An idea whose time has come: Radical Reference. Originally planned for the RNC protests, it has already expanded to fill other pressing radical informationneeds. Here’s a recent article from the NY Sun about it. A little more information at the NYC Indymedia site. Now that’s more in the MYbrarian model, don’t you think?
Author: jessamyn
history vs accesibility, one town’s problem
Is removing a stacks wing to make a public library more accessible the same as turning a church into condos? A storm is brewing over the Amesbury Public Library in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners has kept a list of libraries around the state that have destroyed or altered their stack wings to improve their buildings. The commission has endorsed these demolitions because they have allowed libraries to provide access to the disabled, meet earthquake codes, eliminate fire liabilities, and use limited sites more effectively. [linkoday]
nudes!
The American Nudist Research Library turns 25 this year. See also the Toni Egbert Naturist Law Library.
Live nudes would seem to provide more reliably strong effects than photographs of nudes. The American Nudist Research Library has nudes of both varieties, a bounty that should be of interest to scientists. And it may be instructive to librarians elsewhere who lament that people don’t visit libraries the way they used to.
thank you, nancy pearl
Nancy Pearl retires from Seattle Public Library this week to spend more time reading, and other things.
the decline in reading, another take
The Christian Science Monitor takes on the media conclusions to the NEA “reading in crisis” report, finding some other folks to place the blame on.
Publishers and writers can blame TV, the Internet, and the media all they want, but the problem lies squarely with them. They need to activate their marketing and literary imagination in order to promote their books, as well as the act of reading, in new ways. They, more than anyone, need to be organized keepers of the reading flame.