January 2019

On Saturday, Hennepin County Library hosted the first event in its new “Vinyl Revival” series, which aims to bring attention to the thriving audio format. Through June, artists will present vinyl-themed programming and curate records from the library’s stacks, many of which are the works of local musicians.

The library also converted a small meeting room on the third floor into a listening room equipped with a turntable and headphones, which people can reserve to listen to the artist-selected picks.

From Minneapolis Central Library opens vinyl listening room to share collection – StarTribune.com

The university’s Houghton Library, which began acquiring the poet’s manuscripts and other papers in 1986, has announced the acquisition of the John Ashbery Reading Library, which includes more than 5,000 books of poetry, art criticism, architectural history, philosophy, religious history and cookbooks collected over the poet’s lifetime.

The collection, which was donated by Mr. Ashbery’s husband, David Kermani, convey the traces of the poet’s thought, and also of his hand. There are annotated editions of books by Boris Pasternak, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche and others, as well as the copy of the “Oxford Book of American Verse” he used as an undergraduate, with pressed flowers used as bookmarks.

From For John Ashbery’s Personal Library, a Spot on the Shelves at Harvard – The New York Times

“Without a book, so often the child is alone,” says Antonio La Cava.

The retired schoolteacher converted his three-wheeled van into a mobile library, the Bibliomotocarro. Driving the hills and mountains of Basilicata, Italy, La Cava is able to reach children in remote villages like San Paolo Albanese, which only has two children of primary school age.

From BBC – Culture – The tiny library bringing books to remote villages

This is not the portrait of a family man, no matter his desire or intention, but of someone coming apart at the seams. “I wake to more horrors than Celine,” he writes in the Joan Anderson Letter, “not a vain statement for now I’ve passed thru just repetitious shudderings and nightmare twitches.” Seventeen years later, at his death, not so much had changed.

Yes, the letter helped to reshape Kerouac’s ideas on writing; without it, “On the Road” would have been a very different book. But it also framed Cassady as larger than life, which was both a blessing and a curse. “Legacy?” wonders Ferlinghetti. “His legacy is what Kerouac made of him. What else would his legacy be?”

From The Beats’ Holy Grail: The Letter That Inspired On the Road | Literary Hub

At least, that’s the point the Milwaukee Public Library tried to make earlier this fall when it hijacked those brands’ logos. In an effort to get locals to reconsider the library and what it could do for them, the Milwaukee Public Library and creative shop BVK revamped brand logos. Then it created print work with copy touting the library’s similar offerings to the brand in question and posted the work at local restaurants and bars. The result? It worked.

From The Milwaukee Public Library Hijacked Brand Logos Like YouTube, Netflix and Spotify to Promote Itself – Adweek

I get a sick feeling in my stomach even now as I remember how long it took to answer that question. I started by looking through the library’s “Finding Aids,” a version of a catalogue, in black looseleaf notebooks, which listed the titles of the file folders in each box. Just for Johnson’s “House of Representatives Papers,” the general files from his eleven years in that body, the time before he became a senator and then President, there were three hundred and forty-nine boxes. And those weren’t the only boxes that contained letters, memoranda, reports, speech drafts, etc., that dealt with this period. There were, for example, the LBJA files, which included documents that Johnson’s staff had, at various times, shifted from the general “House Papers” and put into other groupings—the library calls them “collections”—such as the “Selected Names” files, which contained correspondence and other material with “close associates.” At least it wouldn’t be me alone turning the pages. Working in the Reading Room with me would be Ina, whose thoroughness and perceptivity in doing research I had learned to trust.

From The Secrets of Lyndon Johnson’s Archives, by Robert A. Caro | The New Yorker

Until recently, that culture seemed doomed to become a relic of the analog past. After Russia’s rocky transition from Communism and the rise of the Internet, there seemed little use for the more than 400 city libraries as public spaces fell into neglect and Russians found new sources of information. Unexpectedly, Moscow’s libraries are now experiencing a transformation from musty houses of Soviet propaganda into bustling work spaces for 21st century city-dwellers.

From Once Centers Of Soviet Propaganda, Moscow’s Libraries Are Having A ‘Loud’ Revival : NPR

The hunt for the millions of books stolen by the Nazis during World War II has been pursued quietly and diligently for decades, but it has been largely ignored, even as the search for lost art drew headlines. The plundered volumes seldom carried the same glamour as the looted paintings, which were often masterpieces worth millions of dollars.

But recently, with little fanfare, the search for the books has intensified, driven by researchers in America and Europe who have developed a road map of sorts to track the stolen books, many of which are still hiding in plain sight on library shelves throughout Europe.

From The Hunt for the Nazi Loot Still Sitting on Library Shelves – The New York Times

“It’s devastating,” said Sallie Seabury, president of the Fort Myers Beach Public Library board. “We were having a book sale and he went to open the doors.”

Police tape cordoned off the main entrance to the library and blood could be seen by the front doors.

From Man held in fatal stabbing of director of Fort Myers Beach library

The project is “a fundamental rethinking of what a research library in this century in an academic institution is supposed to do,” Catherine Murray-Rust, Georgia Tech’s dean of libraries, told Business Insider.

Under the new renovations, students will be able to borrow library books the same as always. Only now, when they find a book in the digital catalog and scan their library cards, the book must be delivered from the storage site five miles away from campus.

From Why Georgia Tech is moving 95% of its library books off campus – Business Insider