Why Libraries Still Matter

"Why Libraries Still Matter." Salon / Laura Miller.
San Francisco: Salon Online, May 11th 2011.

"Some would also say that it's a superfluous part. Public libraries across the nation and the globe now face drastic funding cuts from politicians and administrators who often claim that they're obsolete. For months, Britain has been rumbling with protests against plans to close as many as 400 local branches. Earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown announced that he was cutting all state funding to California's libraries, leaving cities to pick up the slack. Defenders of such cutbacks typically ask why, in the age of Google and e-reader devices, anybody needs libraries.

Let's set aside the obvious rejoinder that many citizens can't afford e-readers and, furthermore, can only access Google via a library computer. The anniversary of the NYPL's main building is an occasion to talk about why the library needs to be a place as well as an ethereal mass of data residing somewhere in "the cloud." Not everything we need or want to know about the world can be transmitted via a screen, and not every experience can be digitized."

The Society for Librarians Who Say Mother******

"The Society for Librarians Who Say Mother******." The Hour Community / Anne Lagacé Dowson.
Montreal: Hour.ca, May 19th 2011.

"Last week I was invited to address a congress of librarians. I discovered all over again why they are some of my favourite people.

There is something subversive about librarians and libraries. The library remains a place where information isn’t bought and sold. Even if you think of them as being fussy and discreet, what librarians do radically empowers ordinary people, enabling them to use information outside the control of elites. ...

In an age of information glut, no algorithm can replace intelligence and analysis. ...

In Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Italy and Finland, there are big national programs to improve school libraries, not close them, as we are doing."

Librarian Ninja

The Networked Librarian

We're Not Dragons in Pearls, Say Librarians, We're Just Misunderstood

"We're Not Dragons in Pearls, Say Librarians, We're Just Misunderstood." Sydney Morning Herald / Dan Harrison & Kim Arlington.
Sydney: SMH Online, May 24th 2011.

"SCHOOL librarians have poured their hearts out to a parliamentary committee, telling how they are stereotyped as dragons in cardigans, derided by colleagues who think they do little more than check books in and out, and are starved of the resources to do their jobs properly.

A report by the House of Representatives education and employment committee yesterday backed the librarians, declaring it ''indisputable that the value of teacher librarians' work has been eroded over the years and undervalued by many in the community.'' ...

The report found librarians felt undervalued, unrecognised and professionally isolated, under constant pressure to justify their existence as administrators hunted for savings. NSW is the only state in Australia that mandates each school to have a teacher librarian."

Dragons in pearls, I kinda like that.

Edinburgh Free Public Library

Shutting Libraries is Child Abuse

"Shutting Libraries is Child Abuse: Alan Bennett Speaks Out as Cuts Put 4,000 at Risk of Closure." Daily Mail / Tim Shipman.
London: Daily Mail Online, May 25th 2011.

Mr Bennett's exact words:

""A child can learn to read at home as I did 70 years ago. But my only access to books, which changed my life, was at the local library. Deprive a child of that and you hinder its development and damage it for life. Closing libraries is child abuse." "

Hear, Hear!

Don’t Discard the Librarians

"Don’t Discard the Librarians." The Globe & Mail / Ian Brown.
Toronto: Globe & Mail Online, May 20th 2011.

"Even a Globe and Mail editorial called for the death of libraries as “book-centred and quiet places” and their resurrection as “noisy digital hubs” – all to save money, because no one uses libraries any more. “Libraries should not be content to live in the 20th century,” the Globe declaimed, “as it were.”

That might be an interesting point if it were accurate. A couple of hours at local libraries in Toronto proves otherwise. Physical libraries and actual flesh-and-blood librarians seem to be more necessary than ever."

The Future of the Library

"The Future of the Library." Seth Godin's Blog / Seth Godin.
New York: Seth Godin's Blog, May 16th 2011.

"The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user."

Kindness is Never Wasted

I ❤ Books by Colour

Mind on Fire

*sigh* so aesthetically pleasing

Save the Librarians: Cutting Our Way to the Future Won’t Work

"Save the Librarians: Cutting Our Way to the Future Won’t Work." Weekly Alibi / Stuart Heady.
Albuquerque, NM: Alibi.com 20.19, May 12th-18th 2011.

"Their profession has instilled in them core values of free access to information, confidentiality and privacy, democracy, diversity, education and lifelong learning, intellectual freedom, preservation, the public good, professionalism, service, and social responsibility."

Nice Marketing, Edmonton Public Library!

School Libraries & Information Literacy

School Libraries & Information Literacy / People for Education.
Ontario: People for Education, May 2011.

"Results from the data analysis showed that:

• the presence of trained library staff is associated with a higher proportion of grade 6 students attaining level 3 (the provincial standard) on reading tests;

• schools without professional library staffing tend to have lower achievement on the grade 3 reading tests (both in terms of average achievement and attaining level 3); and

• the presence of teacher-librarians is associated with more positive attitudes towards reading in both grade 3 and grade 6 students."

See Also:
School Libraries & Student Achievement in Ontario / OLA

Librarians Fight For a Role in a Digital World

"Librarians Fight For a Role in a Digital World." The Globe & Mail / Kate Hammer.
Toronto: Globe & Mail Online, May 16th 2011.

"Teacher-librarians have been among the first to be sacrificed when boards make cuts, and the digital innovations they help students navigate are now being used as the justification for eliminating their jobs, and Canada is bucking an international trend of investing in school libraries."

That's a Hard One To Say

Frazz / Jef Mallett

Friday At the Library

A Library is Many Things

"A Library is Many Things." Letters of Note / Shaun Usher.
Manchester: Letters of Note, May 6th 2011.

Revamping Reference: The User Experience

"Revamping Reference: The User Experience." Library Journal / Aaron Schmidt.
America: Library Journal Online, May 1st 2011.

"Some librarians are afraid that pro­active reference is bothersome to patrons—too aggressive, a crass retail approach. If done badly, it can be all of those things. Quality reference work takes more than just being able to construct a complicated Boolean search; it takes social intelligence, too. Just the way librarians develop a command of information resources, they should also develop a greater understanding of people."

Typographical Zeal

Gimbel Design Library