March 2017

Disrupting the Paper Cut Industry

A Silicon Valley startup called Ripcord has unveiled a machine that takes stacks of paper, pulls out the staples, rapidly scans the paper and send the scans to the cloud. That seemingly inane task is done at breakneck speed.

The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures

The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures

The Library of Congress brings booklovers an enriching tribute to the power of the written word and to the history of our most beloved books. Featuring more than 200 full-color images of original catalog cards, first edition book covers, and photographs from the library’s magnificent archives, this collection is a visual celebration of the rarely seen treasures in one of the world’s most famous libraries and the brilliant catalog system that has kept it organized for hundreds of years. Packed with engaging facts on literary classics—from Ulysses to The Cat in the Hat to Shakespeare’s First Folio to The Catcher in the Rye—this package is an ode to the enduring magic and importance of books.

Book at Publisher’s website –The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures

The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures (Amazon)

Be There or Be Square!!

Get ready to GET DOWN…

at the Library of Congress Disco Dance Party with Gloria Gaynor!

It’s a celebration of disco culture, music, dance and fashion, as told by the national collections. Gloria Gaynor and her band kick off the night with a one-night-only show commemorating the induction of “I Will Survive” into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. After the concert, dance the night away in one of the nation’s architectural marvels, the Thomas Jefferson Building housing the Library of Congress.

Get free tickets from Eventbrite
(tickets available 03/30/2017, beginning at 10 AM), wear Disco or 1970s attire.

Yes!! Librarians as Superheroes

From Onward State a piece about a new series of trading cards for Penn State Librarians.

The Penn State librarians have recently collaborated with freelance graphic designer Rogo to design state-of-the-art trading cards, each of which also serve as a business card. The cards are designed specifically for each librarian and employee, giving them a caricature and superhero nickname. Alllllright!

SF Library Workers May Get Training to Stop Heroin Overdoses

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco public library staffers may soon be trained to administer medication to reverse heroin overdoses among the growing number of opioid users who are homeless.

The idea surfaced after an addict was found dead in one of the Civic Center library’s restrooms in early February, the San Francisco Chronicle reports Sunday.

In a Feb. 28 letter to his staff that was obtained by the Chronicle, City Librarian Luis Herrera said that a decision about training librarians to treat overdose with naloxone will not be made until the issue is fully explored. He added that if done, it would be on “a strictly voluntary basis.”

What do you think of this idea? Would you volunteer to give naloxone if necessary?

Good Luck to This Guy

California State Librarian, Greg Lucas, seeks money for CA libraries in a visit to Congress.

It’s going to be a tough fight: The president’s budget today proposed deep cuts into public libraries’ existing budgets, and it would eliminate perhaps a third of the state library’s budget.

In California, more than half the population — about 22 million — have library cards.

Congress is closely divided and partisanship is deeply entrenched, but a sound library system is not a partisan issue, argues Lucas. Story from Capitol Weekly.

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

It is good for librarians to know the inner workings and creation process of their reference tools.

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

Many of us take dictionaries for granted, and few may realize that the process of writing dictionaries is, in fact, as lively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why small words are the most difficult to define, how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. And along the way, she reveals little-known surprises—for example, the fact that “OMG” was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917.

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries

Color and Activity Book for Librarians

Color and Activity Book for Librarians: Or anybody who has worked at a library

The Color and Activity Book for Librarians contains more than 50 pages of activities, including

Library Lingo Word Search
Committee-avoidance Maze
Cataloger Empathy
Decoding Bureaucracy

Witty and offbeat, this book will be appreciated by anybody who has worked at a library, from pages and clerks to librarians and directors.

At Amazon you can browse some of the inside pages of the book.
See book here.