Do I Detect A Trend?

The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library's parody of Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off."

Don't You Just Love Pop Music?

The Nashville Public Library team celebrates library cards in this adaptation of Meghan Trainor’s performance of “All About That Bass.”

Friday Night At the Library . . .

Presented by Pogona Creative and the Orange Public Library in association with Chapman University, 

and originally prepared for National Library Week. I found it on TheLiteracySiteDotCom.

Progress?

398.2 - I Still Believe. Do You?

Why should I support my Local Library?

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The New York Public Library puts it succinctly with a statement that applies to all public libraries:

The Library is a hub of knowledge, culture, and communication. Without your loyalty and support, this free and accessible public service simply would not survive.

Federal funding covers only a fraction of our expenses. The ongoing support of patrons like you determines what the Library is today and what it will be in years to come.

Whatever you geek, the public library supports you. 

Join Geek the Library in spreading awareness about the value of libraries and the critical funding issues they face.

 

 

Why Supporting Your Local Library is the 

Ultimate Homage to Ray Bradbury

Bradbury ... was an avid supporter of public libraries. In a 2010 interview with the Paris Review, he said that he’s "completely library educated." 

Indeed, much like the current DIY learning movement, Bradbury eschewed formal higher education, particularly for writers, in favor of a self-directed process of unbiased, library-centered discovery.

The Declaration for the Right to Libraries is the cornerstone document of ALA President Barbara Stripling’s presidential initiative, Libraries Change Lives, which is designed to build the public will and sustained support for America’s right to libraries of all types – academic, special, school, and public.
In the next year, libraries of all types will hold signing ceremonies, during which community members can visibly declare their right to have vibrant libraries in their community.  The signing ceremony is intended to serve as the launching point for continued and vibrant community engagement to:

• Increase public and media awareness about the critical role of libraries in communities around the  country
• Inspire ongoing conversations about the role of the library in the community
• Cultivate a network of community allies and advocates for the library
• Position the library as a trusted convener to help in the response to community issues

 

. . . READ the TEXT of the DECLARATION . . .

99 WAYS TO VOLUNTEER AT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY

If any of these sound interesting or if you have other talents to offer, please give your local library a call.

1. Internet docents will assist library users with connecting to the Internet, basic operations of the graphical browser used by the library (often Netscape), help locate specific sites/URLs that the user wants to visit, make suggestions for those curious about the net. Some basic computer maintenance may be involved as well.
2. Repair books to extend the lives of the libraries’ resources.
3. Shelving books is pretty much self explanatory.
4. Delivering books to seniors and housebound persons. Operation Homebound and similar projects need volunteers to help with the delivery of books, magazines, large print, and tapes to persons of all ages who are ill or physically disabled or who cannot get to the library. This work may include the matching of appropriate books for the homebound person and getting to know that person.
5. Shelf Reading where someone adopts a shelf section and basically keeps it in order. Choose your favorite subject.
6. Video Tape checker/rewinder – someone has to do it!
7. Storyteller for the children’s section of most all libraries.
8. Bookwasher is what they call those, armed with paper towel and squirt bottle, who clean off the covers of books.
9. Friends of the Library is an organization always looking for help with booksales and planning special events.
10. Artists are always in demand to create posters for special events, sign and graphics for the library.
11. Clerical work may not be glamorous but its necessary.
12. Flash! Sue Rebro of the Moline (Illinois) Public Library doubled our list with the following additions:
13. Index the obituaries from your local paper.
14. Cut out items for story hours.
15. Clean up and weed the area around the library.
16. Help inventory the library collection.
17. Assemble new library card packets.
18. Offer to organize a book discussion group.
19. Keep the tax forms in order at tax time.
20. Send for the free material available from each state’s travel bureau.
21. Set up a drive to encourage travelers to bring back phone books (not stolen) from their travels.
22. Dust the computer screens and keyboards.
23. Help with mailing, writing, collating, and stamping the newsletter.
24. Call your local librarian for the remaining 77 ways you can help your library.

- Bay area Information Center

GIVE YOUR LIBRARY SOME LOVE

How to support your local library

Little Free Libraries

What a wonderful, wonderful idea!

. . . Todd Bol came up with an idea to remember his mother, a teacher who had loved books and encouraged people to read.  

At his home in Hudson, Wisc., he built a box, made it waterproof and filled it with books.  It looked like a miniature one-room schoolhouse, with a sign underneath that said “Free Book Exchange.” Bol put it on a post outside of his house and invited neighbors to take a book, and return a book. 

That’s when something happened Bol says he never could have imagined. . . . 

- Nightly News.

Please go to the site: LITTLE FREE LIBRARIES, and learn more. 

The number of Little Free Libraries has grown to more than 1,500, in more than 40 states and 20 countries. Co-founders Bol and his friend Rick Brooks, hope to surpass the 2,509 libraries created by steel baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. 

When a new library “registers” with the Free Little Library organization, it gets an official number and is added to a Google map where patrons can search for nearby libraries, see photos and stories about each library, and find information about the library’s steward — the person who maintains the library and its collection. 

Stewards report little trouble with Little Free Libraries (as it says on the org’s website, “You can’t steal a free book”). 

- The Etsy Blog.

I think this is a wonderful idea and would like to make my own Little Free Library.
 I have a perfect spot in the front garden.

I'll keep you posted as to my progress and share a picture when I'm finished.

Still Magical . . .

"I don’t know of anything more disheartening than the sight of a shut down library."

Me either.

All across the United States, large and small cities are closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of operations. Detroit, I read a few days ago, may close all of its branches and Denver half of its own: decisions that will undoubtedly put hundreds of its employees out of work.


When you count the families all over this country who don’t have computers or can’t afford Internet connections and rely on the ones in libraries to look for jobs, the consequences will be even more dire.

 - from: A Country Without Libraries,

Charles Simic.

Want more reasons why Libraries should be saved. Check out THIS post.

Banned Books - 585 B.C.to 2003 A.D.

 

Seattle Public Library Excerpted:

The following dangerous books - and many others - can be found at your local Public Library. The dates refer to the year in which the book was challenged, banned or burned.

Aesop, Fables (585 B.C.) According to legend, the Greek slave and storyteller was flung from the cliffs at Delphi for sacrilege.

Homer, The Odyssey (387 B.C.) Plato suggested that state censors should expurgate the outlandish adventures of Odysseus, and all other poetry.

Shakespeare,  William King Lear (1810) Banned from the English stage until 1820, in deference to the insanity of King George III.

Darwin,  Charles On the Origin of Species (1859) Fearing the outraged response to his epoch-making theory, Darwin kept the work in a desk drawer for 15 years before publishing it, amidst a firestorm of controversy.

Eliot,  George Adam Bede (1859) Condemned as the "vile outpourings of a lewd woman's mind" and withdrawn from British libraries.

Whitman,  Walt Leaves of Grass (1882) When this great American poem was banned in Boston for explicit content, Whitman bought a house with proceeds from the increased sales.

Steinbeck,  John The Grapes of Wrath (1939) Copies of this "ungodly" depression era epic were burned on the library steps in St. Louis, Missouri.

Brown,  Dee Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. (1974) This Native American history was removed from a school library in Wisconsin by an administrator, who explained: "if there's a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?"

Chaucer,  Geoffery The Miller's Tale (1987) Denounced as "pornography and women's lib.," this bawdy 14th century story was declared off-limits for students in Columbia County, Florida.

Rushdie,  Salman The Satanic Verses (1989) Ayatollah Khomeini declared a death sentence on the author of this comic exploration of Good and Evil. Many bookstores do not stock the work, fearing violence.

Anon., The Bible (1992) Challenged in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota as "lewd, indecent, obscene, offensive, violent and dangerous to women and children."

Snyder,  Jane Sappho (2000) Several juvenile biographies of homosexuals were removed from libraries in the Anaheim California School District, who claimed they were "too difficult."

Pilkey,  Dav Adventures of Captain Underpants (2000) Removed from a Connecticut elementary school for causing unruly behavior.

Rowling,  J.K. The Harry Potter series (2001) Subject of 448 challenges in 2001 alone, books from this popular series, together with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, were burned outside a church in New Mexico, for being "masterpieces of satanic deception."

THE KANSAS CITY LIBRARY