Saturday, March 25, 2017

CBC.ca: Rewriting their narratives: local libraries are becoming hubs of technology

Library programming expands to include more digital options to stay relevant, the service says



Ontario Library Assoc. panel: (left) Rod Charles, Linda Hazzan, Daphne Wood and Nini Krishnappa (Stephanie Matteis)
By Stephanie Matteis
February 8, 2017

Record a podcast. Borrow musical instruments. Heck, even learn to weave.

Those aren't activities people typically think of doing at a public library, but they're all possible at many Toronto branches.

The offerings are just part of the library's shift to stay relevant in the digital age, Linda Hazzan, a spokeswoman for Toronto Public Library said.

The library saw more than 8,000 people use the "digital innovation hubs" found at three branches, which include everything from 3D printing, to recording studios and coding programs.

"Today it might be a story time and tomorrow might be a maker program," Hazzan said. The so-called maker programs teach kids and adults new skills: think crafting, web design and video production.

Daphne Wood, Pres. B.C. Library Assoc. (Susie Jones)
Hazzan and other scholars are trying to figure out how to draw those people back to the library who associate it more with books than they do with all the other technology available there.

She, travel journalist Rod Charles and public relations consultant Nini Krishnappa tackled the issue recently at the Ontario Library Association's conference.

Charles said the library needs to emphasize all its online offerings: he turned to its tutorials recently when he decided he wanted to learn a new language.

"You can learn for free," he said. "They have French, they have Farsi, they have German, they even have pirate."

There's also Lynda, the library's online tutorial, which has more than 3,500 video tutorial courses led by experts on technology topics.

Childhood memories

Krishnappa's relationship with the library dates back to his childhood. His mother was a librarian for 30 years and at one time he held a part-time job at an Ottawa library himself.

Yet Krishnappa said he hasn't been to a library since he began buying books and accessing information on computers and now his phone.

​'Modern day libraries are an untold story.'​
- Nini Krishnappa, PR consultant
Krishnappa who now works in public relations said the libraries may be evolving but the challenge is getting that story out.

"Libraries have kept up and anticipated needs. It's just that people are not aware of the plethora of new offerings and services they provide," he said. "M​odern day libraries are an untold story."

e-connections

When Hazzan first started at the reference library a decade ago she said e-book borrowing was at two per cent and it's now at 15 per cent.

Daphne Wood, president of the B.C. library association said that evolution means "you never have to step foot inside a library, because they're everywhere."


Wood said that libraries consider computers, wifi and internet access just the basics — and it's becoming common for branches across the country to provide other technology like green screens to make videos.

The Toronto Public Library at a glance:

  • 18 million visits each year
  • 32 millions items circulated annually
  • 37,000 programs held each year
  • Almost a million people attended programs in 2016
Source: CBC.ca

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Toronto Star: Toronto libraries extend hours — but not staffing — for pilot project

Swansea and the Todmorden Room branches, which have the lowest number of open hours in the city, will extend hours, but will use video technology to connect customers to staff.

As part of a pilot project Swansea and Todmorden Room branches, which have the lowest number of open hours in the city, will be staff-free during the extended hours, but will still have staff during their regular hours.  
By Azzura Lalani
March 20, 2017

Two Toronto libraries will be the subject of a pilot project that will leave them staff-less part of the time in a bid to increase community access.

Swansea and the Todmorden Room branches, which have the lowest number of open hours in the city, will be staff-free during the extended hours, but will still have staff during their regular hours.

“These are two very small branches and they’re only open 28 hours a week, so this is really to extend service to the community beyond what they’re already open,” said Moe Hosseini-Ara the branch operations and customer experience director for Toronto Public Library.

Both locations are in community centres and will only be open during their hours, said Ana-Maria Critchley, the stakeholder relations manager for Toronto Public Library. They could be open for a maximum of 65.5 hours per week under the pilot program, which will begin in Fall 2017 and will run for a year.

The program will work by having libraries monitored in real-time with video surveillance to connect customers to staff when needed. Staff levels will not be impacted.

Customers will be able to pick up holds and books and use the Wi-Fi, but it is not meant for research, said Hosseini-Ara.

It’s a move that’s divided librarians.

“We believe that if library hours are to be extended, it should be the comprehensive library service and money should be found to support that,” Toronto Public Library Union president Maureen O’Reilly said. “We don’t believe that it (provides) a true library service.”

Increased library hours have been demanded by Torontonians for years, said O’Reilly, and modest gains have been made by using technology and stretching staff.

“This model just entirely eliminates the staff as a cost saving measure and we believe the library staff is an integral part of the library service and library service is more than just a building,” she said.

Hosseini-Ara agreed library staff are one of the “key resources,” but said, “This is really an opportunity for us, without expending additional dollars, to try to provide those other services.”

“I think that we’re very lucky here in Ontario that we have a library culture that is willing to try new things . . . and I would say that sometimes what drives that is budget cuts,” said Shelagh Paterson, the executive director of the Ontario Library Association.

But, she added, innovation can only go so far in the face of budget cuts.

“I think you may not actually see the librarian in your visit to the library, but there is a librarian behind the scenes putting it all together and delivering a really excellent service.”

And beyond providing essential services in the library, library staff are also there in case anything unexpected happens.

A recent spate of violent incidents — there was a stabbing and two assaults last month — in Toronto libraries and any possible medical emergencies are also a concern for O’Reilly.

“If something like that happens in one of these buildings that is open, you’re depending on somebody viewing it on a camera and depending on a response time,” she said.

Hosseini-Ara said due to the layout of the libraries — both are small rooms within community centres — this is less of a concern, but that the model may not work for all libraries.

If the pilot project is successful, Hosseini-Ara said it will continue.

Source: Toronto Star

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

American Libraries: Our Futures in Times of Change

How values guide our understanding of trends and transition


By Miguel Figueroa

March 1, 2017

For many futurists and trend spotters, “futuring” is fundamentally about the study of change.

“We can learn a great deal about what may happen in the future by looking systematically at what is actually happening now,” wrote Edward Cornish, one of the founders of the World Future Society.

We study change so we can prepare for the many futures that might happen. We start seeing what’s coming next. We study so that we won’t be surprised. And we study so that we’ll be better prepared to start creating the future.

That’s good news for library and information professionals. We are expert in finding, organizing, processing, and prioritizing information. From wherever we are in our organizations, we all have opportunities to observe changes in our communities and consider the implications over the long term.

But observation is simply not enough. One of the biggest lessons my colleagues and I have learned while developing the Center for the Future of Libraries is that studying change is useless without considering values. We need to look at trends and changes with consideration of our own professional values (confidentiality and privacy, diversity, equitable access, intellectual freedom and expression, preservation) and the values that we seek to provide to our communities (a civic commons, democracy, discovery, education and literacy, public discourse).  And so, looking at changes, we need to ask ourselves what they might mean for intellectual freedom, for education, for equitable access, or for any of the other values that drive our work.

As we bring together our observations of change with the constancy of our values, we can begin to exert influence. We can learn which trends advance our work and which might challenge our work. And we can plan accordingly, using some trends to our greatest advantage or doubling down on our values to stem the tide of problematic trends.

Collected below are highlights from a conversation with three librarians, each demonstrating how her commitment to library values has helped her pursue library futures in times of change. The interviewees are:


How do values help you think about and envision the future of libraries?

EMILY DRABINSKI: I got into libraries because I share the core values of the profession. I believe in democracy, equity, access, privacy and confidentiality, diversity, lifelong learning, and the right to read. I understand that those values haven’t been fully realized—libraries have histories of segregation, have struggled to diversify, and have sometimes shared patron information with authorities. Values are things to aspire to and to return to in order to guide the actions we take in the present that make the future we’re all going to be living in tomorrow and the next day and the next.

We often imagine futures where libraries do entirely different things, serve entirely different purposes. I am more interested in a future where the core functions of libraries continue—where libraries continue to select, acquire, organize, share, and make accessible information resources of all kinds, and instruct users in the use of those resources. I think of a future where we integrate our values fully and completely into those core functions. Examples might be knowledge organization schemes that reflect differences among us and resource collection models that both select and enable the creation of materials from all perspectives.

SARAH HOUGHTON: I come back to the core ethics and values of the library world with every professional decision I make, every project I pursue or reject, and every idea I support. As director of a public library, I think about how the values I promote to our team will affect the future of library services to our community. Likewise, when I decide what to publish, what to raise awareness about, and what to say publicly about our field, I come back to those same core ethics and values. I want a future where the values of library workers matter, where we recapture our steadfastness and passion for privacy, social equity, and freedom of information. Libraries serve our communities. The moment we forget that, we forget ourselves.

CHARLOTTE ROH: Like many librarians, I entered the profession because I wanted to help people. I see libraries as places of helping, and librarians as people who help. Libraries are not neutral spaces. But they are quite often perceived to be neutral, and in that perception of neutrality—and in the library as sacred space—we can achieve a lot of good if we ourselves strive to be self-aware. Social justice is a moving target and means different things to different people at different times. This means we must continue to grow and strive toward better librarianship and better libraries so that in crucial moments, libraries can be heroic, like the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s service as sanctuaries in Baltimore and the Ferguson Municipal Library’s role in Missouri. One of the best aspects of librarianship, which makes me hopeful about the future of libraries, is that professionally our soft skills—compassion, kindness, and true listening—are valued just as much as our abilities in search, instruction, or knowledge organization. These values and skills are universally acknowledged and appreciated so that librarians and libraries are beloved around the world, and that makes me feel very positive about our future.


What trends or changes do you see right now that might be most useful for advancing our professional values and the services we provide to communities?

HOUGHTON: Now is an excellent time to remind our communities that we are not just about books. We are about preserving the cultural and historical record, regardless of which way the political winds blow. We are about access to all information for all people. We are about evaluating the credibility of information to strive to be the rational and thoughtful population we all want to be a part of. People are craving something to do, something to stand up for, something to fight for. Libraries can serve to remind them how to stand up successfully and fight for the future we want.

ROH: Many people are finally internalizing the reality of the lives of people of color in this country, particularly on the heels of so much photographic and video evidence of violence and injustice. The US presidential election has been a real turning point. Over the past few years, in no small part due to the influence of Black Twitter and internet publishing, I have been encouraged by a growing awareness of bias and the need for alternative narratives in all forms of communication, from Hollywood to news journalism, from scholarly output to political punditry. Citizen journalism, or community-generated information like the Charleston Syllabus, has been amazing in its impact, and these efforts are an opportunity for libraries to collaborate with communities in providing resources.

As a scholarly communications librarian on a university campus, student protests have been important news over the past year. I wrote in C&RL News that the number one request was for more faculty of color, but what has really been change-making is that students are not satisfied by routine answers from administration. It’s more than just students—across our communities, people are demanding cultural competency from people traditionally considered experts: journalists, educational administrators, professors, and yes, librarians. As librarians, it is important that our cultural competencies are on par with the depth and breadth of our critical knowledge-seeking behaviors.

DRABINSKI: I try to think of times of crisis as times of great potential. When everyone is angry, everyone has the potential to organize and resist. One of the things LIU Brooklyn librarians learned during the lockout was that “management is the best organizer.” When attacks are made on all of us, all of us can come together to organize and fight. When I look at the present, I see more people calling Congress, joining local political organizations, and stepping up for our union phone banks than I have in the last decade. That’s as positive a spin as I can put on a future that looks quite grim to me. My hope is that assaults on values like privacy, equity, and democracy, assaults that are not new but are newly bold, will mobilize more of us to fight for the future we want.

What trends or changes do you see in the world right now that might pose the greatest threats to our professional values?

ROH: What has been scary for me as a librarian and a citizen is to see the ways in which misinformation—or fake news, propaganda, half-truths, or the framing of stories—has become such a powerful tool in the United States and abroad, and how major decisions are being influenced by misinformation. In the United States and globally, this devalues the knowledge and resources that libraries commit themselves to providing to the public.

In my specific area of scholarly communication, one issue is how global or international academia is bent toward the priorities of the North American and European world. In Latin America and Africa, the scholarly communication platforms and structures that have been built for regional research and publication are being undermined by the commercial forces of big publishing—and even big universities—in ways that are destructive to much-needed local knowledge in our increasingly global world.

DRABINSKI: I am most concerned about apathy in the face of continuing erosions of our core values. Diversity, equity, democracy, and privacy all seem like areas that have long been under attack, and will continue to be so. It’s important for librarians to continue to organize on behalf of ourselves as workers, our patrons, and our institutions. My hope is that we’ll turn to models of organized resistance and change that already exist—labor movements and political organizing in communities of color against police violence and mass incarceration—to inform the field’s efforts and make connections to work that have long been underway.

HOUGHTON: We must be ever-vigilant—fact-checking, educating our communities, defending the rights of free people to learn freely, and welcoming everyone with open arms. Ultimately, we are stewards of our communities’ trust, be that our residents, our students, our faculty, or our clients. With corporations owning information about our users and distributing that to other for-profit entities, we must preserve our users’ privacy at all costs. We must demand privacy protections from every entity we contract with. We must audit our own activities to ensure that we are protecting our users. We must reiterate to our communities that we are here for access to all information, not just that which is in vogue or politically popular. We must make clear that not all information is valid information. And we must hold true to the inclusivity and diversity that has made libraries, learning, and entertainment the trifecta of strength that it is.

How do values and trends help you innovate or communicate change within your library or with library colleagues?

DRABINSKI: All my work returns to the core values I hold not necessarily as a librarian, but as a person trying each day to make the world I want to live in. I want power to be built among people and shared equally. That means things like inviting my colleagues into projects, being consistently transparent about decisions I make and actions I take, trying to listen more than I talk, and asking questions. I also center myself and my colleagues as workers in the library. We are always thinking about student needs, but the learning conditions of our students depend on the working conditions of their faculty and staff, including those of us in the library. The future brings unprecedented attacks on an already-weakened organized labor movement. Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have been explicit about a desire for a national right to work law that would mean a future of gutted unions. That drives my work as a labor activist on my campus, and I use that to communicate the importance of efforts, from petition drives to rallies on campus. I try to communicate that urgency as well as a sense of hope—that things could be different, and we could make them that way.

HOUGHTON: I am much less concerned with trends than with core library values and ethics. Virtual reality and book bikes may be trendy now—and we do both in our library—but we do them because they mesh with our core values, namely economies of scale (buying something once so the entire community can use it) and service to all, regardless of location or mobility. When I am pitching a new service idea to my city manager or working with our library staff toward a new project, it always comes back to values. How does this thing help us be better, help our community become better, and reward the immense trust that our community has placed in us to do well with the investment they made in their library?

ROH: I’m fortunate in my job at the University of San Francisco to have an explicit social justice mission driving the campus. My colleagues are well informed and aligned with my interest in the intersection of social justice and scholarly communication. In this space, I can say up front that colonial systems and biases in academic research and publishing persist, that they influence what gets published, who gets tenure, what research gets funded, and what scholarship and knowledge is prioritized in the world. My colleagues engage with me on very practical questions like: What does publisher bias mean for our information literacy sessions? How does this change how we purchase databases, and how we acquire open access publications? How do we make sure open education resources are reliable? Change happens when ideas turn into action, and I am fortunate to be in an environment that is already oriented toward changing the world, starting from the library.

9 Takeaways for the Future

Librarians and speakers shared successes and concerns during a futures symposium at the 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits in Atlanta. Dozens of people offered ideas, tips, and projects that showcased a wide variety of future themes for libraries. Here are nine highlights:

1. Entrepreneurship
Getting access to capital, mentoring, coaching, and workspace needs are key issues that face black and Latina women starting in tech entrepreneurship. A network of support can help. Using metrics, says Darlene Gillard of Atlanta’s BIG Accelerator program, can get the funding faster and helps confirm success.

2. Civic engagement and innovation
Amy Koester and Amita Lonial’s “Building Civic Engagement with a Civic Lab” session covered their experiences with the Civic Lab at Skokie (Ill.) Public Library, a pop-up library. They highlighted six areas of civic engagement via microcollections, resource lists, and interactive activities, like a passive voting wall and postcard writing station, as well as community conversations with elected officials and others.

3. School libraries as global educators
From Skyping with Rube Goldberg’s granddaughter to facilitating a video conference between a professor from Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology and a budding middle school ornithology expert, librarians can open the classroom learning experience to conversations with established and emerging experts, as speaker Andy Plemmons has. Plemmons, school library media specialist at David C. Barrow Elementary School in Athens, Georgia, says he invests time cultivating in-person guests, including children’s authors and illustrators. He has also experienced the serendipity of social media—sharing news of what his students are learning in the school library and having his conversations reach big-name speakers.

4. Sustainability
Sustainability expert Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, coordinator for library sustainability at Mid-Hudson Library System in Poughkeepsie, New York, says by using a “triple bottom line” test—asking if something is environmentally sound, economically feasible, and socially equitable—librarians can ensure that the most important bases are covered as they make decisions about services, buildings, and the community beyond library walls.

5. Virtual reality
Matthew Boyer, codirector of the Digital Media and Learning Labs at Clemson (S.C.) University, and copresenter Stephen Moysey, codirector of Clemson’s Center for Geospatial Technologies, have been working on projects to test whether virtual reality will become the next content delivery platform. They are interested in using virtual reality to support immersive, interactive game-based engagement within a contextually rich learning environment. Virtual reality allows for place-based learning that moves beyond the traditional field trip.

6. Welcoming communities
Several libraries participate in National Welcoming Week, a project of Welcoming America, which helps bring together immigrants and US-born residents in a spirit of unity. Welcoming America’s Isha Lee emphasized that true social innovation requires consideration of the whole person’s needs, not just his or her perceived economic value or benefit.

7. Accessibility
One in four adults will have a disability at some point in his or her life, which should encourage everyone to view accessibility as benefiting “us,” not some vaguely defined “them.” Accessible features like curb cuts and closed captioning expand benefits beyond any single audience and improve experiences for all. That was the focus of the presentation by Patrice Johnson of Chicago Public Library, Pat Herndon of the Georgia Library for Accessible Statewide Services, and Jill Rothstein of New York Public Library’s Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library. A universal approach develops innovations that integrate and include all.

8. Academic tech focus
Jeffrey Martín, founder and CEO of honorCode, a program that aims to integrate coding into the K–12 curriculum, says that media specialists and librarians play a role in incubating these programs—and other STEAM programs—and making them successful. He sees them taking on responsibilities as teachers and instruction partners who stay up on computer science and technology trends; as information specialists who provide leadership and expertise in acquiring and evaluating information; and as program administrators who guide activities and work collaboratively with the community to define the program and build partnerships.

9. 21st-century ethics
San Rafael (Calif.) Public Library Director Sarah Houghton used the framework of ALA’s Library Bill of Rights to revisit what librarians say about their own ethics and apply them to current situations. One rallying point for most libraries is fighting censorship in all its forms. As professionals look ahead, new technologies like digital rights management—which allows content creators to “lock” content that can be opened only with a special digital key—or concepts like net neutrality—which champions an open internet free from “fast” and “slow” access channels based on cost or providers—will require professionals to consider their values as a means of navigation.

Source: American Libraries

Friday, March 17, 2017

Metro.co.uk: Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
By Ellen Scott

As John Waters once said: ‘If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t f*** ’em.’

Truer words have never been spoken.

But personally, I’d like to add an addendum to that rule: if they don’t have any books written by women, don’t f*** ’em either.

In an age in which there is so much brilliant literature written by women, it’s unforgivable for anyone to exclusively be reading men.

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
(Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong)

Not just because they’re missing out on all the amazing books written by women, but because they’re blinding themselves to a different perspective, only seeing the world through the eyes of men.

Which is a massive bloody shame.

Fashion brand Birdsong wants to change things.

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
(Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong)

They’ve just launched a campaign to get more men reading more books by women, creating a handy reading list for all men who only read books written by other dudes.

Boys With Books was inspired by a situation anyone who’s ever been on a dating app has likely experienced: seeing man after man listing off the same male authors as their favourites. ‘The lack of female authors was astounding,‘ wrote Sophie Davidson for Birdsong’s blog. ‘The lack of diversity amazed me.’

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong

‘Obviously I have no idea what else these men have read, maybe 90% of the other books they read are by women, but I doubt it. ‘It just seems that the books that are classed as ~respected literature worth showing off about having read on a dating site~ are mainly by white male authors.

‘For all I know they haven’t even read them, they’ve just read the bio for ‘Infinite Jest’ and had a quick scroll through David Foster Wallace’s Wikipedia page (I’m sorry to say I’m beginning to think that’s a thing people actually do.)

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong

‘Books, along with film (consistently lacking in diversity) and art, (in which women were pretty much written out of history,) are perhaps the best way to explore different experiences to our own.
‘If a high percentage of the population isn’t attempting to experience how the rest live then it seems like an increasingly difficult task to create equality.’

True that.

So, with that in mind, Birdsong created an alternative reading list for all men who’ve been struggling to get into literature written by women.

Oh, and all the photographs accompanying the campaign show men wearing Birdsong t-shirts and tops hand-painted by migrant mothers in Tower Hamlets for a living wage. Which is nice.

Birdsong’s founder, Sophie Slater, told metro.co.uk: ‘As a women, or for any cultural “minority”, you’re always forced to step into the shoes of male characters as they are the prevailing “default being”.

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong

‘To add to what Sophie Davidson said in our blog, a huge part of developing empathy is to take that imaginative leap into someone else’s reality.

‘How can we expect young men and boys to empathise with women if they’ve never immersed themselves for a few hours in a women’s perspective? ‘A book is the perfect way to do that.’

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong

The shift can start small – with all of us recommending books by women to men, and men making the effort to diversify their reading lists.

But hopefully, one day, it’ll grow bigger. Because I’m tired of hearing about students heading to university to be greeted with reading lists predominantly made up of books by men.

‘I think schools should be doing more to promote diversity across all their curriculum,’ says Sophie Slater. ‘I worked with an amazing girl called Jessy once who campaigned to get more women composers on the A Level music course, so public pressure definitely works.

Why this fashion brand is encouraging men to read more books by women
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong

‘In lower schools where there’s less restraint on curriculum, teachers could do more to encourage children to read about characters from different backgrounds to them. ‘Maybe even get kids to do a world book day character swap with each other.’

See? It’s simple. If we want to change the world, it can start with a book. A book written by a woman.


Source: Metro.co.uk

Thursday, March 16, 2017

New York Times: Teenagers Who Vandalized Historic Black Schoolhouse Are Ordered to Read Books

February 8th, 2017
by Christine Hauser

After five teenagers defaced a historic black schoolhouse in Virginia with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti last year, a judge handed down an unusual sentence. She endorsed a prosecutor’s order that they read one book each month for the next 12 months and write a report about it.

But not just any books: They must address some of history’s most divisive and tragic periods. The teenagers can read “Night,” by Elie Wiesel, to learn about the Holocaust. They can crack open Maya Angelou’s landmark 1969 book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” for an unsparing account of the Jim Crow South. They can also dive into “The Kite Runner,” by Khaled Hosseini, a captivating tale about two boys from Afghanistan.

Those books were among the 35 works of literature that the judge, Avelina Jacob, ordered the unidentified teenagers, ages 16 and 17, in Loudoun County to choose from last week after they pleaded guilty to spray-painting the Ashburn Colored School, a dilapidated, one-room 19th-century schoolhouse that had been used by black children during segregation in Northern Virginia.

The teenagers’ sentence, known as a disposition in juvenile cases, also includes a mandatory visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington and the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History’s exhibit on Japanese-American internment camps in the United States.

The graffiti sprayed in September on the building in Ashburn, a community of about 43,000 people northwest of Washington, included swastikas, dinosaurs, sexual images and the phrases “brown power” and “white power.”

Two of the teenagers are white and three are minorities, the commonwealth attorney’s office said in a statement announcing the decision last week. They were arrested in October, and each pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of private property and one count of unlawful entry. At least one of the teenagers said he did not know the symbolism of a swastika.

Alejandra Rueda, a deputy commonwealth attorney who came up with the idea, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that it was the first time in her 19-year career as a prosecutor that she has assigned a reading list as part of a disposition.

“It occurred to me that the way these kids are going to learn about this stuff is if they read about it, more than anything,” Ms. Rueda said. “Yes, they could walk into court and plead guilty and get put on probation and do some community service, but it wasn’t really going to bring the message home.”
“I just thought maybe if they read these books, it will make an impression on them, and they will stand up for people who are being oppressed,” she added.

Ms. Rueda said she had been inspired by her own history growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the 1980s, when her librarian mother handed her Leon Uris’s books “Mila 18” and “Exodus” to learn about Israel and the Holocaust while she was participating in a model United Nations project.
She later went on to read Alan Paton’s “Cry, the Beloved Country,” which touched on race and injustice in South Africa.

The teenagers will also be required to write a paper about the impact swastikas and “white power” messages have on African-Americans and members of the broader community. The paper must include historical references such as Nazism, lynchings and discriminatory laws.

They must also listen to a recorded interview of Yvonne Neal, a Virginia woman who described her experiences as a student from 1938 to 1945 at the Ashburn Colored School, its official name in tax records.

“We are seizing the opportunity to treat this as an educational experience for these young men so they may better appreciate the significance of their actions and the impact this type of behavior has on communities and has had throughout history,” the commonwealth’s attorney, Jim Plowman, said in the statement.

Some of the books on the list have been banned or challenged in the past: like “Black Boy,” the 1945 autobiography by Richard Wright; “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood; and Ms. Angelou’s book, according to the American Library Association.

Ms. Rueda said she first gave the list to defense lawyers to make sure there were no objections from the boys’ families on religious or other grounds.

“Given how fractured our country is right now,” she said, “the more people who are open minded, the better our country will be.”

Probation officers will check the work of the youths, who are public school students.

Deep Sran, the founder of the Loudoun School for the Gifted, a private school that owns the Ashburn Colored School and is renovating it to use as an education museum, said of the vandalism: “It was just profoundly disappointing. Profoundly disappointing because this building is evidence of the worst story in American history: swastikas, white power. I teach history, and at some point you think the story will end.”

Dr. Sran said in a telephone interview he was told about the vandalism in an email in October from a man who rents space on the grounds of the old schoolhouse to smoke meat overnight for his barbecue food truck business. Dr. Sran and his colleagues raced over to the school to find spray paint on the windows and the sides of the building, a sight that was particularly upsetting because students had raised money to upgrade the windows a week before.

He said the school worked with Ms. Rueda on suggestions for the book list. One of the school’s English teachers balked at the idea of using literature as punishment, inspiring the inclusion of Ms. Neal’s interview, he said.

Eventually, Dr. Sran and his colleagues pitched several options, including Wright’s “Black Boy” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir, “The Beautiful Struggle.”

“If things like this are still happening in 2016 in a very diverse county with all the resources in the world, it’s an indictment on teachers, if a 16- or 17-year-old thinks this is how you should spend a Friday night,” Dr. Sran said.

He added, “If any good can come out of this, it has to be through an effort to educate.”

source: New York Times

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Guardian: World Book Day: Without libraries we are less human and more profoundly alone

World Book Day: Without libraries we are less human and more profoundly alone

Councils threaten libraries with closure and then rely on volunteers to keep them open. But professional librarians are the key to a healthy library

by Nicola Davies

When I was little I loved everything about public libraries. The echoey floor, the ever so faintly dusty air, the ritual and rhythm of book stamping.

We had plenty of books at home, but home books all came to me through my parents. They were already chosen, domesticated. Library books felt different, wild as tigers. They came to me straight from the world. When I walked into the library I felt I was walking across the tundra or the steppe, into the jungle or under the sea. I could roam the shelves, choose whatever I wanted, and find out about anything. I could live inside any story. It made me feel powerful and free.

Back then I had no idea that librarians did any more than wield the ink block and tell noisy children to be quiet. I imagined that the books flew onto the shelves, like birds coming to roost.

I didn’t realise that the intoxicating diversity I so adored was carefully created, and made accessible and attractive to me by talented librarians.

Librarians are far more than stackers and catalogers. They are creative curators of their book collections. They review and renew their flocks of books, adjusting what they have to fit their readers, highlighting certain sections and topics to reflect the world. They are on hand to guide and encourage, to foster relationships between books and people. Subtly, quietly, inexorably, they weave individuals into a community. They make a library shimmer, as if the books were the scales of a dragon flexing as it folds and flies.

A healthy library, like a healthy habitat, is diverse and dynamic. Like species in a rainforest or fishes on a reef, the books on the shelves shift and change, with time and season, so that every week there is something new to discover. A healthy library invites the eye and mind to wander round.

This book habitat does not happen on its own – it is created by librarians. Librarians are the keystone of good libraries. Without them, dust gathers, book collections are not refreshed, readers do not feel enticed and beguiled, relationships between books and people dwindle into nothing.

We’ve all seen libraries like that. The places where you walk through the door and a sepia tint descends on your soul. The very idea of choosing a book from the dingy shelves seems the epitome of pointlessness.

Libraries get like this because they have lost their keystone. Someone with a spreadsheet decided that the internet was now a library so librarians were not needed.

Community libraries can be wonderful places, and volunteers do tremendous work stepping up to preserve them in the wake of government cuts. But libraries are a public service. They must be properly funded, properly resourced and properly staffed, with trained and expert full-time librarians. Councils cannot assume that they can threaten libraries with closure and then rely on volunteers to keep them open. Without librarians and the libraries they make we are less alive, less human, more profoundly alone.

Nicola Davies is a children’s author and former presenter of The Really Wild Show. Her latest book is The White Hare.

Source: The Guardian

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Hamilton Spectator: Back Off Bullies -- Leave Our Libraries Alone

Back off bullies, leave our libraries alone
Hamilton Spectator
February 14, 2017

By Penny Gumbert

You might think I'm a freeloader. I read my friend's magazines and newspapers. I borrow CDs, books and videos. My friend even has a computer set up for my use. Not bad, eh? My friend's always there and knows the real me and my penchant for murder mysteries, British movies and instrumental music. Everybody needs a friend like mine. But wait! There is a friend like this in every community. It's your local library.

Libraries have always been important to me. We moved a lot when I was a kid and finding the nearest library was my security blanket. It was a friendly haven. More than that, it was a mentor. When I was in my teens an astute librarian, noticing my boredom with the young adult section, introduced me to Graham Greene and C.P. Snow. At various times in my life the library has been a study hall, a meeting place, a cool place to be in the heat of Hamilton's summers and always a source of inspiration.

What about the family that can't afford books and computers? When I was growing up my family's income meant I relied on the library for books. If new purchases are only to reflect the frequency of use, librarians may have trouble justifying a balance in their stock to reflect all of their community. Should all sectors of society be deprived of these resources because the local library just can't afford the materials or must close two days a week because it can't afford the staff? That excellent librarian many years ago was the reason I wasn't turned off reading.

More than 17 years ago I wrote the above, and more, about my love affair with libraries. It was published in The Hamilton Spectator when I was one of a group of volunteers who wrote on community issues.

Libraries were under siege then, too. I feel the same way today, if not more strongly. My local library is a beehive of activity. People who do not have Internet access people the desks. Teens with headphones find a safe place. Other teens garner work experience stocking shelves. Tutors coach kids who need a little extra help. Talk about democracy!

A book club with seniors discusses their latest read. Infants lie on the rug mesmerized by the book being read aloud. Youngsters take pride in being able to check out their own books. Literacy lives!

Like the issue of public radio, the necessity of public libraries keeps being debated and I do not understand why in either case. There is nothing to discuss. Libraries are not there to be turning a profit and, if operating at a loss, so what? Our libraries must be protected. The library is a lynch pin of Canadian society, providing information and services to all. Access to a library affects social mobility. It is a passport to democracy. Back off, bullies. The library is here to stay.

Penny Gumbert is a lifelong lover of libraries and Hamilton resident.

Source: Hamilton Spectator

Monday, March 13, 2017

CBC.ca: Rewriting their narratives: local libraries are becoming hubs of technology

Rewriting their narratives: local libraries are becoming hubs of technology
Library programming expands to include more digital options to stay relevant, the service says
By Stephanie Matteis
February 08, 2017

Record a podcast. Borrow musical instruments. Heck, even learn to weave.

Those aren't activities people typically think of doing at a public library, but they're all possible at many Toronto branches.

The offerings are just part of the library's shift to stay relevant in the digital age, Linda Hazzan, a spokeswoman for Toronto Public Library said.

The library saw more than 8,000 people use the "digital innovation hubs" found at three branches, which include everything from 3D printing, to recording studios and coding programs.

"Today it might be a story time and tomorrow might be a maker program," Hazzan said. The so-called maker programs teach kids and adults new skills: think crafting, web design and video production.

Hazzan and other scholars are trying to figure out how to draw those people back to the library who associate it more with books than they do with all the other technology available there.

She, travel journalist Rod Charles and public relations consultant Nini Krishnappa tackled the issue recently at the Ontario Library Association's conference.

Charles said the library needs to emphasize all its online offerings: he turned to its tutorials recently when he decided he wanted to learn a new language.

"You can learn for free," he said. "They have French, they have Farsi, they have German, they even have pirate."

There's also Lynda, the library's online tutorial, which has more than 3,500 video tutorial courses led by experts on technology topics.

Childhood memories

Krishnappa's relationship with the library dates back to his childhood. His mother was a librarian for 30 years and at one time he held a part-time job at an Ottawa library himself.

Yet Krishnappa said he hasn't been to a library since he began buying books and accessing information on computers and now his phone.

"Libraries have kept up and anticipated needs. It's just that people are not aware of the plethora of new offerings and services they provide," he said. "M​odern day libraries are an untold story."

e-connections

When Hazzan first started at the reference library a decade ago she said e-book borrowing was at two per cent and it's now at 15 per cent.

Daphne Wood, president of the B.C. library association said that evolution means "you never have to step foot inside a library, because they're everywhere."

Wood said that libraries consider computers, wifi and internet access just the basics — and it's becoming common for branches across the country to provide other technology like green screens to make videos.

The Toronto Public Library at a glance:

  • 18 million visits each year
  • 32 millions items circulated annually
  • 37,000 programs held each year
  • Almost a million people attended programs in 2016

Source: CBC.ca

Friday, March 10, 2017

CP24: Toronto library unveils guide for spotting #Fakenews

Toronto library unveils guide for spotting #Fakenews

library, ban
A Toronto Public Library sign is shown in this file photo.








Joshua Freeman, CP24.com
Published Thursday, March 9, 2017 6:19PM EST 
It’s possible that confusion over what is real and fabricated online has never been more acute.
Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump has dismissed news reports which displease him as “fake news,” attacking outlets such as CNN and the New York Times.
Confusingly, the term has also been applied to other news outlets at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, some of which support Trump.
Just in time to help save readers from a possibly embarrassing misapplication of a “fake news” hash tag, the Toronto Public Library has assembled a handy guide to help online readers decipher legitimate news from news that is indeed fake.
“We got some inspiration from some other guides we saw soon after the U.S. elections,” said librarian and online communications lead Mabel Ho. “The guide itself is targeted for Toronto residents and also for our staff as well.”
Ho said it’s a natural fit for the library to issue a guide that helps people asses the quality of information they’re seeing online.
“The library has always been a place for people to get facts,” she said.
While the library hasn’t noticed a spike in confused patrons, helping people understand the difference between authoritative and questionable sources of information online is an ongoing effort, according to Ho.
“We’ve all come across something at one point that we’ve fallen for as well, so it’s not always something that’s easy for people to figure out,” she said. “It’s not something we’re seeing more of, but it is something that’s common – for people to see something and assume that it’s the real thing.”
Appropriately title “How to Spot Fake News,” the library’s guide offers definitions for fake news, tips for assessing whether an article is likely real or fake, links to reliable fact-checking sites and further library resources.
 “We’ve made it pretty easy to use,” Ho said. “So that they (users) can first and foremost understand what fake news is and then how you can spot it.”
The guide compliments courses the library offers for new digital users and aims to help fill a gap that Ho acknowledges exists in digital literacy.  
“We want to encourage Toronto residents to be more thoughtful and critical when they’re looking at those information sources,” Ho said.
To that end, the Toronto reference Library will also be offering an event on digital literacy in June with media scholar Tim Woo and BuzzFeed Media Editor Craig Silverman.
“Digital literacy is definitely one of those things we’re behind in and we want to encourage more of,” Ho said.
The Toronto Public Library’s guide to fake news can be found at tpl.ca/spotfakenews

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Engadget: Google helps libraries encourage kids to code



Mountain View teamed up with the American Library Association for 'Libraries Ready to Code.'





Shutterstock / Andresr



Google has added a new project to its list of library programs, which include WiFi hotspot lending. The tech titan has teamed up with the American Library Association (ALA) to launch "Libraries Ready to Code," an initiative that aims to help equip librarians with the right skills and tools to encourage kids to code. It won't turn every librarian into a coding expect, but it will train them to be able to provide an introduction to computer science.


The program will give them the knowledge necessary to be able to conjure up and implement the right (fun!) CS programs for their communities. It will also help Library and Information Science schools redesign their tech and media courses for fledgling librarians by adding various CS activities.

Google and ALA are hoping the project can turn libraries into a place where kids from all backgrounds can start exploring the world of computer sciences. As Crystle Martin, Secretary of the Young Adult Library Services Association, said:




"Libraries and library staff can create opportunities for youth to gain basic exposure and a basic interest in coding. From there, with support and mentorship from librarians and staff, they can develop long term engagement and possibly computer science as an envisioned future."
From: Engadget