Libraries are Failing America

Why are we subsidizing the entertainment needs of the middle class?
by: David Harsanyi

A new Pew Study claims that libraries “loom large in the public imagination,” with 90 percent of Americans ages 16 and older saying that closing down their local libraries would have an impact on their community. The public may imagine that libraries are dynamic centers of learning and community, but the Pew data seems suggest that they’re mostly places where your prosperous neighbors borrow books and movies without having to directly pay for them. And as Pew points out, adults with “higher levels of education and household income are more likely to use public libraries” – and the more you use the library the more well-off you probably are.

“Library Lovers,” those designated as having the highest levels of engagement, only represent 10 percent of Americans. Among them, 66 percent are white, most of them college educated and living in households earning more than $50,000. Also, deep in the Pew poll we learn 58 percent of these highly engaged freeloaders say they borrowed more books than they bought last year, compared to 38 percent of the general population.

Should a library be more concerned with offering a collection of resources for reference and educational purposes or should it be competing with Borders Barnes and Noble?  Because if a library is driven by market needs, we can do a better in the private sector (through a Netflix-type services, for instance); and if we’re aiming to make a cultural center where a diverse citizenry is excited about knowledge, we can still do a lot better. Right now libraries seem to offer a weird mix of what we don’t need and what we don’t want.

I’ve lived in four major metro areas in the past decade, and all the libraries I visited have catered to the whims of the public rather than functioning as a center that promotes literature and learning for the masses. Actually, books seem like a secondary business in many libraries. Like a lot of you, I consume extraordinary amounts of junk culture. The last time I went down to my local library, I could have borrowed a DVD copy of ‘This Is the End’ or ‘Taken 2′ (both of which I’d seen, and both which are available on Netflix or for $1.10 at a Redbox) or a book on CD of ’50 Shades of Grey,’ but I couldn’t find a decent book on the history of early Christianity.

This isn’t a libertarian critique or an elitist one, it’s simply an attempt to point out that libraries fail to fulfill their self-defined purpose.  The mission statement of The New York Public Library, for instance, says the organization’s charge “is to inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities.” Are libraries strengthening communities? Gracy Olmstead at the American Conservative makes some excellent observations:

Nonetheless, it seems that those using libraries are somewhat homogenous: they’re mostly wealthy, well-educated, and well-informed. Yet the library ought to reach a diverse population: it ought to offer resources to those from lower incomes, without many community connections, or to those lacking technological or informational resources. Yet many such individuals are the library’s rarest frequenters—or never use it at all.

For a few, libraries offer technological resources that some may typically lack access. But like others who run other government institutions, library professionals seem to function under the mistaken notion that they oversee laboratories of innovation. If the library’s rarest frequenters are the ones we’d like to see in them the most, then libraries are failing. This is probably why we see constant mission creep. Take this statement from American Library Association President Barbara Stripling on the heels of the Pew poll release:

But we also know that one-third of all Americans still lack home broadband Internet, and a recent global survey finds U.S. adults lag behind many of their counterparts overseas in basic education skills. Our work is not done, and libraries will continue to innovate and meet evolving needs as new technologies and applications emerge. Libraries are transforming lives through education and help level the playing field for all.

No, they’re not. Not often. How innovative can a building filled with “new technologies” like “the Internet,” books and CDs be? My local library still has an entire row of books on cassette tapes for your enjoyment. Who are they catering to? “Information Omnivores,” one the groups Pew points to as having the highest engagement levels, also has high household income (35 percent in households earning $75,000 or more) and the highest technology use among any group polled. Almost half own a tablet and 68 percent own a “smartphone,” according to Pew. These are folks who are probably stream movies and music and read books on one device or another. Moreover, broadband access (over 100 million Americans have access and do not sign up) a rural American problem, and rural Americans have the lowest library attendance per capita.

The census says we have around 17,000 libraries in the United States (this doesn’t include school libraries).  These libraries spend much of their $11 billion yearly budgets subsidizing the entertainment needs of people who can afford to do help themselves. Some of us find comfort knowing that there are buildings in nearly every town filled with books. But if they’re not helping Americans who need it the most, what’s the point?

David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist and author of the The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy. Follow him on Twitter.

from: The Federalist

Thinking Inside the Ideas Box

Libraries Without Borders Unveils a Library in a Box for Refugees

by: Jennifer Maloney

The Ideas Box, seen above, is a shippable library - with books, tablets and more - designed by Philippe Starck for Libraries without Borders. Photo: Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

Tuesday night at the New York Public Library, an organization called Libraries Without Borders will unveil its latest project: a library in a box.

More accurately, it's a library in multiple boxes—lightweight, durable and waterproof—designed to be packed onto shipping pallets and sent to refugee camps.

The idea is that food, water and shelter aren't enough, said Patrick Weil, the group's founder and chief executive, and a visiting professor at Yale Law School. People who have lost everything, he said, need books, films, games and Internet access to feed their minds, connect with loved ones, pursue education and rebuild their lives.

The so-called Ideas Box, designed by Philippe Starck, contains 15 tablet computers and four laptops with satellite Internet connections; 50 e-readers and 5,000 e-books; 250 printed books; a movie projector, screen and 100 films; chairs, tables and board games.

"We can rebuild ourselves by reading," said Mr. Starck, who noted that he had educated himself by studying books rather than attending school. He designed the boxes in bright colors and said their arrival should feel like Christmas. "Inside, it's not toys, it's doors—doors to an open mind, thousands of different universes."

In February, the first two Ideas Boxes arrived in refugee camps in Burundi, in partnership with the United Nations refugee agency, and plans are under way for boxes to serve Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. There are 46,000 refugees in Burundi, most of them Congolese, according to the agency.

In a report on Thursday, the Libraries Without Borders project director in Burundi said that at one of the boxes, some 30 children that day had watched an animated movie, with more peeking in through the windows. Meanwhile, around 10 adolescents used the tablets, 15 high-school students studied from geography and grammar books and older folks read books on the history of the Congo.

"It's a real mental breath of fresh air," the director wrote.

The project launched with a $400,000 seed grant from the Alexander Soros Foundation. "Giving people access to education and culture," Mr. Soros said, "it completely inspired me."

Now Paris-based Libraries Without Borders is looking for corporate sponsors to contribute tablets, laptops and electrical generators. One box costs $60,000 to assemble. The group hires and trains local refugees to work with the project, Mr. Weil said.

Write to Jennifer Maloney at jennifer.maloney@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
The surname of Philippe Starck was misspelled as Stark in a photo caption in an earlier version of this article.

from: Wall Street Journal

AN ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER THE LAWS OF LITERATURE

by: Joshua Rothman

Should literary criticism be an art or a science? A surprising amount depends on the answer to that question. If you’re an English major, what should you study: the idiosyncratic group of writers who happen to interest you (art), or literary history and theory (science)? If you’re an English professor, how should you spend your time: producing “readings” of the literary works that you care about (art), or looking for the patterns that shape whole literary forms or periods (science)? Faced with this question, most people try to split the difference: if you relate to criticism as an art, you take a few theory classes; if you relate to it as a science, you put on bravura close readings. (Louis Menand’s article about Paul de Man, in this week’s magazine, quotes the critic Peter Brooks, who recalls how de Man could “sit in front of a text and just pluck magical things out of it.”) Almost no one, meanwhile, wants to answer the question definitively, because, for a critic, alternating between one’s artistic and scientific temperaments is fun—it’s like switching between the ocean and the sun at the beach.

Franco Moretti, a professor at Stanford, whose essay collection “Distant Reading” just won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, fascinates critics in large part because he doeswant to answer the question definitively. He thinks that literary criticism ought to be a science. In 2005, in a book called “Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History,” he used computer-generated visualizations to map, among other things, the emergence of new genres. In 2010, he founded the Stanford Literary Lab, which is dedicated to analyzing literature with software. The basic idea in Moretti’s work is that, if you really want to understand literature, you can’t just read a few books or poems over and over (“Hamlet,” “Anna Karenina,” “The Waste Land”). Instead, you have to work with hundreds or even thousands of texts at a time. By turning those books into data, and analyzing that data, you can discover facts about literature in general—facts that are true not just about a small number of canonized works but about what the critic Margaret Cohen has called the “Great Unread.” At the Literary Lab, for example, Moretti is involved in a project to map the relationships between characters in hundreds of plays, from the time of ancient Greece through the nineteenth century. These maps—which look like spiderwebs, rather than org charts—can then be compared; in theory, the comparisons could reveal something about how character relationships have changed through time, or how they differ from genre to genre. Moretti believes that these types of analyses can highlight what he calls “the regularity of the literary field. Its patterns, its slowness.” They can show us the forest rather than the trees.

Moretti’s work has helped to make “computational criticism,” and the digital humanities more generally, into a real intellectual movement. When, the week before last, Stanford announced that undergraduates would be able to enroll in “joint majors” combining computer science with either English or music, it was hard not to see it as a sign of Moretti’s influence. Yet Moretti has critics. They point out that, so far, the results of his investigations have been either wrong or underwhelming. (A typical Moretti finding is that, in eighteenth-century Britain, for instance, the titles of novels grew shorter as the market for novels grew larger—a fact that is “interesting” only in quotes.) And yet these sorts of objections haven’t dimmed the enthusiasm for Moretti’s work. That’s because, no matter how Moretti’s individual research projects turn out, his method, in itself, makes a meaningful statement. It pushes critics to rethink what they do (especially critics who think of themselves as well-read). In an essay called “Conjectures on World Literature”—published in 2000, and collected in “Distant Reading”—Moretti puts it this way:

What does it mean, studying world literature? How do we do it? I work on west European narrative between 1790 and 1930, and already feel like a charlatan outside of Britain and France. World literature?

Many people have read more and better than I have, of course, but still, we are talking hundreds of languages and literatures here. Reading “more” hardly seems to be the solution…. “I work on west European narrative, etc….” Not really, I work on its canonical fraction, which is not even 1 per cent of published literature…. There are thirty thousand nineteenth-century British novels out there, forty, fifty, sixty thousand—no one really knows, no one has read them, no one ever will. And then there are French novels, Chinese, Argentinian, American….

Set aside Moretti’s analyses: the numbers themselves make you see literature differently—as something vast, social, and impersonal that is perhaps best approached in a statistical way. By 2005, Moretti had pinned down these numbers and charted the production of novels over time. You can see some of the results in “Graphs, Maps, Trees.” It’s a shame they aren’t included in “Distant Reading,” because they’re among the best things that Moretti has done. His graphs that track novels published per year have an almost poetic quality, setting ambition and effort on the y-axis, against the erosions of time on the x-axis. An extraordinary chart, “British novelistic genres, 1740-1900,” shows what Moretti calls “a rather regular changing of the guard,” as once vital genres—the “conversion novel,” the “ramble novel,” the “silver-fork novel”—flourish and then disappear.

The grandeur of this expanded scale gives Moretti’s work aesthetic power. (It plays a larger role in his appeal, I suspect, than most Morettians would like to admit.) And Moretti’s approach has a certain moral force, too. One of the pleasures of “Distant Reading” is that it assembles many essays, published over a long period of time, into a kind of intellectual biography; this has the effect of emphasizing Moretti’s Marxist roots. Moretti’s impulses are inclusive and utopian. He wants critics to acknowledge all the books that they don’t study; he admires the collaborative practicality of scientific work. Viewed from Moretti’s statistical mountaintop, traditional literary criticism, with its idiosyncratic, personal focus on individual works, can seem self-indulgent, even frivolous. What’s the point, his graphs seem to ask, of continuing to interpret individual books—especially books that have already been interpreted over and over? Interpreters, Moretti writes, “have already said what they had to.” Better to focus on “the laws of literary history”—on explanation, rather than interpretation.

All this sounds austere and self-serious. It isn’t. “Distant Reading” is a pleasure to read. Moretti is a witty and welcoming writer, and, if his ideas sometimes feel rough, they’re rarely smooth from overuse. I have my objections, of course. I’m skeptical, for example, about the idea that there are “laws of literary history”; for all his techno-futurism, Moretti can seem old-fashioned in his eagerness to uncover hidden patterns and structures within culture. But Moretti is no upstart. He is patient, experienced, and open-minded. It’s obvious that he intends to keep gathering data, and, where it’s possible, to replace his speculations with answers. In some ways, the book’s receiving an award reflects the role that Moretti has played in securing a permanent seat at the table for a new critical paradigm—something that happens only rarely.

Even so, my guess is that, while many critics will admire Moretti, relatively few will follow him. The technical skills are learnable; English majors can take computer-science courses. But the sacrifices, intellectually and, as it were, artistically, are too great. Moretti, it seems to me, has set out on a one-way mission. In ordinary literary criticism—the kind that splits the difference between art and science—there is a give-and-take between the general and the particular. You circle back from theory to text; you compromise, or ennoble, science with art. But Moretti’s criticism doesn’t work that way. Generality is the whole point. By the end of his journey, Moretti may be able to see all of literature, but he’ll see it as an astronaut on Mars might see the Earth: from afar, with no way home. In 2006, the literary Web site the Valve hosted an online symposium on “Graphs, Maps, Trees,” with Moretti as a participant. In one of his responses, he asked, rhetorically, whether his approach “abolish[es] the pleasure of reading literature.” His answer:

No—it just means that between the pleasure and the knowledge of literature (or at least a large part of knowledge) there is no continuity. Knowing is not reading.

Perhaps it’s odd to feel gratitude for the work of a critic with whom you regularly disagree, but I feel grateful for Moretti. As readers, we now find ourselves benefitting from a division of critical labor. We can continue to read the old-fashioned way. Moretti, from afar, will tell us what he learns.

from: New Yorker

How to #ReadWomen2014 in Genres Other Than Literary Fiction

by: Zola Books

We love the #ReadWomen2014 movement, but we find that the female authors and their books recommended often fall into the category of literary fiction. And when it comes to other genres—business, say, or sci-fi—it's always the same classic (or modern classic) names. Check out our #ReadWomen2014 reading list, in which we recommend up-and-comers or established authors you might have missed, who carry on the torch from their female forebears in a variety of genres.

Young Adult

Who you know: Suzanne Collins, Maureen Johnson

Who you should read: Kathleen Hale

Like Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series, No One Can Have You opens with the citizens of the small town of Friendship (yes, there are several great puns), Wisconsin, discovering the brutally murdered body of their homecoming queen, Ruth Fried. But while this Fargo-esque town is quick to put Ruth in the ground and pin her murder on an unlikely suspect, her best friend Kippy Bushman digs into Ruth's journal and discovers that it was a much darker hometown secret that led to her demise. This is the kind of debut where you have to imagine that the author was just spending years and years honing this brilliant nugget until it was completely ready.

Business

Who you know: Sheryl Sandberg

Who you should read: Becky Blalock, Debora L. Spar

Every woman who counts Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In as her business bible shouldn't be lulled into relying on one sole female font of wisdom. That's where former Chief Information Officer of Southern Company Becky Blalock comes in. Dare: Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage, and Career for Women in Charge complements Lean In in that it imparts many of the same encouragement—but for women on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder who lack the Ivy League education or other built-in connections. And, if you'd like to listen to a lady outside of the board room, consider Harvard professor Debora L. Spar, whose book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest of Perfection takes on the "can women have it all?" debate.

Mysteries & Thrillers

Who you know: Agatha Christie, Gillian Flynn, Janet Evanovich, Mary Higgins Clark

Who you should read: Margaret Maron, Alexandra Sokoloff,Carol Cassella

While a good mystery tends to go hand-in-hand with a thriller, these two genres are so diverse it's nearly impossible to cover them all. For fans of following a single detective, Agatha Award winner Margaret Maron writes two series: one about an NYPD homicide detective who chases down murders, while the other focuses on a North Carolina judge who finds herself drawn to trouble due to her own curiosity. If fantasy thrillers are more your speed, Alexandra Sokoloff's Huntressseries features an FBI special agent hunting down a female serial killer. Finally, those who love the drama and mystery Jodi Picoult always delivers will adore Carol Cassella's deep and heartbreaking new release Gemini—a medical mystery following a doctor in her search to uncover the identity of a comatose Jane Doe.

Comics & Graphic Novels

Who you know: Gail Simone, Alison Bechdel

Who you should read: Kelly Sue DeConnick, G. Willow Wilson

Frankly, women are underrepresented in comics already, so we want to uphold the amazing work Alison Bechdel and Gail Simone have done for (respectively) the graphic memoir and some of DC's best heroines. But for the moment, let's talk about Marvel—specifically, their Marvel Now imprint. Despite their similar titles, there's a huge difference between the two comics series we're recommending: In 2013, Kelly Sue DeConnick took over the relaunch ofCaptain Marvel, which saw Carol Danvers taking the mantle. The reboot set off repercussions both within the Marvel canon and the comics world: Just as Carol Danvers inspired Muslim teenager Kamala Khan to become the new Ms. Marvel, G. Willow Wilson pens the new Ms. Marvel series that, after only two issues, has already racked up eager readers.

Sports & Recreation

Who you know: Laura Hillenbrand

Who you should read: Caryn Rose, Juliet Macur

It is a well perpetuated myth that women don't know anything about sports. While the genre is still heavily male-dominated, authors like Laura Hillenbrand show that women do have a place in the sports world: Seabiscuit is one of the best-known book on horse racing. Author Caryn Rose has been talking baseball on her blog Metsgrrl for almost 10 years and now has put her passion for America's pastime in a new novel, A Whole New Ballgame. The book follows a woman's cross-country journey to visit America's great baseball stadiums and shows a knowledge of the game to rival any male sports fan. In nonfiction, author Juliet Macur takes on the once-revered Lance Armstrong in her biography Cycle of Lies, in which she not only takes on the cheating controversy surrounding his Tour de France wins, but also explores the sport of cycling as a whole.

Horror

Who you know: Shirley Jackson, Mary Shelley, Anne Rice,Angela Carter

Who you should read: Fran Friel, Sarah Monette

So you've read Frankenstein, Interview With the Vampire, andThe Haunting of Hill House—what's next? Before you pick upStephen King, we'd recommend you check out Fran Friel and Sarah Monette. Both are featured on lists of female horror authors who deserve more attention, yet what they bring to the table is entirely unique. For vivid storytelling mixed with fantastical horrors, Monette's short story collection Somewhere Beneath Those Waveswill fulfill your craving for Carter-esque tales. For a reader who wants everyday tales with a sinister twist, Friel's Bram Stoker-nominated novella Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales, featured in her collection of short stories, is sure to chill your bones.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Well-known authors: Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin,Octavia Butler

Who you should read: Ann Leckie, N.K. Jemisin

If you haven't picked up Ann Leckie's (Nebula nominated!) living-spaceship sci-fi debut Ancillary Justice, you should get on it before her next (expected to be fantastic, of course) book comes out. And we can't recommend enough N.K. Jemisin, who not only owns at speculative fiction with novels like The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but who has no problem calling out the sexism and racism in the genre. These women will make you think, perhaps in ways you haven't dared to before.

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from: Huffington Post

San Antonio Public Library Unveils Brand New Library Learning Van for Children and Teens

by: Joseph Marks

The San Antonio Public Library announced and unveiled a brand new Library Learning Van today at Wheatley Middle School. Named, V.R.O.O.M.- the Valero Roaming Online Outreach Mobile, the van will roam throughout the Eastside Promise Neighborhood, providing online outreach to children and teens, in order to bridge the digital divide that exists in our community. V.R.O.O.M is just one more example of how the Library provides access to online resources that empower the lives of our citizens.

The van was made possible thanks to a $100,000 grant received by the San Antonio Public Library Foundation from the Valero Energy Foundation. The grant was awarded to launch a program that will promote education, wellness and literacy for children and teens throughout San Antonio’s Eastside. In addition, the community will be provided with information about library card sign-up and other Library services.

The goal of this initiative is to improve the lives and opportunities for children and teens from San Antonio’s historic Eastside and their families by providing early literacy programs and workshops, and other out-of-school learning opportunities.  “Innovative early literacy initiatives, like this one offered by the San Antonio Public Library, are critical to improving educational and developmental outcomes for children and teens on San Antonio’s historic East Side,” explains Mayor Julian Castro.

V.R.O.O.M, a customized sprinter van, will transport library programming and materials to the Eastside Promise neighborhood. In addition to the donation from Valero, the Library received a $25,000 grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to fund the transport of library programming and materials to schools, community centers, daycares and other locations within the Eastside Promise neighborhood, and other areas of the San Antonio community in the future.

“Partnerships with organizations like Valero and the San Antonio Public Library give children living in the Eastside Promise Neighborhood the best opportunity to succeed in school and life,” says Councilwoman Ivy R. Taylor. “The care, commitment, and efforts of these groups help to transform individual and collective pathways to the future.”

The van is equipped to deliver technology equipment and activities for children and teens in the community to enjoy, including free WiFi, iPads and iMacs.In addition, popular existing Library programs like Every Child Ready to Read and Play & Learn sessions for children and their parents/care providers will also be transported to the various locations.

“A goal of the San Antonio Public Library, and specifically this initiative, is to implement responsive solutions to the educational challenges and environmental barriers that effect academic achievement for children,” explains Ramiro S. Salazar, San Antonio Public Library Director. “It was essential that we include aspects of technology to ensure that all students have access to 21st Century learning tools.”

  

from: San Antonio Express-News

Breaking Out of the Library Mold, in Boston and Beyond

by: Katharine Q. Seelye

BOSTON — An old joke about libraries goes like this: A boy walks into a library and asks for a burger and fries. “Young man!” the startled librarian reprimands. “You are in a library.” So the boy repeats his order, only this time, he whispers.

So much has changed in libraries in recent years that such a scene may not be so far-fetched. Many libraries have become bustling community centers where talking out loud and even eating are perfectly acceptable.

The Boston Public Library, which was founded in 1848 and is the oldest public urban library in the country, is moving rapidly in that direction. With a major renovation underway, this Copley Square institution is breaking out of its granite shell to show an airier, more welcoming side to the passing multitudes. Interior plans include new retail space, a souped-up section for teenagers, and a high-stool bar where patrons can bring their laptops and look out over Boylston Street.

“You’ll be able to sit here and work and see the world go by,” said Amy Ryan, president of the library, on a recent tour. “We’re turning ourselves outward.”

Such plans might shock anyone who thought that in the digital age, libraries — those hushed sanctuaries of the past — had gone the way of the Postal Service.

“Just the opposite,” said Susan Benton, president and chief executive of the Urban Libraries Council. “Physical visits and virtual visits are off the charts.”

At Boston’s central library alone, the number of physical visits jumped to 1.72 million in 2013, up by almost half a million from 2012.

Library usage has increased across the country for a variety of reasons, librarians say, including the recession, the availability of new technology and because libraries have been reimagining themselves — a necessity for staying relevant as municipal budgets are slashed and e-books are on the rise. Among the more innovative is the Chicago Public Library, which offers a free Maker Lab, with access to 3-D printers, laser cutters and milling machines. The Lopez Island Library in Washington State offers musical instruments for checkout. In upstate New York, the Library Farm in Cicero, part of the Northern Onondaga Public Library, lends out plots of land on which patrons can learn organic growing practices.

Along with their new offerings, libraries are presenting a dramatically more open face to the outside world, using lots of glass, providing comfortable seating, as much for collaborative work as solitary pursuits, and allowing food and drink.

“This is what’s happening at a lot of libraries, the creation of an open, physical environment,” said Joe Murphy, a librarian and library futures consultant based in Reno, Nev. “The idea of being inviting isn’t just to boost attendance but to maximize people’s creativity.”

Libraries have long facilitated the “finding” of information, he said. “Now they are facilitating the creating of information.”

That will be evident at the Boston library’s new section for teenagers. Teen Central is to become what is known as “homago” space — where teenagers can “hang out, mess around and geek out.” It will include lounges, restaurant booths, game rooms and digital labs, as well as software and equipment to record music and create comic books. The vibe will be that of an industrial loft, with exposed pipes and polished concrete floors, what Ms. Ryan called “eco-urban chic.”

“The sand is shifting under our business,” she said.

“When I started out in the ’70s, you would walk up to the reference desk and ask a question and I would find an answer. Today it’s the opposite. People turn to librarians to help them sift through the 10 million answers they find on the Internet. We’re more like navigators.”

At least the Boston library will still feature books. One library, in San Antonio, has done away with them. The BiblioTech is nothing but rows of computers, e-readers and an “iPad bar.”

Its goal is the same as that of traditional libraries: To help patrons access information. But whether the community will take to it is another question. The Santa Rosa branch library in Tucson went all digital in 2002, but a few years later, it brought back books. A lot of content was not available digitally, and patrons wanted print.

While e-books are gaining popularity, print is still king. In 2012, 28 percent of adults nationwide read an e-book, according to the Pew Research Center, while 69 percent read a print book. Only 4 percent of readers are “e-book only,” the center reported.

In Boston, the physical changes reflect the evolving nature of libraries. All renovations are to the Johnson building, designed by Philip Johnson and opened in 1972, when libraries were more monastic and inward looking.

William L. Rawn III, the architect whose firm is overseeing the project, said his goal was the opposite, to “get the energy of the city into the library and the energy of the library out to the city.”

The Johnson building was built as an addition to the original, much-loved classic library, which contains stunning features like Bates Hall, its cathedral-like main reading room.

The addition is an imposing, gray granite behemoth whose floor-to-ceiling windows are blocked from street view by 112 large vertical granite slabs that ring the outside of the building. The entryway is an empty cavern with all the warmth of an armed fortress.

“The big granite walls inside are incredibly stultifying,” Mr. Rawn said. “That space is just a miserable space to walk through. It’s like you’re traversing a DMZ.”

The reimagined lobby will have an open lounge area with new books and casual seating, and retail space, which could be anything, Ms. Ryan said, “from a coffee shop to a high-tech experimental outlet to an exercise space with stationary bikes.”

The exterior has been declared a landmark, so the Boston Landmarks Commission must approve each change. But plans now call for the removal of 95 of the granite slabs, so the lounge and retail space will be visible from the street, and for the tinted glass to be replaced with clear glass, brightening the interior.

Clifford V. Gayley, a principal architect in Mr. Rawn’s firm, said the new entryway would create a sense of “porosity,” with “easy flow in and out.”

As it happens, the entrance, on Boylston Street, is close to the finish line of the Boston Marathon, where bombs last year killed three people and injured more than 260 others. With this wound at their front door, the architects are even more determined for the library to be inviting.

“This is a strong statement of pride in the city and its civic life, in spite of what happened across the street,” Mr. Gayley said. “The library is opening its doors and not retreating behind solid walls.”

from: NY Times

Which books will never be on your shelves?

The missing pieces of a reading life can sometimes reveal more about literary taste than the books we choose to display

by: Richard Lea

There's a particular pleasure to be had in browsing someone else's bookshelves – the smile of recognition when you spot a much-loved novel, the mild bemusement in finding an enthusiasm for an author you can't stand, the warm glow of discovering a taste in books that resembles your own. Gazing at the shelves of a new acquaintance, flicking through an old friend's stack of paperbacks, we feel a little closer, a little more connected. As Alan Bennett says, a person's bookshelf is as particular as their clothing, a personality "stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot". But what about the books that aren't there?

Sherlock Holmes famously solved the case of the missing racehorse Silver Blaze by noticing the "curious incident" of the dog that did absolutely nothing in the night-time, reasoning that the absence of a bark proved the horse's midnight visitor was "someone whom the dog knew well". Sometimes the books we choose not to read, the books we can't bear to finish, reveal our literary taste more powerfully than an armful of the ones we keep on our shelves.

Here's Jessa Crispin, explaining why she's no fan of Anna Kavan's Who Are You?, a 1963 novel she summarises as:

"Girl is in a bad marriage. He abuses her, rapes her. She stays. People try to help her. She stays. He is a bully and brute and has no personality other than Abusive Man. She is small and weak and helpless and men heroically want to save her but she can't be bothered to save herself. She also has no personality other than Wet Puddle.

"God, why is this an interesting story to tell? And why do we tell it over and over again? Which is not to say it doesn't happen, God knows I know that it happens. But without any psychological insight, without any momentum, without any interest in even writing a character, why tell that story again?"

It's not only boring, Crispin says, but poisonous. These "passive girls" who can't change their lives, who make excuses and "make their homes inside their trauma" are her "enemy". Crispin doesn't even want to talk about this book. "No! Let's rip the book into pieces and toss them out the window, let's not give [these passive characters] another moment's thought."

Crispin's copy of Who Are You? somehow managed to survive her reading of it, but this violent reaction to a bloodless heroine strongly reminded me of reading Madame Bovary many years ago and wishing she could just get a grip. She loves Léon, she loves Rodolphe, she dreams of running away from Charles, she gets bored, she hankers after embroidered collars and Algerian scarves and slips into financial disaster without ever looking it in the face. I couldn't stand it. Clearly the opportunities for changing your life in the ways Crispin suggests were very different for women in 19th-century provincial France, but I just couldn't see why Emma Bovary couldn't see what was going on.

I can't remember now if it was after despairing of that novel that I gave up on Anna Karenina – another missing piece in my literary collection. I couldn't make it past part two. But the books we never complete, the books we're never even going to pick up, are shadows of our reading lives which throw them into definition. Our literary identities are fragile vessels, surrounded by the vast sea of the unread. Every time we walk into a bookshop, every time we browse the library shelves, we leave behind many more books than we could ever pick up. With hundreds of thousands of new titles published each year, our tastes are sometimes defined as much by the books we'll never get around to reading as by those we proudly display.

from: Guardian

For the homeless, taking shelter -- in a book

An empty cot may be hard to find, but weekly book offerings give the homeless at Glendale's winter shelter a means of escape.

by: Amy Goldman Koss

When I appear at the fence of the Glendale homeless shelter with my rolling suitcase, I hear cries of "It's the book lady" or, if I'm with my daughter, "It's the book ladies; let them in!"

At that point, we are allowed to cut to the front of the line and pass through the gate without being wanded or searched. We then head for a table in the hall where we empty our suitcase and spread out our books.

Since I'm on the board of the Friends of the Glendale Public Library, I collect most of the books I bring from the red-dot, super-sale bookshelf at the library. These are donated books that no one purchased at the library's sale.

I also tell neighbors and friends that I am collecting gently used books for the homeless.

The response has been ... interesting. One friend, an otherwise intelligent person, dropped off a bag of glossy, hardcover coffee-table books. One that sticks in my mind was about Roman Polanski. What is a person who trudges through life like a hermit crab, with everything he owns on his back, supposed to do with 10 pounds of Polanski?

Other friends have asked me what kinds of books the homeless like, which is kind of like asking what kind of books tall people, or redheads, like.

"I assume," one friend said, "that they want easy, escapist stuff?"

Another said: "I don't think I have the right kind of books for homeless people."

This year, the Glendale shelter moved from near downtown to a funky industrial side street of concrete and cyclone wire. It has a 77-bed capacity, and it's first-come, first-served, which means that if you are the 78th to arrive, you lose.

As the lucky 77 souls enter each evening, they pass through security, which is handled by volunteers; then they sign in, and then they walk past my table.

At the beginning of the season — yes, there is a season for Glendale's homeless shelter, which operates only during the three months assumed to be the coldest — I spent the whole time calling out "FREE BOOKS!" to everyone who came by.

Now most of them know the drill. Some march right past, in a hurry to sign up for showers and get their cots. Others say they are satisfied with their Bibles. But many fall upon my book offerings as if they've been offered a feast.

One guy snaps up all the science fiction he can; another is always on the lookout for nonfiction science. One woman asks for poetry but needs large print because she has lost her glasses. As a glasses wearer myself, the idea of moving through the day without seeing clearly is nightmarish.

Some of my customers pick quickly, based, it seems, on cover art. Others pore over every book, examining the backs and blurbs, reading the first page, and asking me or those who have gathered around the table what we know about the books.

One man who looks like a young Santa Claus asks, winking, if I have "Fifty Shades of Grey." But he ends up taking mysteries. A woman, who wears her hair wrapped in a high, red scarf, always wants psychology books. After being there every Monday night since Dec. 1, I know to hold certain titles aside in case certain people show up.

The books are theirs to keep, to trade, to do whatever they like with; one woman always pushes her walker up to my table and returns last week's book for something new.

In less than an hour each Monday night, my books have been picked over, and dinner is being served in the other room, so I pack up and roll out.

Driving away from the shelter, I always worry about the people I see walking around. Are they homeless? Did they miss the 77-person cutoff and now have nowhere to sleep? But I also feel glad that at least some guests at the shelter that night won't have to just stare up at that institutional ceiling, listening to 76 strangers snore. They'll have a book to get lost in as they lie on their cots.

I know that the shelter is only open from Dec. 1 to March 1, but it hadn't really sunk in what that meant until one of the guests asked me on Monday if it was my last time coming. That's when I realized it was the last Monday of February.

Where would all these people be next Monday night? And the Monday after that?

As I rolled my remaining books out through the gate this week, there was a small group of people who hadn't gotten beds for the night. Among them was the red-scarfed woman who reads psychology.

Never mind next Monday; where would she sleep that night?

Amy Goldman Koss' latest novel for teens is "The Not-So-Great Depression."

from: LA Times

Tale of two cities: UK library twins with French counterpart

Paris library Place des Fetes and Westminster's Church Street share a unique 'entente cordiale', and hope more will follow suit

by: Julie Gadault

In Westminster, closer working with neighbouring Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham councils as part of the tri-borough arrangement has helped to save libraries from closure.

With that success, it is natural to ask if there are any other innovative partnerships that could benefit residents?

It's something I thought soon after joining Church Street library in Westminster four years ago. Before coming to London in 2010, I spent two years working for library services in my native Paris and regularly used my local library at Places des Fetes, where I knew the staff very well.

Place des Fetes has a similar local resident base to Church Street library – it is an area less affluent than other parts of the city, with the library itself neighbouring a social housing estate and in regular close-working with local youth organisations.

It occurred to me how much each library had in common with one another and how an official relationship between the two – an entente cordiale perhaps – might be something which would have great benefits.

Having approached managers and councillors with a plan for a pilot twinning project (which was given the OK), Church Street library and Places des Fetes became the first libraries from two European capitals to be twinned with one another in autumn 2013.

As well as having more opportunities to share best practice, books are exchanged and cultural events held throughout the year to provide an additional resource to those on both sides of the Channel.

There are an estimated 400,000 French people living in London (making the English capital "France's fifth largest city" by population), but there is not much on offer in London libraries for them. The twinning scheme serves as a way to provide something to French expats in London and British expats living in Paris.

The number of books exchanged between the two libraries has now reached 200, meaning library users in Westminster will have access to a range of modern and classic titles by renowned French authors such as Frederic Beigbeder, Michel Houellebecq and JMG Le Clezio. Both libraries regularly hold cultural events, including children's arts events, coffee mornings and language drop-in sessions.

At Church Street library, a modern pen pal project has also been arranged between pupils at the local King Solomon academy and the Parisian school College Budé, who use the Place des Fetes library.

The twinning project has not been without its problems and challenges. We've had a slow response from French expats in London dropping in to our library, although we do expect this to pick up soon. The language drop-in sessions and cultural events have proved popular with residents, and are among our best attended events.

The aim of the pilot project has always been to keep costs to an absolute minimum, so the only expense to the council has been my time in putting on the events and language sessions. The rest of the project has involved a great deal of volunteering, including me carrying book exchanges on personal trips back home to see family and friends, to ensure it works.

The pen pal project has really taken off, and students from King Solomon Academy in Westminster are due to head out to meet their friends at College Bude in April. We hope this will help the education of young people in both local areas, and improve their employment prospects later in life.

The library twinning project is something other councils may want to consider, if, for example, they have a diverse local population or if language results in local schools could do with improving.

After thinking about how twinning might be benefit your area you will need to convince those in your organisation to make it happen.

Reaching out to other towns to twin with can be difficult. I was lucky to have strong links in Paris to begin with, but you shouldn't let that deter you.

Westminster is monitoring the success of the pilot twinning of Church Street and Place des Fetes libraries over the course of this year before considering a roll-out of the programme. There is the potential to even twin other libraries in Westminster with those in other European capitals.

Other councils could do the same, perhaps even establishing a specialist language at each library in a borough, which wouldn't necessarily need to stop at our European borders, but could extend to include other world languages such as Chinese and Japanese.

Budget constraints shouldn't be an obstacle if you share the same passion for libraries and languages that I do, and are willing to go the extra mile.

Julie Gadault is senior library assistant at Westminster city council.

from: Guardian