Jaclyn_McKewan

For the first time in its 500 year history, the Vatican Library is closing temporarily. One wing of the building was found to be unsafe, so the next three years will be spent on repairs. BBC News has the story.

teaperson writes “If the Boston Public Library has its way, Charlie (who was musically stranded by a fare increase on the Boston subway system, and is now the eponym for the subway’s new farecards), would always be able to find the library. The director is lobbying, so far unsuccessfully, to get the historic Copley station, right outside the historic main branch, renamed as Copley/Boston Public Library. Or he’ll settle for “Copley/BPL”. The MBTA doesn’t want to bother, even though it has stations named for various cultural institutions, including the ICA, which has moved many miles away from its stop (Hynes Convention Center/ICA, formerly Hynes Convention Center, formerly Auditorium).”

teaperson writes “The Boston Globe reports on an honors class at the University of Massachusetts-Boston called “Googling Alexandria — Libraries and the Construction of Knowledge”, designed to give “students access to rare books, to the primary sources or ‘raw stuff’ of literature and letting them become excited and inspired by these materials.”. The second semester of the symposium was devoted to creating an exhibit from the resources of the Boston Public Library’s rare books room.”

The New York Times reports on the Perry Branch of the Maricopa County Library District in Arizona, which does not use the Dewey Decimal System for arranging their books. (Previously written about at LISnews here and here.)

“I can’t run a shrine,” says Timothy Naftali, named last year as the Nixon library’s first federal director. Promising “a 360 degree look” at Watergate, he ordered the demolition of the existing exhibit, to be replaced by a more accurate account. The Concord Monitor has the story.

Melissa Jeffrey writes “Chris Anderson, the author of The Long Tail has started a new website, Booktour.com to facilitate authors and non-profit type venues to get together.”

Daniel writes “http://alaskanlibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/07/haine s-pl-offers-rss-discovery-tools-in.html

Haines Catalog can be found at http://www.haineslibrary.org/abl/“

Computer World reports on what user data is saved by the major search engines, and the possibility of personally-identifying information being discovered.

While not directly related to libraries, this article from the Washington Post discusses the fact that doubt (which fosters critical thinking) is increasingly looked upon as a bad thing, and that many of today’s leaders are not comfortable with uncertainty.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that the British Library recently unveiled Turning the Pages 2.0 – a 3D system that allows people to explore digitized versions of books and manuscripts. A competition is being held among public libraries throughout the United Kingdom to find items in their collections that most deserve to be converted into ‘virtual texts’ and posted for the public to view on the British Library’s website.