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Significant works of art @ your library

From today’s New York Times:

Libraries are, as conventional wisdom suggests, about books rather than art objects. Nevertheless, significant works of art have found their way into many libraries, some acquired by purchase but most by donation.

A large case in point is the main building of the New York Public Library, which over the years has received an impressive array of art from important donors. But maintaining that it is not a museum, the library has from time to time put works up for sale, and recently announced that it would dispose of the cream of its art collection to raise money to buy books and manuscripts and to pep up its endowment …

Recent visits to some of these institutions reveal that while their holdings may not be in depth, they cover a wide range. Lively murals by W.P.A. artists at the public libraries, portraits by earlier American painters at two private libraries, a collage by the New York School painter Esteban Vicente at the Cooper Union, and works by New York contemporary artists at the City College of New York are among them.

Complete article (registration required).

April 29, 2005 by Librarians Libraries School Libraries

UK MLA on library, archives, & museum web accessibility

An audit of the websites of 300 museums, libraries, and archives by British government’s Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council found that accessibility for the disabled remains limited:

The research undertaken by City University for this report shows that the current level of accessibility of museum, library and archive websites is not high. Less than half the sites audited (42%) met the most basic technical accessibility guidelines and a User Panel of disabled people did not find them particularly easy to use.

Complete report via Resource Shelf. Managing Information managed to put a positive spin on the news.

April 20, 2005 by Archives Internet Librarians Libraries Museums

Deep cuts at Liverpool (UK) Central Library

Liverpool’s Central Library may lose 20 staff members, roughly 1/5 of its acquisitions budget, and evening hours if a proposed budget cut is passed:

Andrew Coburn, secretary of the national charity the Library Campaign Group, led calls for the city council to re-consider.

“The whole point of setting up libraries, particularly in urban centres like Liverpool, was to provide access to literature and education for all, regardless of means.”

“That is still the case, there are people who can’t necessarily afford to buy books, and others who don’t have a place to sit down and study, who will seriously lose out if the hours are cut back.”

“Cutting back the evening opening hours is clearly going to have a severe impact at a time when, nationally, the Government is actively encouraging more people to read books.”

Complete article from Cheshire Online.

March 29, 2005 by Internet Librarians Libraries

Grappling with digital preservation in NZ

The government of New Zealand has committed $24 million to a National Library-led digital preservation effort:


Penny Carnaby, the National Library’s chief librarian, says much of our history could be lost because of the digital age in which we live.

In pre-internet times, most of our heritage was printed, painted or recorded. But now, a lot of the material that future historians will want to study to give them a sense of what New Zealand was like in 2005 is online.

A lot of information and commentary on recent events that New Zealanders have felt enormously proud of – The Lord of the Rings trilogy or the America’s Cup – is on the web and not in print, says Carnaby.

Complete article from the New Zealand Herald.

March 29, 2005 by Internet Libraries

Expert roundtable on digital preservation

A discussion held by the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee:

We take paper for granted as a storage medium for knowledge. Libraries, where many of us seek out this knowledge, have evolved over many centuries, enabling us to store and retrieve paper mediums – such as books or journals – reasonably quickly and effectively. Along comes modern technology and information can be stored on a hard disk somewhere, accessible, as with paper based objects, for generations to come. It means we can now visit our libraries from almost anywhere at anytime. And the material we can access from these ‘virtual’ knowledge centres keeps growing, which is fantastic. We can rest assured that our knowledge heritage is preserved for us in these new technologically enabled electronic formats for future generations. Or is it?

At a recent meeting of Project Managers for JISC’s CSR2 programme, we met up and discussed digital preservation with some leading experts. It seems that there is still little appreciation or understanding of how knowledge, which is now being stored digitally, can or should be effectively preserved for us to use and enjoy in the future.

Complete article.

March 28, 2005 by Libraries

Looking back on a year of progress

A nice profile of Gary Mason, who recently completed his first year as director of the Rye [NH] Public Library:

The soft-spoken Mason sat and talked about the past year’s accomplishments and about the future in a section of the library that looks more like a comfy living room, one of the ideas he brought to the library. Patrons are encouraged to sit there and read. A few comfy chairs scattered through the library and coffee add to the welcoming atmosphere.

“This was our biography room,” Mason said. “We moved that to the regular stacks and made the space.”

There are still books in the space, but along the walls. Mason is working on collections of American classics and one on world literature. The library is open an additional eight hours, and materials can be checked out for a longer period of time, changes made under Mason’s watch.

Complete article from the Portsmouth Herald.

March 28, 2005 by Internet Libraries

Librarians testify in support of student privacy

Maine librarians have testified against a bill that would require them to reveal students’ borrowing records to their parents:

[Gardiner Public Library Director Anne] Davis called the bill unnecessary, a liability for libraries and a breech of ethics for librarians.

“By the time a minor reaches the age of 12 or 13, they are learning to make choices,” she said. “What better way to teach them to make good choices than to allow them unimpeded access to the information found in the library?”

Complete article from the Kennebec Journal.

March 28, 2005 by Librarians Libraries Privacy

A “customer-led” future for UK libraries?

Library Journal reports on a 2/18 report by the British Library-associated Futures Group urging changes in the way UK public libraries do business:

Among the conclusions: library services must follow the retail industry by being “customer-led;� staff may have to adopt a corporate appearance, wear a uniform, or adhere to a dress code; staff should spend more time “on the floor;� library schools should do better at teaching management skills; and libraries may share sites with other local services or commercial enterprises, or even be “virtual libraries.�

Complete article. The full report is available here.

March 23, 2005 by Libraries School Libraries

U. of Hawaii’s library reopens after major flood

On March 29, five months after the Manoa flood swept through the University of Hawai’i campus, inundating the basement of Hamilton Library, among other buildings, Hamilton will be almost completely reopened to the public.

Tina Rutsch says she’s going to wear a party hat.

“I’m really excited about having the access back,” said Rutsch, 26, an American Studies graduate student …

“Just being able to browse is helpful in my research,” she said. “I’ll look for one book and then seeing the ones around it I’ll think, ‘Hey, that will be good, too.'”

Complete article from the Honolulu Advertiser Articles about, and photos of, the flood and recovery are available at the library’s website.

March 20, 2005 by Librarians Libraries

More on the mythical librarian shortage

Up there with WMDs and the Social Security “crisis”, it would seem, is the librarian shortage – another pernicious fib that resists debunking. Library Dust’s Michael McGrorty weighs in:

A common complaint among current and former students is that they entered library school with the expectation that jobs would be not merely available, but plentiful. This information did not rise into the consciousness of thousands of people independently, but came for the most part from the schools themselves, and if not, was certainly not contradicted by them. Now, when the market is shrunken, the members of that loose cartel continue to accept students and produce graduates at a pace which ignores the reality of the market—because there has never been a penalty for encouraging the dreams of library students, and because, after all, that is their business.

Complete entry via librarian.net.

March 17, 2005 by Librarians Libraries School Libraries

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