September 2018

“On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change,” he wrote. “It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours… need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible.”

According to anonymous sources, the Wayback Machine has since become more selective about accepting omission requests.

In a “post-fact” era, where fake news is rampant and basic truths are openly and brazenly disputed, the Wayback Machine is working to preserve a verifiable, unedited record of history — without obstruction.

“If we allow those who control the present to control the past then they control the future,” Kahle told Recode. “Whole newspapers go away. Countries blink on and off. If we want to know what happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, [the internet] is often the only record.”

From Inside Wayback Machine, the internet’s time capsule

He was paid a 50,000 euro ($80,000) salary as an archives director in Valencia’s provincial government, would show up to the office every morning at 7:30am to clock in using the fingerprint scanner before heading home, only returning to the office at 3:30pm to clock out.

He kept up the routine for 10 years before colleagues began to raise suspicions. After Spanish newspaper El Mundo broke the story 18 months ago, he was finally sacked, despite his insistence that he had done nothing wrong.

“I have only done what they have asked me to do,” he told the paper in January.

From Spanish public servant who skipped work for a decade gets nine-year ban

Welcome to Web Design Museum
The museum exhibits over 900 carefully selected and sorted web sites that show web design trends between the years 1995 and 2005.

From Web Design Museum

A British academic said she had to depart the U.S. quickly after her institution declined to submit paperwork to renew her temporary H-1B work visa on the grounds it likely wouldn’t be approved under standards used by the Trump administration.

From Hopkins librarian forced to leave country quickly over H-1B visa woes

Connie Perry, the president of the trustees of the Morgan County Public Library in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., said Friday afternoon by phone that her town library will carry Bob Woodward’s “Fear.”

Perry said the library board did not know that the library director had refused to accept a donated copy of “Fear” until the issue was raised in media reports.

“The board didn’t know anything about this,” Perry said. “We have corrected that. The book has been accepted — in fact, two of them.”

From The board of a West Virginia library reverses decision to refuse ‘Fear’ – The Washington Post

But the problem that libraries face today isn’t irrelevance. Indeed, in New York and many other cities, library circulation, program attendance and average hours spent visiting are up. The real problem that libraries face is that so many people are using them, and for such a wide variety of purposes, that library systems and their employees are overwhelmed. According to a 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, about half of all Americans ages 16 and over used a public library in the past year, and two-thirds say that closing their local branch would have a “major impact on their community.”

From Opinion | To Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library – The New York Times

Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell on why we need libraries – an essay in
Two great champions of reading for pleasure return to remind us that it really is an important thing to do – and that libraries create literate citizens

From Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell on why we need libraries – an essay in pictures | Books | The Guardian

In my rare calm moments as a curator (when I’m not sending a hundred emails or moving a hundred chairs), I often reflect that the literary world should make greater efforts to reach teenagers, and more high schools should promote contemporary literature by living authors. How else will we build the next generation of literary readers?

Writers need young people. Sigrid Nunez agreed. “I don’t think most people realize how much you can learn about the world from listening to young adults.”

From Every Book Tour Should Include a Public School | Literary Hub

EU and national funders launch plan for free and immediate open access to journals
The architect of ‘Plan-S’, Robert-Jan Smits, hopes to force a major change in the business model of academic publishers. The effect will be similar to the abolition of mobile phone roaming charges in Europe, he says

From EU and national funders launch plan for free and immediate open access to journals | Science|Business