All summer, kids have been hanging out in front of the Morris Park Library in the Bronx, before opening hours and after closing. They bring their computers to pick up the Wi-Fi signal that is leaking out of the building, because they can’t afford internet access at home. They’re there during the school year, too, even during the winter — it’s the only way they can complete their online math homework.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/opinion/too-poor-to-afford-the-internet.html?_r=0
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is a popular choice for book groups around the world. But it turns out that American readers may be enjoying a rather different experience to those in Britain, after an academic uncovered “astonishing” differences between the US and UK editions of the award-winning novel.
Professor Martin Paul Eve of Birkbeck, University of London was writing a paper on Cloud Atlas, working from the UK paperback published by Sceptre, and from a Kindle edition of the novel, when he realised he was unable to find phrases in the ebook that he could distinctly remember from the paperback. He compared the US and UK editions of the book, and realised they were “quite different to one another”.
From Cloud Atlas ‘astonishingly different’ in US and UK editions, study finds | Books | The Guardian
Museums can keep pace with the times and changing attendance rates by adopting a modern and interactive way of presenting the items on display. The AMLABEL Digital Gallery Display is an editable, real-time in-gallery digital label developed on electronic paper to replace existing gallery cards.
McCahill told Berners-Lee that he would need to look at the Web more closely. But it wasn’t much to look at when McCahill went back to Minnesota and examined it. There were no graphics yet. It was still only running on NeXT computers. “I wasn’t feeling it,” McCahill says. I told him, ‘Tim, I don’t think so.’ Of course, I look back and say, ‘I might have been wrong.’ ”
Michael Kelly checked out ‘So You Want to Be a Doctor’ in 1970. Since then, libraries have changed – dramatically, in some cases – to keep pace with changing reading habits and technology.
From 40-year overdue library book incurs no fee – but gratitude inspires donation – CSMonitor.com
Library anxiety is real. The phenomenon, which involves feeling intimidated, embarrassed, and overwhelmed by libraries and librarians, was first identified by Constance A. Mellon in 1986. Her paper, “Library Anxiety: A Grounded Theory and Its Development,” reported that college students in particular are prone to library anxiety because they believe their research skills are inadequate, which makes them feel ashamed and unwilling to talk to the very librarians who might be able to ease their worries.
From The Strange Affliction of ‘Library Anxiety’ and What Librarians Do to Help | Atlas Obscura
Still, the American Girl puberty books have managed to stay relevant for two decades, so I’m hopeful that they will continue to change with the times. And it’s promising to see that the series is taking baby steps toward loosening up its famously conservative brand. After all, for this tween growing up in the late ’90s, these books were a guide through a wilderness of raging hormones and new social pressures. I can only imagine how life-changing they’d have been if they’d taught me how to match my bra strap to my shirt.
From How American Girl puberty books shaped a generation of tweens.
We are pleased to announce an event on Aug. 16, 2016, to celebrate the union of Marcus Books and the African American Arts and Culture Complex (AAACC) in the Fillmore District of San Francisco. Over the past few months, Marcus Books and the African American Arts and Culture Complex have been collaborating on the details of their new partnership which will manifest as a bookstore within the first floor lobby of the complex.
From San Francisco Bay View » Marcus Books is coming back to San Francisco
Ideally positioned in King’s Cross, just a stone’s throw from the mythical beginning of the journey to Hogwarts on Platform 9 3/4, the British Library has announced it will be marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone next year with a new exhibition about JK Rowling’s wizarding world.
From Harry Potter’s 20th birthday to be marked with British Library show | Books | The Guardian
Hypertext is truly a new and unique environment. Artists who work there must be read there. And they will probably be judged there as well: criticism, like fiction, is moving off the page and on line, and it is itself susceptible to continuous changes of mind and text. Fluidity, contingency, indeterminacy, plurality, discontinuity are the hypertext buzzwords of the day, and they seem to be fast becoming principles, in the same way that relativity not so long ago displaced the falling apple.
From The End of Books
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