The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
The changing role of your public library?
On Saturday, as part of Arts in Bushwick’s SITE festival, Gabe McMackin and I had a community organizing event at my library called the Past, Present, and Future of Food: Bushwick, Brooklyn. The event was an enormous success; it effectively harnessed the collective expertise of all the attendees and allowed everyone to create connections that [...]
My Social Graph is Getting Weird
Has anyone out there ever been in a real snoozer of a meeting and passed a note to your colleague saying something like: The fun of passing notes in the real world is that it is private and the notes are temporary. I was in a meeting today and watched one person write something on [...]
Shepard Fairey, Lawrence Lessig, Steven Johnson REMIX it up at NYPL.
Shepard Fairey, I clearly remember the first time I saw your iconic “Andre the Giant has a Posse” sticker. Oh, and please see the last lines of this post. I went to high school in the midwestern cultural hub commonly known as Ann Arbor, Michigan and have nothing but the fondest memories of that place. [...]
Audio. Books. Volume 1.
Librarians. In bands. Perhaps we should listen to them, right? Here are three bands that I happen to like, all of which have librarypeoples in them. Are you a librarian with a band? If you are the type to be cool and drop a comment on this post I just might feature you in a [...]
Getting closer to the trifecta
A while back I wrote a post about the library programming trifecta: have a program, tie it to materials, and give it online presence (preferably a social, participatory web presence rather than a static one). I try to practice what I preach, so I want to share with PLA Blog readers a couple of programs [...]
Philadelphia Junto: Rethinking the Library
Visual notes by Jonny Goldstein There’s really no better place for a group to discuss the future of public library facilities and services right now than the city of Philadelphia. With the potential closure of 11 Free Library of Philadelphia branches and mixed feelings in the community about whether those closures are a good choice, [...]
Signage from the road
I’m something of a signage geek. Being a visual learner, I suspect I’ll always be interested in visual literacy, communication arts, and semiotics. I’m offering here a selection of signs from my trip. Some are from libraries, many are from elsewhere. I hope you’ll take this post lightly, but at the same time consider what [...]
Skateboarding is not a crime at the Mesa Library
Today I visited Antoine Predock’s Mesa Library in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Before I ever entered the building I decided it has one of my favorite young adult spaces I’ve seen yet. Why? Because there is a skatepark attached to the front of the building. Rather than defending the public space against recreational use by [...]
Retired New Mexico Rancher Loves His Library
After ALA Midwinter Meeting I grabbed a rental car and headed down to New Mexico to do some exploring. Last night I ate my dinner at the bar of a little restaurant called The Shed (Santa Fe) where I highly recommend you try the pollo adobo. Delicious. Anyways, when I travel I like to start [...]
The OSC will not be Shredded Swiss Cheese.
It may well be a week or so before I can wrap my head around all of the stuff that has been happening here at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver, but I wanted to drop a note about the Open Shelves Classification (OSC) meeting that happened in a hotel basement the other day. Some [...]
