libraries
Tin Houses
How to save a library
Random boycott
Some Connecticut libraries have decided not to purchase ebooks from Random House after the publisher tripled their pricing for libraries. Read the story at Library Journal’s Digital Shift:
Consortium of 25 Libraries in Connecticut Votes to Boycott Random House
Leonard Lopate discusses NYPL
March 12, 2012 – Controversy at the New York Public Library.
Critics of New York Public Library’s proposed renovations say the 42nd Street branch would be turning into a “giant Internet cafe” and worry that gutting the stacks to put in more space for computers will make print books harder to access. One thinks that maybe libraries “shouldn’t be bleeding-edge”.
April 12, 2012 – NYPL President Anthony Marx.
NYPL’s president defends the proposed changes as well as the purpose of public libraries as institutions that stand for “free and public access to ideas and information” where all community members can go to “read and write and think and create”. Includes comments on the importance of cataloguing :)
My cousin wrote an encyclopedia!
My cousin Liisa launched her new book, Encyclopedia Gothica, this month! These pics are from her book signing at our hometown public (Carnegie) library:
The book is gorgeous: illustrated, with ragged edge pages, and may be set in Garamond (I love that font, will have to ask…) More info about the book at http://encyclopediagothica.com.
Here’s the publisher’s description:
Encyclopedia Gothica is a guide through that shadowiest of subcultures: modern Goths. It collects and defines more than 600 words and phrases used by these children of the night so that you too can engage in conversations about deathhawks and rivetheads and who is more übergoth: Bela Lugosi or Robert Smith.
Compiled by acclaimed Goth journalist and poet Liisa Ladouceur, it gives readers insight into the unique vernacular of this fascinating community, describing in detail and with black humour the fashion, music, and lifestyle as well as sharing insider slang such as Baby Bat, Corp Goth and the Gothic Two-Step, and the first ever Goth Band Family Tree. From absinthe to zombies, it’s the Encyclopedia Gothica!
“Your Story Has a Home Here”
Your Story Has a Home Here: Creating Compassion and Understanding for the Homeless Through Art and Personal Story by Rebecca Renard for School Library Journal.
Visit the Teens of Distinction project described in the article on the DC Public Library website.
The Carnegie Library in Cambridge
No longer functioning as a library, but still pretty.
Poetic jars
As much as I’d like to write 2 full sentences, all I can remember about this display of poems on jars is that I saw it on a visit to BaNQ last month and it has something to do with an exhibit about glass and architecture.
Cool little homes and places
I discover fascinating little places while cataloguing architecture books at work, so I’ve started to compile a list of my favourite architects and projects and buildings.
Today’s pick: Atelier Bow-wow, an architectural firm in Tokyo. I love everything they design. They even did a library!