[snip]

In case you haven’t heard, New York City’s public library systems — three separate library systems in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens — are once again under siege, on the chopping block, threatened with draconian cuts in the face of New York City’s Great Recession. (The cuts were outlined in an article in Library Journal.)

Library cuts in down times remind me of the classic line from Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects.” The public library is always suspect Number One when it comes to municipal budget cuts. And as librarians everywhere know, this is not a fact in New York City alone.

Underlying this reality are two simple facts. First, libraries do not have a vocal, powerful constituency. Unlike the police, teachers and firemen, they don’t have a potent union or benevolent association. There is no “Library Lobby” doling out campaign contributions. But far worse, libraries tend to be viewed by all too many people in power as a luxury.

In many of these minds, the public library is stuck with an antiquated image of stern ladies shushing noisy kids, retirees borrowing the latest bestsellers and — more recently — homeless folk camping out in a heated corner. They are all clichés. And dumb ones at that.

[snip]

The public library is not just about borrowed books. It is about information — the great currency of our time. And the library has, by default, become the bridge in the digital divide because it offers free access to computers. Can you imagine in this digital day looking for a job, submitting a résumé or a college application, or searching for housing without your computer? For millions of people, the library is their laptop.

[snip]

Then there is education. The library is the crucial backstop to the educational system, far beyond the fundamental notion of being a “homework helper” for a school kid with a science project. From learning to read, or speak English, to having a decent place to do schoolwork or doing graduate research, the library is still a cornerstone of an educated, enlightened America.

[snip]

Helping hands
Celebrate the Salvation Army’s 120th year in Houston with an exhibition of rare artifacts and memorabilia of their history on display at the Houston Public Library’s Julia Ideson Building, 500 McKinney. The exhibition will be there all month and a special viewing is scheduled for Thursday, May 14 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. This free event will include live entertainment, guided tours of the Texas Room and refreshments.

• Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians)

By the way, other great articles on Twitter you might want to check out:

• Mashable’s “The 7 Ways to Approach Twitter”
• TwiTip’s “Personal Brand - How to Build Yours In Twitter”
• TechCrunch’s look at Twitter post-Oprah, in “How Many New Twitter Users Post-Oprah? A Lot. Maybe Over A Million.”
• blog post by Marion Conway, “Getting Started Ways to Use Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr – It’s All About Building Relationships“

[snip]

The second proposition is for $6.5 million, of which $6 million would be spent for a new library at a yet-to-be-determined location in the city’s downtown area.

The remaining $500,000 would be used to turn the city’s existing 16,000-square-foot library at 416 S. Friendswood Drive into a community center for hosting events and meetings.

[snip]

• What is copyright protection?
• Fair use of copyrighted materials
• copyright.gov

These are sites to bookmark and reference.

Baytown’s Sterling Municipal Library has a new way to serve the visually impaired. The Friends of Sterling Library, a non-profit group that supports library services, recently purchased a special computer which allows blind and visually impaired patrons to access technology with greater ease. The new computer has an extra large 22 inch monitor, a Braille keyboard, and is loaded with special software called “JAWS.”

[snip]

Call me greedy, but I’d rather see the monies spent in the US. We still have a lot of libraries here that need improved Internet access, computers, and digital literacy programs.

(From the Houston Chronicle.)

Somehow, I find this wrong.

Reported by the Dallas Morning News. Found via Literary License.

The GraveyardBook wins the 2009 John Newbery Medal. More info everywhere, but here’s the article at the Houston Chronicle.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is revisiting its commitment to American libraries by awarding $6.9 million in grants to upgrade public libraries in seven states to faster Internet connections.

The grants announced Thursday will help libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Virginia. The money goes to Connected Nation, a nonprofit broadband advocacy group, and the American Library Association.

A recent report compiled by the American Library Association says 73 percent of public libraries are the only source of free, public Internet access in their communities. But a third of libraries have Internet connections that are too slow to access multimedia content.

[snip]

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.

• Football Yes, Libraries No, by the San Diego Weekly
• New library plan would close 5 city branches, by the Rhode Island News
• Philly trying to preserve jobs while making cuts, by the Houston Chronicle — Philadelphia closed 11 libraries as part of additional cuts.

And yes, all this despite the fact that libraries are picking up business in this bad economy (according to MSNBC and others).

Katy woman earns degree despite Ike
– Houston Chronicle²

Melissa Savage, 30, of Bear Creek Plantation received her master’s degree in library science from the University of North Texas in Denton on Dec. 12. It wasn’t easy.

During her last semester in the 36-hour degree program, Savage and her husband, Greg, found themselves temporarily homeless because of Hurricane Ike and a tornado it spawned.

[snip]

Also damaged was the laptop computer she was working on to complete her final semester in UNT’s College of Information, Library Science and Technologies master’s degree distance education program.

Her friend, Cindy Schumacher, who’s known Savage since they started the master’s program two years ago, told college officials what Savage was going through. Students were supposed to take a weeklong exam in September, which wasn’t possible for everyone after Ike, said Schumacher, who lives in West University and works in a library at Annunciation Orthodox School. She said she had minimal damage after the hurricane.

[snip]

According to a University of North Texas news releases, “Melissa borrowed a laptop from a relative and went to places where she could find (an) Internet connection — her office at the Cy-Fair College Branch or coffeehouses. At one point, she sat in the driveway of her damaged home, which still had Internet connectivity, to do work.”

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.

Bush library’s Web company buys back domain name
– Houston Chronicle²

George W. Bush’s presidential library domain name has been retrieved after a Web developing company accidentally let it expire — and it apparently came at a high price.

Raleigh, N.C.-based Illuminati Karate paid less than $10 for the http://www.GeorgeWBushLibrary.com domain name and sold it back earlier this year for $35,000 to the library’s contracted Web developers, Yuma Solutions, said George Huger, lead Web developer for Illuminati Karate.

[snip]

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.

The economic crunch is taking its toll. Eleven of 54 branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia will close, and 111 positions will be lost in what Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter called “mid-year revision of epic proportions,” an effort to cut $100 million in response to a “dramatic decline in tax collections and increased pension costs.”

The library faces a 20 percent reduction, along with recreation and parks, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Nutter, who as a city councilman earned LJ’s Politician of the Year award in 2005 along with fellow councilman Frank DiCicco for protecting the library from cutbacks, defended his choices, saying, “Painful program and service cuts are necessary, but I want to assure you that we’ve preserved our core services.”

[snip]

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with its $35.1 billion endowment, has long been recognized for its enormous aid grants on a global level, supporting health initiatives and programs to help the impoverished in about 100 countries. In the United States, it funds such educational efforts as early childhood learning, libraries and college scholarships.

Now, in an eminently practical response to the challenges facing low-income students looking to further their education, the foundation has announced preliminary grants of $69 million to community colleges, seeking to double the number of low-income young adults earning post-secondary degrees by the age of 26, an increase of about 250,000 graduates annually.

[snip]

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.

During an economic downturn, people do not expect to hear that business is booming. But it is at the Rockingham County Public Library.

Jay Stephens, library director for the county, said his staff has been extremely busy lately. Circulation is up 13 percent from last year, while attendance at library programs has risen 15 percent from the previous year.

Stephens credited part of the jump to his staff. By making people feel welcome and at ease, patrons want to return.

However, he believes the main reason more people are heading to the library is because times are tough.

[snip]

Related:

• More people checking out the library to save money — by the Los Angeles Times
  
• Libraries offer seniors more than books — Newsday.com

Thousands of publications that capture the diverse histories of Gulf Coast states will be accessible for free online. FamilySearch and the Houston Public Library announced a joint project today to digitally preserve and publish the library’s vast collection of county and local histories, registers of individuals, directories of Texas Rangers, church histories, and biographical dictionaries. The digital records will be available for free online at FamilySearch.org and HoustonLibrary.org.

[snip]

• Make a Good Website With Content That Attracts People
• Join the Community Conversations — this includes:

• www.blogsbycity.com
• www.blogdigger.com
• www.metblogs.com
• www.feedmap.com
• www.yelp.com
• www.citysearch.com
• www.insiderpages.com
• www.judysbook.com

• www.libdex.com
• www.libraries411.com
• www.publiclibraries.com
• http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb

The piece is written by Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton-Jan.

Aaron Schmidt is the director at the North Plains (Ore.) Public Library and author of the blog walkingpaper.org. He holds an M.L.I.S. from Dominican University in River Forest, Ill. Schmidt speaks at library conferences and staff days, and he consults with libraries on website usability. His email address is librarian@gmail.com.
Sarah Houghton-Jan is the digital futures manager for the San Jose ( Calif.) Public Library and author of the blog LibrarianInBlack.net. She holds an M.L.I.S. from the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign and an M.A. in Irish literature from Washington State University. Houghton-Jan is active in ALA’s Library and Information Technology Association, has been published widely, and speaks worldwide on the intersection of libraries and technology. Her email address is librarianinblack@gmail.com.

CompletingArt/Life, a 30-by-7-foot mural for Looscan Neighborhood Library in River Oaks, taught Bert L. Long Jr. the hard way that he’s not as young as he used to be.

When Houston Arts Alliance officials, who managed the commission, asked Long, 68, if he’d be able to finish in time for the library’s opening in September 2007, he didn’t bat an eyelash. Having had exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; and countless other venues, he knew a thing or two about making deadlines.

[snip]

Two surgeries extended what was supposed to be a three-month project to 17-months. But the mural’s finally completed, and Long was on hand last week to supervise its installation in the children’s area of the library at 2510 Willowick.

The acrylic-on-canvas painting depicts a ship sailing toward a sunset on a sea fraught with such perils as sharks and a giant squid’s tentacles.

It’s a sea fraught with art, too — art that looks awfully familiar. Included among the sharks is a small boat carrying a black man who looks uncannily like the protagonist of Winslow Homer’s 1899 painting The Gulf Stream.

And isn’t that a Rembrandt self-portrait embedded in the sky? And an Andy Warhol Campbell’s soup can? And Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa?

The instant recognizability of these and other iconic masterpieces embedded in the painting is integral to the mural’s meaning, Long said.

[snip]

Check out this piece of art yourself at the Houston Public Library’s Looscan Neighborhood Library.

Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.