One of this city's most haunting #monuments isn't even particular monumental: An unsuspicious window in the middle of #Berlin’s Bebelplatz (former #Opernplatz) - bookshelves in the ground.
Empty bookshelves.
Commemorating the #BookBurning which took place right here #OnThisDay, May 10th in 1933.
ICYMI, MIT HASTS ABD Alex Reiss Sorokin presented an excellent CBI Tomash Fellow Lecture, "From Search to Research Technologies 1964-1994," on April 30th. The video of the talk now is available. #ai#datascience#librarians
Required reading for historians, archivists, and librarians in and of Canada on the cuts suffered by Library and Archives Canada over the past 15-20 years. @histodons
Danielle Robichaud, "Contextualizing a Scandal: A Brief History of Library and Archives Canada"
Fight for your libraries. Don’t let them take away your library by defunding it out of providing vital services. Don’t let them shackle the library with rules meant to prevent the right people from getting the right book to change their life. Don’t let them close the doors, because you know they will never open again. Fight for the freedom to read and explore new ideas. Fight against censorship and denying people the materials their souls need. If a library closes, it will never open again. You couldn’t create libraries today. You want to loan out books? And people will just willingly give them back? Are you mad? Naïve, perhaps? Once a library closes its doors, it’s over. The book banners have won. Do not let them win. Fight for libraries. Fight for library workers. Fight for patrons. Fight for free people reading freely. #libraries#censorship#librarians#LibraryWorkers#LibraryPatrons#BookBans
Proposed bill in Alabama to allow the arrest of librarians.
No one is perfect—not even librarians. But professional #librarians are terrific. They're dedicated public servants, and they know how to library better than politicians do.
It's our first time there and we'd love connect.
Would you like to exchange best practices, tips, and/or knowledge over coffee? We are interested in #communication strategies for libraries and everything #OpenScience-related. Let us know if you want to meet up!
A bill in Louisiana, HB 777, would make it a crime for librarians to use public funds to join the American Librarian Association or attend an ALA conference, punishable with prison time and hard labor for up to two years.
Librarians in several states can now be jailed for years for making “pornography” available. Let’s be clear about intent here - it is to limit descriptions of the lives of LGBTQ people, where possible down to the level that we even exist. @bookstodon#bookstodon#lgbtq#books#censorship#libraries#librarians
6 Badass Librarians Who Changed History
They will not be shushed.
by April White April 5, 2024
"Librarians have never been a quiet bunch: Information, after all, is power. To mark National Library Week—typically celebrated the second full week of April—Atlas Obscura, fittingly, went into the archives to find our favorite stories of librarians who have fostered cultural movements, protected national secrets, and fought criminals..."
…The bill in CT, pending before an #education cmte, is 1 of a raft of measures advancing nationwide that seek to do things like prohibit #BookBans or forbid the #harassment of school & public librarians…. Legislators in 22 mostly blue states have proposed 57 such bills so far this year, & 2 have become #law….
But the #library-friendly measures are being outpaced by bills in mostly #RedStates that aim to restrict which #books#libraries can offer & #threaten#librarians w/ #prison or thousands in #fines for handing out “obscene” or “harmful” titles. At least 27 states are considering 100 such bills this year, 3 of which have become #law…. That adds to nearly a dozen similar measures enacted over the last 3 yrs across 10 states.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to know something, you couldn't use Google & Co.
You had to move your whole body to one of the centers that offered the adequate technology: in form of objects called books, searchable by a catalog of written cards or even with the help of peoples' brains.
These people were called #librarians, the centers were called #library. Their datas were not forbidden or censored, and worked even without electricity.
The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians by James Patterson
This celebration of the world of books is filled with true stories from the booksellers and librarians—the superheroes of reading—as told to James Patterson.
On the #enshitification of Google, but not much many of us can do. For one, I can't just write a check to something like Kagi for my search needs (and I highly doubt my library would pony up for it either). Will just have to keep looking for options, but it gets harder. And not only does the company not care, very often my brethren #librarians don't care either.
This is beyond stupid. Conservative Republicans are trying everything in their power to fuck up the United States.
"HB 777 was introduced March 25 by Representative Kellee Dickerson, who helped fund the Louisiana Freedom Caucus. The bill would criminalize library workers and libraries for joining the American Library Association."
I also make the pitch for increased funding for public #libraries which, to my mind, are going to bear the brunt of tech support on DF.
“As pillars of community support and outreach, libraries also play a role bridging information gaps—in the realm of tax, by providing tax forms and often hosting tax services. When the two converge, we are likely to see an uptick in tax preparation questions and Direct File assistance requests to #librarians.” https://esq.social/@andrew/112162254195154504
In this week’s column I make the case that the proliferation of government services online, including IRS Direct File, makes it incumbent upon the government to ensure universal broadband access.
The Affordable Connectivity Program will be out of money next month, potentially kicking 23 million households offline just as Direct File rolls out.