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Stopped at Utica Public Library
We stopped in central New York at the Utica Public Library the other day. View Utica Public Library in a larger map Utica Public Library is a grand building that shows the kind of commerce the Erie Canal brought to upstate New York back in the 19th century. The building opened in 1904 and it [...]
Greenpoint Poetry Sites (GPS) Public Art Project Goes Live
This is a screenshot from the mobile website for the first release of the Greenpoint Poetry Sites (GPS) project, something I’ve been working with a wonderful group of librarians, eduactors, designers and writers. I blogged about a fun site-specific project involving QR codes a while back, and I’m absolutely thrilled to show it off now [...]
Essays Needed for July/August issue of PL
The saying goes that “Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.” Librarians know that during times of economic hardship our libraries are busier than ever. Too often, it is during these times of high use and economic hardship that our budgets are [...]
WPA Library Posters
Found via @elloyd74, these WPA posters are wayyyyyy too good for PLA Blog readers to miss. In fact I cannot believe I’ve never seen the before! Clearly I’m not reading something I ought to be reading. Check out the full flickr set via user marklarson here. He got them from this Library of Congress [...]
Meme Factory at 3rd Ward
Last Tuesday I went to 3rd Ward for the Meme Factory event. I’d love to see an auditorium full of librarians grit their teeth and sit through the Meme Factory presentation and its brutally pornographic, racist, twisted moments and struggle to understand the idea that the internet can be about *attention* and not *content*. It [...]
Threats to Newspapers are Opportunities for Libraries
An interesting idea blows in with the spring breeze this Monday in a guest post from Scott Nicholson, Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and director of the MSLIS program. Nicholson also heads up the Library Game Lab of Syracuse where he does research on the intersection of games and libraries. Check [...]
Genetic Literacy and Public Libraries
Here’s a post from Lisa Chow and Alice Dontanville: What does genetics literacy have to do with the public library? Quite a lot, as it turns out. It has been only 13 years since a team of international scientists succeeded in determining the sequence of the human genome. This momentous—and well-publicized–event was the culmination of [...]
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, [...]
“PL” Index 1994-2008 Now Online
A cumulative index (1994-2008) of “Public Libraries,” is now available on the PLA website.
“Ask about the New York Public Library” visualized
This week the New York Times ran an article “Ask about the New York Public Library”. It gives NY Times readers a chance to ask Paul LeClerc, President and CEO of NYPL whatever they want. Well, needless to say, the comments have blown up. In NYC libraryland and probably all over the place, this article [...]
