Prostitution, adultery, eunuchs: Library dispute in Mobile, AL as one official ponders Bible ban
The culture wars over libraries and the debates over appropriate content on the bookshelves came to the Mobile City Council for the first time on Tuesday and were met with a rebuttal from one council member who questioned whether the Bible should be among those banned.
Why a ruling against the Internet Archive threatens the future of America%u2019s librariesThe decision locks libraries into an ecosystem that is not in readers; interests. Congress must act.
This decision harms libraries. It locks them into an e-book ecosystem designed to extract as much money as possible while harvesting (and reselling) reader data en masse. It leaves local communities’ reading habits at the mercy of curatorial decisions made by four dominant publishing companies thousands of miles away. It steers Americans away from one of the few remaining bastions of privacy protection and funnels them into a surveillance ecosystem that, like Big Tech, becomes more dangerous with each passing data breach. And by increasing the price for access to knowledge, it puts up even more barriers between underserved communities and the American dream.
Nebraska Library Commission hears from public over controversial new appointment
At a Nebraska Library Commission meeting on Friday, citizens expressed concerns over Gov. Jim Pillen’s appointment of Terri Cunningham-Swanson to the commission.
Cunningham-Swanson was ousted from the Plattsmouth Board of Education earlier this year, with those in favor of her removal claiming she cost taxpayers thousands in legal fees and made efforts to ban more than 50 books from libraries in Plattsmouth.
During public comment on Friday, many speakers shared the same notions, including Cunningham-Swanson’s son, D’Shawn Le’Vell.
“I personally think the appointment of my mother reeks of corruption on the part of Governor Pillen,” he said. “My mother is massively unqualified to be in this position.”
Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray AreaThe nonprofit published thousands of ebooks for free, violating copyright law. What that means for research libraries remains to be seen.
Seattle Public Library recovers from ransomware attack, makes moves to strengthen tech security
“The work to strengthen our systems began prior to the attack, but remaining items in IT’s work plan were expedited after the attack,” said Laura Gentry, head of communications for the library. “Since Memorial Day weekend, the library expedited migration to SharePoint Online, as well as implementation of multi-factor authentication on staff systems — which took place over the course of three days, rather than the weeks-long process we had planned.”
Cybersecurity Pilot Program Launched by FCC to Defend Schools, Libraries
The Federal Communications Commission announced Wednesday its $200 million Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program is just days away from being operational. Eligible K-12 schools and libraries can apply for funding starting September 17, with the window closing on November 1, according to the agency’s public notice.
The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending
The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in a fight to lend out scanned ebooks without the approval of publishers. In a decision on Wednesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that permitting the Internet Archive’s digital library would “allow for widescale copying that deprives creators of compensation and diminishes the incentive to produce new works.”
By day, he’s a 41-year-old working in business development for a London law firm. By night, he’s a music industry crusader %u2013 digging up obscure gems and persuading record labels to make them available online.
Over the last six years, he’s been responsible for 725 releases, including tracks by Sting, Cher and Annie Lennox, with a strong bias for late 90s pop acts such as Billie Piper, S Club and A*Teens.
He’ll admit itis a very strange thing to do, but it gives people a lot of happiness so why not?%u201D he tells the BBC.
Record labels forgot these songs existed. One man rescued them
%u201CLibraries are what%u2019s right with the world,%u201D LaCava explained, noting that the vast majority of librarians are friendly and welcoming. %u201CThere are no expectations.%u201D
LaCava, who grew up in Iowa, moved to Rhode Island 15 years ago with her family and made it a priority to secure a brand new library card.
Woman makes it her mission to visit RI’s 70 public libraries
What Books Last and (Mostly) Don’t Last
“I’ll save the speculation for a science fiction novel, I suppose. But even limiting ourselves to literature, it%u2019s simply the case that what endures has minimal correlation to either contemporaneous popularity or contemporaneous acclaim. Acclaim has a bit better track record%u2014the names of early Pulitzer Prize winners are more familiar than the names of bestselling novels of the 1920s for example%u2014but neither is a guarantee of anything. Here%u2019s the bestseller list of 1924, which includes titles so obscure they have red-ink dead links because no one has bothered to even make a perfunctory Wikipedia page for them…”
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