January 2017

Despite the abundance of digital diversions vying for their time and attention, most Americans are still reading books. In fact, they are consuming books at nearly the same rate that they were when Gallup last asked this question in 2002 — before smartphones, Facebook or Twitter became ubiquitous. More than one in three (35%) appear to be heavy readers, reading 11 or more books in the past year, while close to half (48%) read between one and 10 and just 16% read none.

From Rumors of the Demise of Books Greatly Exaggerated | Gallup

The Committee to Save NYPL is petitioning the Landmarks Preservation Commission to officially designate the Rose Reading Room and other public spaces in the 42nd Street Library as interior landmarks. We need your help!

Please sign this petition and share it with your friends, family, and colleagues.

Preservationists had formally requested these spaces be designated years ago, but their demands were ignored by the city agency charged with protecting our cultural and architectural heritage. With the recent calendaring of the Ambassador Grill and the Waldorf Astoria interiors, we are optimistic that LPC will finally ensure that these cherished rooms will be preserved for posterity.

R. Michael Brown once remarked that the “story of our lives is written in interiors.” There can be no doubt that few New York City interiors have transformed as many lives as those in the 42nd Street Library. They deserve landmark protection.

From the Atlantic an article about how new “discoveries” in archives, including the National Archives, are not really discoveries at all.

Seattle affiliate KOMONews reports that a book was returned forty years late, but with a note of apology. Here’s the note:

“”Sorry, I just cleaned (started emptying) my bedroom closet. It was in a box.”” The book was about rattlesnakes.

…and a new POTUS on the horizon.

If you want to keep current with what legislation each house is considering, don’t forget the wonderful resource, the Library of Congress which will report what is taking place sans spin (unlike Breitbard, Fox, National Review, etc.).

Here’s a particularly interesting bill in process, S. 65: A bill to address financial conflicts of interest of the President and Vice President. Sponsor: Sen. Warren, Elizabeth [D-MA] (Introduced 01/09/2017) Cosponsors: (23) Committees: Senate – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Latest Action: 01/09/2017 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. (All Actions)

For assistance with your research from a Law Library of Congress reference specialist, ask a Law Librarian.

Students, faculty and administrators lined the streets surrounding Ringling College in Sarasota Monday morning, forming a human chain to pass the final 200 books from Kimbrough Library into the college’s newly opened building up the block.

The ceremonial “Passing of the Books” celebrated the opening of the Alfred R. Goldstein Ringling College Library, an $18 million structure that dwarfs its predecessor.

From Bucket-brigade of books marks opening of new library at Ringling | Bradenton Herald

In Hallstatt, Austria, a picturesque village nestled into a lake-peppered region called Salzkammergut, Kunze has spent the past four years engraving images and text onto hand-sized clay squares. A ceramicist by trade, he believes the durability of the materials he plies gives them an as-yet unmatched ability to store information. Ceramic is impervious to water, chemicals, and radiation; it’s emboldened by fire. Tablets of Sumerian cuneiform are still around today that date from earlier than 3000 B.C.E.

“The only thing that can threaten this kind of data carrier is a hammer,” Kunze says.

From Memory of Mankind: All of Human Knowledge Buried in a Salt Mine – The Atlantic

“If we can’t, we’re going to have to rebuild the system from scratch. We won’t have to go back and re-scan every single book in the system because we have some listed on other files, so we won’t have to start from zero – but we won’t be starting far from zero either,” he said.
In a complication, Edwards said school IT workers were backing up the library server files to an external hard drive when the  attack occurred. This resulted in the back-up also being corrupted.
Regarding thwarting potential future hacking attempts, Edwards said, “We’ve had several conversations about really looking into where any and all of our vulnerabilities are at. This really makes you reevaluate computer security – it’s been an eye-opener.”

 

From Hacker cripples Hardin County Schools library system, demands ransom

Wolfe is an accidental sleuth. Her scholar’s passion is as much for old manuscripts as for the obscurities surrounding our national poet. Project Dustbunny, for example, one of her initiatives at the Folger Shakespeare Library, has made some extraordinary discoveries based on microscopic fragments of hair and skin accumulated in the crevices and gutters of 17th-century books.

From How ‘Sherlock of the library’ cracked the case of Shakespeare’s identity | Culture | The Guardian

What did he get right? What did he get wrong?