Haaretz: Deal Reached With Israeli Gov’t to Protect National Library’s Independence. “Israel’s education minister and the National Library of Israel have reached an agreement on the appointment of senior library officials, ending government efforts to undermine the institution’s independence.”
From the National Library of Spain, and Google-translated from Spanish: New boost to digitization, access and digital reuse in the BNE. “The project that is being launched now, starting in March and for the next two years, will develop a program to support and promote processes related to digitization, electronic legal deposit, digital preservation, access possibilities, and promotion of its reuse.”
Daily Beacon (University of Tennessee): UT libraries creates ‘Jargon Blaster’ game to aid students in understanding common library jargon. “UT libraries have vast collections of resources and services available, but they can be difficult to navigate and hard to understand. Library terms can be confusing. Playing the game will help users clarify their knowledge. Users can click through definitions each round to refresh their memory before diving into the questions.”
Library of Congress: Updated Federal Library Directory Increases Accessibility to US Agency Libraries. “The ‘Federal Library Directory,’ now in an updated second edition, profiles federal libraries and information centers in the United States and abroad. Presented with an interactive map, the directory displays geographic and collections data from nearly 1,400 federal libraries.”
Queens Public Library: Queens Public Library Partners With Libraries, Museums And Archives Across The Country To Celebrate 50 Years Of Hip Hop. “As part of the six-month celebration — titled ‘Collections of Culture: 50 Years of Hip Hop Inside Libraries, Museums and Archives’ and funded through a $267,760 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) — participating institutions will host dozens of in-person and virtual programs – including panel discussions, author talks, educational forums, and workshops – examining the genre’s history and influence on American culture and the contributions of its musicians, DJs, dancers, MCs, graffiti artists, stylists, directors, photographers, entrepreneurs and educators.”
Publishers Weekly: With New Model Language, Library E-book Bills Are Back. “… with the 2023 legislative year underway, library advocates are back with new model legislation they say can help ensure ‘fair and equitable licensing terms in e-book contracts for libraries’ while avoiding the thorny copyright issue that doomed Maryland’s law.”
National Library of the Netherlands: Libraries make their foreign language collections easier to find. “The dashboard lists all non-Dutch language books available for borrowing in libraries in the Netherlands, or in the online Library…. At the moment, the foreign language collections of 712 libraries are included, offering over 527,000 titles in 161 languages.”
Distant Librarian: Bing Chat and a quick Library Metadata test. “I just got access to Bing Chat, so let’s see what it can do in the library world. I found myself on the monthly AI4LAM Community Call first thing this AM, and the topic was the use of ChatGPT in Libraries, Archives and Museums. While not my area of expertise, one of the examples shared was how well ChatGPT was able to do some JSON FOLIO work. Bing did not like this area!”
Brookings Institution: Politics and school libraries: What shapes students’ access to controversial content. “My school library sample consists of 5,240 elementary/middle and 1,391 high schools in 48 states. This sample includes schools in rural and urban areas, schools in counties with conservative and liberal political leanings, and schools that serve students of very different backgrounds. I use these data to identify patterns in library resources and content, especially as they relate to political preferences, state laws, and book bans.”
Publishers Weekly: Record Number of Libraries Surpassed One Million Digital Lends in 2022. “In a release, OverDrive officials said 10 library systems hit this milestone for the first time in 2022 (down from 22 in 2021, and 29 in 2020). Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Public Library became the first library system to surpass 10 million digital circulations via OverDrive.”
University of California Davis: University of California to Research Expanded Access to Digitized Books. “The University of California libraries — which comprise the largest university research library in the world — are launching a landmark research project to investigate the potential for expanded lawful use of digitized books held by academic and research libraries. The Mellon Foundation is providing $1.1 million support for Project LEND (Library Expansion of Networked Delivery), a two-year project that the UC Davis Library will lead on behalf of the 10-campus UC system.”
Cracked: 5 Ways Libraries Used to Be Hardcore. I hate the intro to this one so let’s just say it’s about really tough cool librarians. Skip the intro.
New York Times: Librarians Are Meeting Younger Readers Where They Are: TikTok. “The pandemic wiped out decades of progress in children’s reading skills. So what’s a librarian hoping to engage children and teenagers with books and reading to do? ‘Meet them where they are,’ said Sara Day, a teen services librarian at the Woodland Public Library in Woodland, Calif. And that, she said, is on TikTok.”
Defector Media: When Adults Banned Their Books, These Teens Fought Back By Organizing. “Meghana Nakkanti really loved the book Homegoing. The 18-year-old high school student in Nixa, Mo., loved how author Yaa Gyasi’s work of historical fiction, following the descendants of one Ghanaian woman across multiple families and two centuries in both Ghana and the United States, delved into intergenerational trauma. But Homegoing was also one of more than a dozen books that parents at Nakkanti’s school wanted to ban. She found this not just odd, but also extremely disconcerting. So, she and her fellow students mobilized.”
Motherboard: Libraries Are Launching Their Own Local Music Streaming Platforms. “Over a dozen public libraries in the U.S. and Canada have begun offering their own music streaming services to patrons, with the goal of boosting artists and local music scenes. The services are region-specific, and offer local artists non-exclusive licenses to make their albums available to the community.”
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