Libraries Work!, a research report released last month, demonstrates that every dollar invested in Victorian public libraries generates more than four times that value in benefits to the local community.
Blake
The Internet’s keepers? “Some call us hoarders—I like to say we’re archivists”
The longtime non-profit’s physical space remains easy to comprehend, at least, so Graham starts there. The main operation now runs out of an old church (pews still intact) in San Francisco, with the Internet Archive today employing nearly 200 staffers. The archive also maintains a nearby warehouse for storing physical media—not just books, but things like vinyl records, too. That’s where Graham jokes the main unit of measurement is “shipping container.” The archive gets that much material every two weeks.
The company currently stands as the second-largest scanner of books in the world, next to Google.
From The Internet’s keepers? “Some call us hoarders—I like to say we’re archivists” | Ars Technica
In 1979, a chain email about science fiction spawned the modern internet.
But the message sent to Cerf’s email wasn’t a technical request. And it hadn’t been sent just to him. Instead, an email with the subject line “SF-LOVERS” had been sent to Cerf and his colleagues scattered across the United States. The message asked all of them to respond with a list of their favorite science fiction authors. Because the message had gone out to the entire network, everybody’s answers could then be seen and responded to by everybody else. Users could also choose to send their replies to just one person or a subgroup, generating scores of smaller discussions that eventually fed back into the whole.
About 40 years later, Cerf still recalls this as the moment he realized that the internet would be something more than every other communications technology before it. “It was clear we had a social medium on our hands,” he said.
From In 1979, a chain email about science fiction spawned the modern internet.
Inside Wayback Machine, the internet’s time capsule
“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.”
Archivist who skipped work for a decade without anyone noticing spent his free time running a male brothel and drawing erotic comics.
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
Web Design Museum
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
Hopkins librarian forced to leave country quickly over H-1B visa woes
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
The board of a West Virginia library reverses decision to refuse ‘Fear’
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
Opinion | To Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library – The New York Times
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 pictures
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
Recent Comments