Libraries

When appraisers discovered $8 million in rare books missing from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, investigators knew where to turn. As archivist and manager of the William R. Oliver Special Collections Room for 25 years, Gregory Priore let visitors in—and, allegedly, let some 320 items out.

'Spectacular' ancient public library discovered in Germany Remains of grand building that may have housed up to 20,000 scrolls uncovered in central Cologne, dating back to second century AD

After years of relatively little change in the library e-book market, there has finally been some movement—unfortunately, librarians say, it is movement in the wrong direction.

Michelle Obama and Carla Hayden at ALA

It seems the book world doesn’t think readers want to see women of a certain age on their novels – even if that is precisely what the books are about.

According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, almost one in four Americans has not read a book in the past year. So to find out if that is true, we sent a team to the street to ask pedestrians to name a book, and here are the very sad results.

Bold efforts to push academic publishing towards an open-access model are gaining steam. Negotiators from libraries and university consortia across Europe are sharing tactics on how to broker new kinds of contracts that could see more articles appear outside paywalls. And inspired by the results of a stand-off in Germany, they increasingly declare that if they don’t like what publishers offer, they will refuse to pay for journal access at all.

Swedish universities have moved to cancel their contract with journal publisher Elsevier as concern over slow progress towards open access spreads. The Bibsam Consortium, which represents 85 higher education and research institutions in the country, said that its current agreement with Elsevier would not be renewed after 30 June.

Uplifting monument or waste of space? Philip Johnson’s Bobst Library and a conflict between professions, a shift from book warehouses to social hubs. Photographs by Andrea Geyer.

At 157ft tall and 17 floors, Cambridge University Library’s tower can be seen for miles around but has largely kept its secrets to itself and its contents (approaching one million books) have given rise to much speculation. But now in a new free exhibition, Tall Tales: Secrets of the tower, we reveal some of the truth about what the great skyscraper really holds.