libraries
“As librarians, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to help.”
#libraries, #care, #humanity, #HelpEachOther, #GoodNews, #ToughTopics
I mean, would it kill you to let Cathy tell you about her ferrets?
#library #libraries #reader #readers #books #book #writingcommunity #ferrets #humor #humour
pals we went to the library today and they HAD my BOOK on their SHELVES
i know you can’t tell from the mask but i was legit beaming, this might’ve thrilled me more than spotting it in a bookstore
okay thanks
ps. I LOVE LIBRARIES
Does your public library use Overdrive/Libby for ebooks or audiobooks? ⚠️
In the US and Canada, the answer is probably yes. And you should speak to your library staff and commission about it.
Libby is now owned by a private equity firm & making sketchy changes: https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries/
The latest development is that their overbroad privacy policy allows them to sell your borrowing history to advertisers: https://infosec.exchange/@longobord/112243098104196246
Thank you @karawynn and @longobord!
A bill in Louisiana, HB 777, would make it a crime for librarians to use public funds to join the American Librarian Association or attend an ALA conference, punishable with prison time and hard labor for up to two years.
"The pile beside my bed never shrinks; at the bottom of the stack are books I've been planning to crack open for months. My shelves remain full of lingering aspirations," writes the Walrus's Michelle Cyca. She looks at the problem of unread books, and the difficulty in offloading our libraries. What do you do with your unwanted books?
@bookstodon #Books #Reading #Libraries #Literature
Options: (choose one)
How many libraries had "police having the tech to scan the RFID of a library book in a moving car" in their list of threat scenarios? 
Non-paywalled archived version - https://archive.is/bYszD
[muting for the weekend - get some time away from the screen this weekend!]
American librarian Herbert Putnam died #OTD in 1955.
Putnam's career in library administration began when he became the librarian of the Minneapolis Athenaeum in 1884. His success in Minneapolis led to his appointment as the librarian of the Boston Public Library in 1895. In 1899, Herbert Putnam was appointed the eighth Librarian of Congress, a position he held for 40 years until his retirement in 1939.
Ah, yes... a fresh stench of GOP control back where I used to live. 🤮 😠 Greenville County, #SouthCarolina stops all book fairs for all schools, since "It is not possible for school personnel to vet all book fair content after it arrives, nor can vendors provide accurate content information far enough in advance for it to be vetted through the District prior to the start of fall book fairs."
https://www.wyff4.com/article/greenville-county-schools-no-book-fairs/61945606
#OTD in 1870.
Libraries of the University of Strasbourg and the City of Strasbourg at Temple Neuf are destroyed by fire during the Siege of Strasbourg in the Franco-Prussian War, resulting in the loss of 3,446 medieval manuscripts, including the original 12th-century Hortus deliciarum compiled by Herrad of Landsberg, the Apologist codex containing the only text of the early Epistle to Diognetus, and rare Renaissance books.
"…the one certain thing is that #OverDrive, from its monopoly position, has begun the cycle of purposeful #enshittification: making their platform worse for both #libraries and their patrons with the sole aim of further enriching some of the most rapacious, amoral capitalists on the planet."
#publiclibraries
https://ninelives.karawynnlong.com/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries/
"Several large American #publishers sued #Florida…over a state law that prohibits sexual content in school #libraries. They argue that the law has ignited a wave of book removals in violation of the #FirstAmendment."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/florida-book-ban-lawsuit.html
PS: This is one of the rare occasions when I side with publishers in a lawsuit. (FYI, see the next post in this thread for the last time this happened.) This is a case in which the interests of publishers, authors, and readers align.
Newsletter: The recent Second Circuit decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive is only the latest battle in the war on libraries and the freedom to read.
https://www.citationneeded.news/hachette-v-internet-archive/
#InternetArchive #HachettevInternetArchive #libraries #newsletter #CitationNeeded
New Digital Library: Prado Museum Offers Free Online Access to More Than 11,500 Publications From the Late 15th to Early 20th Centuries
The Prado Museum’s new Digital Library, developed with funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), offers free access to 5600 issues of magazines and 6000 books specialized in artistic literature and published between the late 15th and early 20th centuries.
by Gary Price @infodocket
A most interesting chart. And most revealing.
#books #bookstodon #libraries
How many cats do you see? #CatsOfMastodon #cats #libraries #books #reading #amreading #booklovers #library #bookshelves
Libraries & Well-Being: A Case Study from The New York Public Library
By Daphna Blatt & Dr. E.K. Maloney
Dr. James O. Pawelski & Dr. Katherine N. Cotter
The NYPL’s Strategy and Public Impact team and the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project at the UPenn's Positive Psychology Center have released a new report as part of an ongoing collaboration to study and advocate for the role of public libraries in the communities they serve.
* "When the Patriot Act was passed, libraries got requests for patrons' borrowing history. We were prohibited from disclosing those requests.
* We deleted and shredded those records and stopped tracking reading history for that reason."
Happy National #library Week to you all! #libraries need your love and support right now, just as they love and support you. #bookstodon
Support the IMLS
If you’ve found useful the many mid-20th century serials that are now freely readable online through The Online Books Page, you can thank the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The IMLS (as it’s generally known) funded the completion in 2018 of a survey of copyrights I led for serials published before 1950. The completed survey made it possible for the first time to quickly ascertain the public domain status of decades of serials. It also laid the groundwork for our bigger Deep Backfile project that now documents rights and free online availability for well over 10,000 serials. I’d say that’s a pretty good return on a $25,000 IMLS investment.
The IMLS has made that kind of investment many times over, with libraries and museums across all 50 states. The IMLS makes a lot of mostly modest grants for projects and programs that make a big difference in the communities libraries and museums serve. You can read about a sampling of them in Devon Akmon’s recent Conversation article. Or you can ask your local librarian or museum curator. They may tell you how the IMLS supports them providing access to information online, promoting literacy, preserving unique parts of our country’s cultural heritage, and many other functions. They do it with a budget that requires less than $1 per American per year. It’s hard to imagine a more efficient use of government funds.
Despite its efficiency, the IMLS has been a recurrent target for elimination. The first Trump administration proposed eliminating the IMLS starting with its first budget request. But Congress listened to its constituents and continued to fund it. This time, however, Trump has tried to shut it down on his own, without involving Congress. He issued an executive order for IMLS’s activities to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law”, aiming to “effectuate an expected termination” of the agency. He also appointed a new acting director who’s pledged to act “in lockstep with this Administration” to carry out the president’s wishes.
So far, Trump has been unable to completely shut down the organization, as he has managed with some other agencies. When IMLS remote staffers got word that the new acting director and some of Elon Musk’s DOGE workers were going to come to the IMLS office last Thursday, they reported to the office in person, many of them dressed in formal (or funereal) black. Faced with more people than DOGE expected, an anonymous staffer related that “instead of laying everybody off immediately they left the building, because they didn’t want to create a scene with us there. Otherwise, they would have locked the doors and taken over our systems and sent a mass notification out to everyone.”
As I write this, IMLS is still operating. But in the next week, the new acting director may try to cut off its funding to libraries and museums. Or, he could try to make libraries and museums receiving funds to change their programs and collection policies to conform to his preferences, or Trump’s. The acting director has already issued a press release expressing his intent to”restore focus on patriotism”. And the president has not been hesitant to cut funding to institutions to make them change their programs to his liking, as some have now agreed to.
But right now, there’s still time for us who value libraries and museums to make our voices heard. We can tell our lawmakers that the IMLS should continue to be fully supported, and should support all the libraries and museums whose diverse programs and collections help make our country great. If you want to participate, see the calls to action at EveryLibrary and the American Alliance of Museums.
“We tend to take them for granted, but there’s something quietly radical about even the idea of a library and the intellectual freedom these local institutions inspire.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/librarians-trump-administration-cuts_l_67e59789e4b0455df70b3aa2
Introducing the Tinker WriterDeck OS!
Convert any laptop and most chromebooks into a writer deck: A device designed solely for writing.
No distractions.
No internet.
No apps. No games. No social media.
Just writing.
The Tinker WriterDeck is very light weight and specifically seeks to lower the barrier of entry to creating writer decks. It converts older, reused, refurbished, or inexpensive laptops into a dedicated writing machine.
A digital typewriter.
The Tinker WriterDeck sits on top of a "headless" Debian Linux image and boots directly into a console based text editor.
We're using the Tilde Text Editor because it is a simple text editor, has an intuitive User Interface, and allows for customized color schemes for light and dark modes.
Operating System download and instructions on how to convert your laptop into a dedicated writer deck for free are found here: https://tinker.sh
See below for an example of the writer deck in light mode and dark mode.
If anyone has any questions or needs any help setting your laptop up, let me know here!
#solarPunk #linux #writerDeck #bookstodon #writing #writingCommunity #author #libraries
Want to reduce crime? Science says: build more libraries.
By James Folta
https://lithub.com/want-to-reduce-crime-science-says-build-libraries/
