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The conservation effort — informally named “The Great Decant” — started on April 1, when the first tome, Volume 1 of Reeves’s “History of English Law,” printed in London in 1869, was taken from its place on shelf 1.1., in the Long Room’s upper gallery, which is closed to tourists. The book was dusted with a specially modified vacuum cleaner, it was measured, its physical condition was noted, and its details were checked against the Long Room’s catalog, written in 1872.
The book was then labeled with a radio-frequency identification tag and put in a bar-coded box — the first of more than 700,000 books, manuscripts, busts and other artifacts that will be relocated from the Old Library to a climate-controlled, off-campus storage facility.
If you haven’t seen the magnificent Long Room at Trinity College, go now. Starting in October 2023, it will be closed to the public for a three-year restoration project.
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What many public libraries have done, despite Covid and because of it, is consciously enhance their physical presence on the street and in the neighborhood.
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Close up, she’s older than her mother, and smaller, her hair hennaed, her eyebrows dyed black. Her glasses are on a bead chain, like a librarian’s.–Stewart O'Nan, Ocean State
Why are writers so lazy with the librarian stereotypes? They should know better.
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On March 25th the Ring of Power was destroyed, completing Frodo’s mission and defeating Sauron. Celebrate by reading some Tolkein. This year’s theme is Love and Friendship.
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Happy Birthday to author Toni Morrison, born OTD in Lorain, OH. Nice to see she didn’t forget her local librarians. From a wonderful exhibit curated by Hilton Als celebrating her influence and legacy.
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The rationale is simple: Fines and fees present a barrier to library use among the communities that need access most. They also contribute to material attrition, as a patron who can’t afford to pay the fine on a late item may not return it at all. While eliminating fines cuts a line item out of many libraries’ revenue, most have discovered that the loss could be absorbed—and that getting rid of fines raises circulation numbers, brings lapsed users back to the library, and boosts goodwill.
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Kudos to librarian Bruce Janu for discovering the rare August 31, 1946 New Yorker issue that featured John Hersey’s groundbreaking and devastating report on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Very few copies of the edition with the original band exist today, which is why, as Blume noted, it’s considered one of the “white whales” of the antiquarian-magazine world.
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Libraries, sign up for today’s webinar to learn how you can get funding to promote vaccine confidence.
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“After three years of construction and $200 million, the library system was ready to reopen its largest circulating branch in spring 2020. Instead, the pandemic extended the closure. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, or SNFL, as it is now known (after a $55 million gift), finally threw open its doors to unlimited browsing in June.”
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Can’t wait to watch this documentary about Dolly Parton’s literacy project, the Imagination Library. Since she began the book-gifting project in 1995, Parton and local community partners have donated over 160 million books to almost two million children (from birth to age five) in the United States, Canada Britain, Ireland, and Australia. It’s streaming July 9 on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.
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Coronavirus exposes the digital divide's toll →
The virus crisis is offering vivid case studies of real-world, everyday harms that result from inequality between those who have access to and can afford high-speed internet, and those who cannot.
Library and literary miscellany from your pals at Library Journal.
