gaiman, Ann Patchett, Jo Nesbo, Diane Keaton, Chris Ware, Molly Crabapple, Amitav Ghosh, Patti Smith, Mo Willems, Alice Munro, Dave Eggers, Roxanna Robinson, Garrison Keillor and many more.

Page by page, Eckstein perfectly captures our lifelong love affair with books, bookstores, and book-sellers that is at once heartfelt, bittersweet, and cheerfully confessional.

Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers

From Inside Higher Ed, Barbara Fister writes:

Last March, the BBC reported that 343 public libraries have closed in the U.K. and another 111 were scheduled to be closed this year. That’s about 15 percent of all public libraries in the UK. Nearly 300 libraries were handed over to community groups to sustain or were outsourced to commercial management. UK libraries have been forced to lay off a quarter of their staff because of budget cuts.