Robin Westphal knows this isn’t the first time the future of federal funding for her library has been uncertain. As the executive director of Daniel Boone Regional Library and president-elect of the Missouri Library Association, she’s familiar with the Trump administration’s past efforts to cut funds to public libraries. “This feels a little different this […]
The Detroit Public Library's main building is one of the most beautiful libraries in any American City. It's truly one of those places you could spend a whole day just looking at the art around the building.
Since its opening, Detroit Public Library's "Main Library" building has served as the heart of the Detroit Public Library system. The building was designed by architect Cass Gilbert, who…
This amazing old sticker was found inside the cover of a book from the Pasadena City Schools Library in the 1920s. The sticker features a delightful little cartoon book with a face, arms, and legs that looks like it could be a character in an avant-garde comic book. — Read the rest
The post 1920s library sticker told kids to wash their hands before touching appeared first on Boing Boing.
As the foremost boffins of Europe toil deep underneath the border between Switzerland and France in their never-ending quest to truly understand the fabric of the Universe, they rely on …read more
The White House AI framework made official what we already knew: this administration has no interest in regulating AI. Any legislation that contradicts the framework will be a dead end. In this regulatory vacuum, it is instructive to turn to norms developed by libraries and archives through their decades of experience working through the same […]
A plan to shutter four of Kiyose City's six libraries angered citizens so much that it gave the Japanese Communist Party a path to victory.
Rippaverse Publishing is entering a major new phase of growth with the announcement of a worldwide sales and distribution agreement with Hachette Book Group. Beginning July 6, 2026, Hachette will serve as the exclusive retail and wholesale sales and distribution partner for Rippaverse Publishing, opening the door for the company’s comic books and graphic novels […]
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is looking to eliminate funding in fiscal 2027 for the agency that serves as the primary federal funding source for libraries and museums nationwide. But congressional appropriators — who rebuffed similar efforts to gut the agency in fiscal 2026 — expressed little enthusiasm for the proposed cut in interviews with […]
For nearly twenty years, I’ve used Google Docs for most of my writing: class notes, personal notes, a novel in progress, research, activism, and my day job. It’s become an essential piece of infrastructure for me, an archive of my life and evolving interests. In order to sign up for Google Drive, I presumably had […]
Alice Hudson, former chief of the New York Public Library’s map division from 1981 to 2009, died in 2024. Last month The Cartographic Journal published a long look at Hudson’s life and career, written by… More
Groups that challenge books have begun using Gemini, ChatGPT, xAI, and other AI tools to try to get books banned.
You need a $198 academic text or research? Or am out-of-print monograph that doesn't show up on any used-book site? Brian Schrader, a San Diego blogger, ran into both problems constantly until he discovered a system called Inter-Library Loan.
ILL lets your local library request a physical book from basically any other library in the country — or the world. — Read the rest
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Hidden in the back wall of a courtyard of dragon statues, mystical wares, and spirits of the goddess, the library is a friendly space for anyone to peruse thousands of titles from two centuries, any and all literature with a subject related to knowledge outside the mainstream.
There are two large rooms of floor-to-ceiling books, on topics from occult and magic, to ancient history, wisdom and…
The Leventhal Map Center is looking to hire a curator or associate curator of maps and geography. “This position will play a leading role in advancing the Center’s broad public agenda around the study of… More
McDonald’s President and CEO Chris Kempczinski went viral recently after taste-testing the new Big Arch burger. Kempczinski, dressed in a light blue sweater, refers to the burger as “product” (not a burger, mind you) and takes a very timid bite, looking uncomfortable eating his own food. The video inspired the CEOs of Burger King, Wendy’s, […]
The post Ohio library pokes fun at McDonald’s CEO by…
When the New is Worse Than the Old by Daniel A. Kaufman “For the average person who knows nothing about a subject, a well-curated library is far superior to internet searches and especially AI, which is nothing but an aggregating tool that routinely gets basic things wrong. […] The sheer amount of what is available […]
'We want the Tiny Library to be useful beyond serving as a book repository...we can attract visitors and tourists to the village to bear witness to our own development ambitions.'
When it comes to books that present the maps of a single library or museum—take, for example, Debbie Hall’s Treasures from the Map Room, about the Bodleian, or Tom Harper’s Atlas: A World of Maps from the… More
Earlier this month in New Hampshire, a brief but impactful law went into effect. It upends the privacy of minors by making their library records, which used to be confidential, open to parents. In Iowa, also in February, lawmakers introduced a bill that would force libraries to create adult sections, where books could not be […]
Recent reporting by Nieman Lab describes how some major news organizations—including The Guardian, The New York Times, and Reddit—are limiting or blocking access to their content in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. As stated in the article, these organizations are blocking access largely out of concern that generative AI companies are using the Wayback Machine […]
Last fall, I wrote about how the fear of AI was leading us to wall off the open internet in ways that would hurt everyone. At the time, I was worried about how companies were conflating legitimate concerns about bulk AI training with basic web accessibility. Not surprisingly, the situation has gotten worse. Now major […]
Looks like Boston TV channel WCVB’s Chronicle newsmagazine turned its attention to maps last week: there were profiles of Map Center owner Andrew Middleton, cartographer Andy Woodruff and the Leventhal Map Center, plus pieces on… More