Blake

She was KC’s ground-breaking librarian. Then she was told her job was ‘for a man’

Carrie E. Westlake was born on a Virginia plantation in 1851. That same year, her father, Wellington, was awarded land in Winfield, Iowa, for his services in the U.S. Army. The family made the 600-mile journey west in a canvas-covered wagon Upon arrival, they built a stock farm.

Meet Kansas City’s first librarian, a ground-breaking woman

On March 16, 1881, she was hired at $30 per month with the stipulation that she was to meet the school board’s rigorous demands — the library was to operate as a sphere of “intelligence and information for the entire city,” and it was her duty to instill within the city’s children “a correct taste for reading the best authors.”

December 2, 2024 by Librarians Public Libraries

Trump’s promises to conservatives raise fears of more book bans in US

“It’s not just about taking a book off a shelf,” said Tasslyn Magnusson, an author and teacher from Wisconsin who tracks book censorship across the U.S. “It’s about power and who controls public education. It’s about what kind of America we were and are. We’re trying to define what family is and what America means. That comes down to the stories we tell.”

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/nov/26/trumps-promises-to-conservatives-raise-fears-of-mo/

November 27, 2024 by Censorship

HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors’ Work to AI Company

HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors’ Work to AI Company
The Big Five publisher made a deal with an unnamed “artificial intelligence technology company” and is allowing authors to opt-in if they want to join the agreement.

Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger told PW she appreciates the way Harper has approached its first foray into AI licensing, citing the opt-in model, which effectively acknowledges that the right to license works for AI rests with the author, as well as such other protective terms as limiting verbatim text output. And while she has some qualms about the 50-50 split between author and publisher in the Harper deal, she is pleased that Harper has acknowledged that this early agreement is outside of the standard publishing contract. “HarperCollins agrees that the AI deal is a one off,” she said, “and not setting a precedent for future agreements.”

November 20, 2024 by AI Authors

In a new information age, news outlets are partnering with public libraries

In a new information age, news outlets are partnering with public librariesDallas in particular is a hub for library-media collaborations.

This level of trust makes libraries a good place for journalists to engage with the public. Tom Huang, the assistant managing editor at The Dallas Morning News, spearheaded outreach to the local library system. He said libraries offer an avenue for journalists to keep their work relevant in a changing world.

“I’ve always said newsrooms can’t afford to be the traditional ones where we’re closed off from the community,” he said. “But that’s a lot of hard work. And, since libraries have largely figured that out, why not partner with the libraries to do that?”

November 20, 2024 by Libraries

Like “old Twitter” The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky

Like “old Twitter” The scientific community finds a new home on BlueskyAfter recent changes to Elon Musk’s X, a gradual migration turns into a stampede

“It’s just gone completely crazy,” says Mike Young, a science communicator in Denmark who gives social media workshops to scientists. He and his colleague Lasse Hjorth Madsen did an analysis in August mapping science communities on Bluesky. They found more than 20,000 influential scientists—people on the platform who were followed by at least 30 other scientists in the same network. When they repeated the analysis last week with an increased threshold of 40 scientist followers, the new number of influential scientists was almost 40,000. It is likely to be many times that now, Young says.

November 20, 2024 by Internet

LISNews Archives