Make Use Of: “Have you ever wanted to find the title of a book but can only remember the plot or main character’s name? Gone are the days of friendly, knowledgeable librarians [what!!], but online search tricks make it easy to find a book using vague descriptions.” Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Libraries
New Ways to Search Archived Music News
Internet Archives Blog: “While MTV News took all its sites offline in June, its contents are now available in the Wayback Machine, with more than 470,000 pages dating back to 1977 (here’s a sample search for Peter Gabriel). Similarly, CMT News is also available—with 70,000 pages saved dating back to 2002 (sample search for Dolly… Continue Reading
The tiny N.Y. town where bookstores rule
CBS News: “Nestled in the Northern Catskills, the tiny village of Hobart, New York, is home to around 400 residents, and millions of fascinating characters, all stacked high on shelves. Hobart is a book village. Within one brief block of Main Street, there are seven different bookstores. When Kathy Duyer retired, she moved to Hobart… Continue Reading
Newly Revealed Wonders of a 16th Century Portolan Chart of the North American Coast
Library of Congress Blogs: “It’s not often that the Library has a chance to acquire a portolan chart — an early nautical map, hand drawn on animal skin, that explorers used to navigate the seas. Not many still exist, so the Library leaped at the chance last fall to acquire a circa 1560 portolan depicting… Continue Reading
Where to Buy Cheap Books to Help With Your Studies
maketecheasier: “Buying textbooks is one of the biggest expenses as a student, but you can get great deals if you know where to look. If you’re wondering where to buy cheap books for your studies, this guide show you some of the best places.” Continue Reading
Best new books for kids this fall, recommended by librarians
Washington Post: “When children are very young, they will — even if they’re wiggling — listen when a book is read to them. As they get older, this becomes more difficult, given the distraction of screens and other activities. What can parents and caregivers do? Keep trying. Also, give kids the chance to pick the… Continue Reading
Meet the man archiving Biden’s presidency
Politico Tech Podcast: “The transition from one presidential administration to the next is generally thought to start around Election Day and end with the inauguration. But for the Internet Archive, it’s already underway. The nonprofit leads a coalition of libraries and universities that works to preserve the government’s digital history and to protect it from… Continue Reading
Americans’ Views on Book Restrictions in U.S. Public Schools 2024
“A study from the Knight Free Expression Research Series produced by Knight Foundation in partnership with Langer Research Associates. Book challenges and restrictions in U.S. public schools have increased dramatically since 2021. Yet research on public awareness, attitudes and engagement in these activities is limited. In an effort to fill this critical knowledge gap in… Continue Reading
Collecting federal .gov databases
“Please help us by submitting the agency name and url of your favorite agency’s queryable database. We will attempt to harvest that information for the 2024 crawl. We appreciate your time in assisting us in collecting those .gov databases. Please feel free to forward this email to other interested people/communities/lists. For questions, please email me… Continue Reading
Exploring Goodreads Data: An Analysis of 10 Million Books
Ammar Alyousfi’s Blog: “Goodreads is one of the largest book websites on the internet. It has data about millions and millions of books from different genres and in many languages. It’s hard not to find a book on Goodreads whether it’s published hundreds of years ago or just a few days ago. Today, I present… Continue Reading
Groundbreaking Agreement Provides Libraries with Permanent Ownership Rights Over Tens of Thousands of Digital Titles
Digital Public Library of America and Independent Publishers Group have partnered to rewrite the future of providing ebooks to benefit libraries, authors and readers alike. Chicago, August 13, 2024 – The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Independent Publishers Group (IPG) have announced a groundbreaking agreement that will transform how American libraries provide access… Continue Reading
The mining of the public domain
Jessamyn West, Librarian.net – “Public.work is a search engine for public domain content.” The site claims to have over 100,000 public domain images. This in and of itself is not that special, but the interface is. It’s gorgeous, a fun and engaging discovery layer where every search becomes a URL that can be shared [example]… Continue Reading
