Desert Project: Cabinet National Library. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it. Here’s a link where you can read a little more about it. [thanks iboy]
Category: libraries
cryberry… that’s a good one
Mom: Don’t you know this is the liberry, not the cry-berry? –The Fordham Library Center. [thanks fiona]
British Library
The British Library is quite near to King’s Cross station and I’m sure many people are concerned for their welfare in addition to the many others affected by today’s tragedy. They posted a brief update to their main page, which I think is something that all libraries should be able to do in case of an emergency. Apparently they locked the building down. Oddly this isn’t the only story about the British Library with the word tragedy in the headlines today. A British Library spokesperson had this to say:
“Kings Cross and Euston is cordoned off. “Police have advised us strongly that people stay where they are. There are staff and readers inside. We don’t know if we will be open tomorrow. We are discussing contingency plans.”
Update: The British Library has an update on their services available today here.
The Case for Privatizing Public Libraries
This is not my perspective at all, however I don’t think it’s tough to see where these people are coming from. I’m not sure if the linking to fee-based database articles locked behind a password entry page is intentional [see links under the words “been scandalous”] but it has an inadvertent side effect of driving home the opposing viewpoint: we learn and understand through free exchange of information. What that exchange is limited through fees, accessibility, or censorship, we all learn a little less. [thanks steven]
In case you thought it wasn’t happening – GLBT proscription
The Left2Right blog discusses Hillsborough County [FL] and their legislation requiring that government agencies — including the West Gate library — “abstain from acknowledging, promoting, and participating in Gay Pride recognition and events”
[M]andated silence on the topic seems antithetical to what libraries are about. Libraries are for learning stuff, and displays don’t have to take sides. That’s why I say proponents and opponents of gay rights alike ought to agree that the county blew it, in a big, bad, awful way. The real divide here is between those fond of vibrant democratic debate and those opposed to it. So I’d let the library mount a display airing all sides of the dispute. Indeed, I’d encourage them to. Precisely because there is ongoing controversy about gay rights, and because we think (don’t we?) that both sides have legitimate views, no reasonable observer would take a library exhibit’s inclusion of critics of gay rights as silently scornful. The county’s measure makes it seem like they think the very topic of gay pride is unspeakable, indecent — something that must remain deeply closeted. That position, and not any measured view on gay marriage or civil unions or antidiscrimination laws, is reprehensible.