Tag Archives: librarianship

Cut in Alexandria, VA, library hours not needed, says city staff memo. Also: Councilman Justin Wilson endorses LibraryCity’s national digital library endowment plan

Justin Wilson, a councilman in Alexandria, VA, Amazon’s “most well-read” city, now threatened with a reduction in library hours, has shared a city staff memo saying that the hours cuts aren’t necessary. He says the library board will have the final say. Would board members challenge the memo? I’ll try to reach Board Chair Kathleen [...]

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Is your local library budget about to be slashed? Here’s an example of how you can fight back

This letter has gone to Mayor William Euille (photo below, contact information here for him and other top officials) in Alexandria, VA, the town that Amazon inaccurately depicted as America’s book city #1. Also see a local Friends group’s talking points for library advocates—and the other side: a city staff memo saying the library board [...]

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Promising DPLA debut—but please don’t confuse special-collection items, exhibits and APIs with a full-fledged ‘public library’ demo

A caveat first. The Digital Public Library of America is evolving. What’s more, I’m a booster of the organization and of the people behind it, including the new executive director, Dan Cohen, who so decently reacted after the Boston Marathon bombings. But for now, the academic-and-hacker mindset is prevailing at the DPLA over the traditional [...]

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LibraryCity’s take on K-12 libraries and the Digital Public Library of America

Yes, LibraryCity has been on an S. R. Ranganathan kick lately (here and here). Still ahead is a DPLA-related essay on his Five Laws of Library Science as applied to K-12, including school libraries—a follow-up to the LibraryCity post by Apple Distinguished Educator Donald R. Smith, a teacher-librarian with 40 years of experience. If you [...]

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Sad fate of ‘Five Laws’ book shows need for DPLA-related efforts to keep old masterpieces alive

Oh, the irony! In The Five Laws of Library Science, S. R. Ranganathan argued in the 1930s for libraries as improvers of life for rich and poor alike. Now Google Books has digitized 30 million titles, but you won’t find Laws on the Web in its entirety from Google at any price. You’ll see a [...]

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Beyond a ‘Digital Attic’: How the DPLA can honor the Five Laws of Library Science—and help libraries in Orange County, Florida

This is the era of bits and bytes and multimedia and 3D printing, not just books and other texts. But Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science would still apply today in spirit even after more than eighty years. Educated originally as a mathematician, S. R. Ranganathan was a library-science genius who studied librarianship [...]

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Later today at LibraryCity.org: The DPLA and the Five Laws of Library Science

If Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan were alive, what would he think of the Digital Public Library of America? Is the DPLA’s present vision in line with his Five Laws of Library Science? Later today, Washington, D.C., time. (Update: Online late Saturday.) For now, enjoy the holidays. And while you’re at it, check out a child-oriented library [...]

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FAQ on National Digital Library endowment plan going online this weekend: Be a part of it

Update, April 18, 2013: The FAQ is here. Feedback still welcome! Librarians and others can help build a National Digital Library Endowment FAQ—with questions, suggested answers and other ideas. Just email. Yes, I know: If you’re a typical librarian, for example, you’re busy enough with your regular work But this is an invitation to those [...]

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Was librarian David Faucheux the world’s first blind blogger?

Was my friend David Faucheux—a library and information science graduate—the world’s first blind blogger? Any librarians or others know the answer? I set David up in May 2004 on a commercial audio service, which he dialed up to submit recordings, often augmented with text. For the next four years David gave us an inimitable slice [...]

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A national digital library endowment: How America’s billionaires could be modern Carnegies for real

Update: James Fallows’s blog on The Atlantic’s site reproduced part of this proposal, and the long version appeared in Sabrina Pacifici’s award-winning LLRX library journal. More details and an FAQ on the proposal are here. Warren Buffett was on CBS Sunday Morning. The interviewer, Rebecca Jarvis, asked if he owned an iPad. No. iPhone. No. [...]

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Dwarf-sized public e-libraries vs. abundance: Listen to veteran publishing guru Brian O’Leary and librarian Sarah Houghton

People in Bexar County, Texas, should be excited about the 10,000-e-book “BiblioTech” library system that the country is starting from scratch—without paper books. This is reportedly the first U.S. public library system to shun paper, cardboard and ink, except for computer printouts. Any books are better than none, and besides, the 10K figure encompasses only [...]

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Toward a Library-Publisher Complex for the digital era: Where the money is for both sides

The Military-Industrial Complex in Alexandria… I live in the Washington suburbs, where “Military-Industrial Complex” is more than just rhetoric in an Eisenhower speech from 1961. Just across 1-395 from me, here in Alexandria, Virginia, loom the twin towers of the $1+ billion Quarter Pentagon, featured in this Army Corps of Engineers video bragging of its [...]

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