Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libraries. Show all posts

January 22 - Library Shelfie Day

Posted on January 22, 2020

(Fourth Wednesday of January)

Today, celebrate libraries by taking photos of yourself next to your favorite public library shelf! Then post it on social media with the hashtag #LibraryShelfie.



What section of the library do YOU like best?

I tend to like the sci fi section, the science books, and even the pseudoscience / weird-stuff section!


Some folks do a shelfie that looks a BIT like a selfie, too, until you realize that the head or face is actually book cover art!





By the way, I mentioned that I love the sci fi section of the library - but look at Tinajin's new public library - the library itself looks totally sci fi!!!




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August 10 - Happy Birthday, Carla Hayden

Posted on August 10, 2019

Today's famous birthday is not just the first black female Librarian of Congress, she is the first female Librarian of Congress and the first African American Librarian of Congress!

Born in Florida on this date in 1952, Dr. Carla Hayden began her career in the Chicago Public Library, became the CEO of a library co-operative with 22 locations in Baltimore, served as the president of the American Library Association, and was nominated by President Barack Obama as the first professional librarian to become Librarian of Congress in more than 60 years.

Dr. Hayden is also considered an activist, involved in civil rights and freedom-of-speech/press issues. As head of the ALA, she made "Equity of Access" the theme and spoke out publicly against the Patriot Act. (The latter is supposed to be "patriotic," and was passed quickly after the 9/11 attacks, but it actually takes away some basic human rights from U.S. citizens in the name of fighting terrorism.)



The Librarian of Congress has some pretty big responsibilities in this massive research library - possibly the largest library in the world - a gathering of millions of print, audio, visual, and digital resources. The Librarian weighs in on copyright and fair use issues, determining whether particular works are subject to Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibitions against copying. The Librarian also appoints the U.S. Poet Laureate and awards the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

I was curious about the point made about Dr. Hayden being the first professional librarian appointed for this job in more than 60 years. I checked out the occupations of past Librarians, and found that the most common occupations clustered around writing: there were journalists, authors, poets, and publishers / printers among the Librarians, the historian Librarian was also a writer, and the professor Librarian was also an author. Two lawyers became Librarians in the early days, and a doctor who was also a soldier was the Librarian during the Civil War. The very first Librarian of Congress used to be a political campaign manager (that's pretty random!), and, out of 13 Librarians, Dr. Hayden is only the third professional librarian.

All the previous Librarians of Congress have been white
men, although the acting Librarian who took over
when James Billington died, a law librarian named David
Mao, is an Asian American man.



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April 10 - National Bookmobile Day

Posted on April 10, 2019
(Wednesday of National Library Week)


There are some small towns that don't have a big public library. There are some people who don't live in towns - instead, they live on farms or ranches, or in other rural areas. And there are some people who cannot drive to a public library - such as people who are ill or very old.

When people can't get to a library, someone reasoned, then the library might still be able to get to them! And that someone put a whole bunch of books into a vehicle and drove out to become the first bookmobile.

Actually, I'm not sure that anybody knows who ran the first bookmobile, or where, but we do know that some horse-pulled book wagons and other pre-automobile vehicles provided mobile library services in frontier America and Britain. One of the very first kinds of autos, the Model T, was used in at least one place as a kind of bookmobile. 



The most common modern bookmobiles are RVs, buses, or vans customized to transport and display books... 




...but other kinds of cars and trucks, plus bikes, boats, trains, and pack animals have become mobile libraries:

Horse libraries in Indonesia...


Elephant libraries in Thailand...


A "floating library" in Norway...



The Camel Mobile Library Service in Kenya... 



Biblioburro, a library pulled by burros (donkeys) in Colombia... 



Books on Bikes in Seattle, in the U.S.... 

Lots of places have some pretty great bookmobiles!

Of course, many of us can get and read ebooks; people who live in remote areas generally DO have telephones and internet, and they can get much more variety of reading materials, much more quickly, using tablets and e-readers. 

But there's something about an actual, physical book - especially for kids, most especially for young kids... 





Many cities and librarians are making sure that bookmobiles have smaller or zero carbon footprints (using hybrid or all-electric vehicles, for example, or even solar-battery vehicles).

Another development in access is the Little Free Library movement, in which people build a teeny house for their front yard, where people can take a book and/or share a book. This could be done in very small rural communities without the expense of building a library, hiring a librarian, or even converting a vehicle into a bookmobiles!



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