Advocacy Alert: Contact Your Senator, Secure Library Aid Increase

Posted on March 18, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

Greetings Library Advocates,Image

The Governor, Senate and Assembly have now all released their proposed budgets and they will negotiate a final budget based on those documents over the next two weeks. A quick summary:

• Governor Cuomo’s Executive Budget included $81.6M in library aid, (a $4M cut from FY13-14);

• The NYS Assembly’s budget included $83.6M in library aid, restoring half of the Governor’s cut (+$2M over Executive Proposal). This is largest proposed increase in library aid the Assembly has allocated in several years.  It is important to view this action as our issue gaining traction and putting us in a better position to negotiate.

• The NYS Senate’s budget included $89.6M in library aid, (+$8M over Executive Proposal). This is our top-line number, and we must do everything we can to make sure it is non-negotiable during the final budget formulation process.

Thus far this been a very successful budget season for libraries, despite the Governor’s proposed cut in aid. The legislature has to fight for every single dollar it gets out of the budget from the Governor during negotiations. The final two weeks of the budget process are the most critical to make your voice heard; let your Senator know that you support their efforts and ensure that our top-line number does not get negotiated down.

TAKE ACTION NOW

Click HERE to access a pre-drafted letter that will be targeted directly to the members of the Senate that need to hear the message most.

In addition to our CapWiz campaign, if you’re on Twitter, you may tweet directly @SenatorSkelos and @JeffKleinNY and ask them to support library aid with this language:

@SenatorSkelos make the proposed $8M in library aid non-negotiable during final talks with the Governor and Assembly #NYBudget14

@JeffKleinNY make the proposed $8M in library aid non-negotiable during final talks with the Governor and Assembly #NYBudget14

Together we can ensure that Library Aid continues to make positive advances toward funding at levels that match the 21st Century services that libraries provide.

—-
Jeremy Johannesen

Executive Director

New York Library Association

6021 State Farm Road

Guilderland, NY 12084
518-432-6952 Ext. 101

518-427-1697 FAX
director~AT~nyla.org

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This Guy Drew a Cat. You Won’t Believe What Happened 4 Centuries Later. – Wired Campus – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Posted on March 12, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

Franz Helm’s illustrated manual on pyrotechnic weapons was around for more than four centuries before it went viral.

When the German artillery expert wrote the manual, in the mid-1500s, he unwittingly created a piece of media ideally suited to the tastes of 21st-century Internet culture: Cats that appeared to be wearing jet packs.

Helm appears to have been describing a creative siege tactic. In order “to set fire to a castle or city which you can’t get at otherwise,” he advised in the manuscript, an invading army might arm cats (and birds) with flammable payloads and then send the animals to wreak havoc inside the enemy’s walls.

rocketcat

Courtesy of U. of Pennsylvania

A version of the illustrations in Helm’s book, created as part of a digitization project at the University of Pennsylvania, went viral on the web last year. This month it went viral again, after an Associated Press reporter revisited the drawings. And this time around, delighted Twitter users began appending their posts with the hash tag “#rocketcats.”

The recent popularity of Helm’s obscure manuscript has left archivists, at Penn and elsewhere, wondering what this new form of public engagement could mean.

Buzzfeed, the web-culture omnibus site, published an article in February titled “8 Book Historians, Curators, Specialists, and Librarians Who Are Killing It Online.” The author, a former research curator at the New York Public Library, praised an array of academics “who embrace social media to broadcast their ardor for archival treasures.”

What is it worth to be “killing it online”? Should the stewards of university collections try to deploy rocket cats (and other “shareable content”) to reach audiences they couldn’t get at otherwise? Or would such a tactic be silly and ineffective? Read more…

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The Central Library Plan Deserves an Educated Public Debate | Seth Baum

Posted on March 11, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

The Central Library Plan Deserves an Educated Public Debate | Seth Baum

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but the people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take power from them, but to inform them by education. — Thomas Jefferson

The controversy surrounding the New York Public Library‘s Central Library Plan recently gained steam when the wonderful Humans of New York caught Matthew Zadrozny, an eloquent CLP critic, outside the library eating chicken. Like many other people, this was my first exposure to the issue. I lean towards the position of Zadrozny, the Committee to Save the New York Public Library, Citizens Defending Libraries, and others in opposing the CLP. But the CLP does have some merits. Regardless, what is most important is that the plan receives the educated public debate it deserves — debate that has scarcely yet occurred.

Public libraries should be a focal point for educated public debate. Indeed, public libraries are a uniquely important institution for democracy. They give every citizen the opportunity to educate themselves, regardless of their age, wealth or educational background. With this education, citizens can advance their own lives and become informed participants in public debates. NYPL is one of the largest and most successful public library systems in the world. It is deeply unfortunate that NYPL has pursued a major reconfiguration with a minimum of public debate. Fortunately, there is still time for the debate this plan deserves, and opportunity for city government to insist on it. Read more…

The Central Library Plan Deserves an Educated Public Debate | Seth Baum.

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Pullman: ‘every school should have a good library’ | The Bookseller

Posted on March 11, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

Philip Pullman has spoken out in defence of school libraries, saying it is “very important that every school, secondary or primary, should have a properly staffed, and properly equipped and properly furnished library.”

Speaking on Radio 4’s “Today” programme this morning (5th March) on the topic of children’s reading, the Society of Authors president said he had spoken to education minister Michael Gove about the importance of protecting school libraries.

He said: “I said the most important thing you can do is school libraries – get them properly equipped.”

The author also praised the Schools Library Service, and criticised wider local authority cuts to public library services. He said: “The Schools Library Service is gone in a lot of authorities, along with other library cuts, it is one of the most important things that can be cut.”

Speaking about literacy, he said both librarians and teachers were needed to help encourage children to read for pleasure. He said: “A properly thought-out programme of reading encouragement for children would include both teachers and librarians being aware of what child is reading now, and having books to hand, not to push children at them or say ‘you’re going to read this or your score will go down’, but just say, ‘look, you enjoyed that book, what about this one?’ That sort of thing, it does depend on the funding, and does depend on the right supply of books.”

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Heather Varughese John on “Dr. X” and Medical Education–The Iago Galdston Lecture at NYAM–Tuesday, March 25 @ 6:00 pm

Posted on March 11, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

Please join us for the sixth event in the 2013–2014 History of Medicine lecture series, sponsored by the Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health at the New York Academy of Medicine: Dr. Heather Varughese John, Independent Scholar, will deliver the Iago Galdston Lecture, speaking on medical education in New York City as shown through the anonymously published account, Intern, by “Dr. X.”

Heather Varughese John, MD, PhD

The Iago Galdston Lecture

Who is Dr. X? Physicians in Training and the Mass-Market Memoir

Tuesday, March 25, 2014, Room 20 (second floor)

Lecture at 6 p.m.; light refreshments from 5:30 p.m.

The New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street, New York, NY 10029

Physicians-in-training are almost as ubiquitous in popular culture as they are on hospital floors, yet their status as not quite fully fledged physicians is not always recognized. The mass-market memoir has helped increase the visibility of these physicians as trainees, as well as raise awareness of the dilemmas posed by an educational model of learning how to treat patients, by treating patients. The first in a long line of narratives to do this was a 1965 best-seller, Intern, by “Doctor X.”

Despite the precedent Intern set for exposing difficult realities underlying medical education, the physician-authors behind Doctor X and his successors have remained inscrutable figures. This talk will explore not only what these narratives have to say about medical education, but who their authors were, and why they wrote what they did, when they did. These narratives richly reflect the ways in which social change, and rights movements in particular, transformed the American medical profession in the late 20th century.

Heather Varughese John, M.D., Ph.D., is a recent graduate of the Program in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University. Her doctoral dissertation, “Practicing Physicians: The Intern & Resident Experience in the Shaping of American Medical Education, 1945–2003,” examines medical trainees’ efforts to reform their own training. She is an independent scholar in Los Angeles.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but advance registration is requested. You can register for this event here: Who is Dr. X? Physicians in Training and the Mass-Market Memoir.

We look forward to seeing you at this and other events in the 2013–2014 series.  For more information about many other upcoming history of medicine events in the New York area, see the calendar page of our blog, Books, Health, and History: http://nyamcenterforhistory.org/calendar/

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World Digital Library grows to 10,000 items – The Washington Post

Posted on March 10, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

By Associated Press, Published: March 6

WASHINGTON — The World Digital Library led by the Library of Congress reached a milestone Thursday, surpassing 10,000 items with the addition of ancient manuscripts from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.Officials said the digital library’s collection has grown to include 10,037 digitized manuscripts, maps, books, prints, photographs, films, sound recordings and other cultural items. The ongoing effort is a collaborative project that includes contributions from 102 institutions in 46 different countries. Read more…

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Still Relevant? A Talk With a Librarian | Mark Rubinstein

Posted on March 10, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

Cynde Bloom Lahey began working in a library during high school. She received a Master’s Degree in Library Science from Southern Connecticut University in 1989 and has been a librarian throughout her professional life. She is now Programming Specialist at the Norwalk Public Library.

2014-02-23-CyndeLahey2.jpg
What changes have you seen in libraries over the last few years?
When I first became a librarian, we had a manual circulation system. Technology has changed everything and made things much easier in so many ways. There are myths about libraries no longer being warehouses of books, and librarians will have to find different ways of staying relevant. Historically, libraries have always been a cultural community center for people. Now, because of technology, the roles of libraries have expanded exponentially. Read more…

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Library Service to the Homeless » Public Libraries Online

Posted on March 10, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885

by Amy Mars on April 26, 2013

Public libraries are a primary source of information and refuge for the poor and disenfranchised. However, many public libraries have enacted policies that limit homeless patrons’ access to library resources. These policies are often put in place in response to complaints from other patrons about the presence of those exhibiting signs of poverty. District of Columbia Public Library put an “offensive body odor” policy into place that was later declared unconstitutional by the courts because of its uneven enforcement.1 Similarly, Tacoma (Wash.) Public Library banned the presence of bulky bags and bedrolls in the library.2

Other policies attempt to control the conduct of patrons, but their uneven application has led many to question whether these codes are little more than “poverty profiling.” Multnomah County (Ore.) Public Library, for instance, has enacted policies detailing the proper use of restrooms, placing a limit on “bathing, shaving, washing hair, and changing clothes.”3 Some libraries have even incorporated anti-homeless design into their buildings. Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library installed a spiked iron railing in their window sills to prevent homeless individuals from sleeping and loitering.4

These policies bring up an important issue in the management of libraries and information centers. Is it ethical, or even legal, to limit the access of homeless patrons to protect the rights of other patrons? How do we educate our patrons about the unique circumstances of the homeless population? And, most importantly, how do we remove the barriers of access homeless people face and create programs that engage them in a meaningful way? First, I will examine the legal and ethical ramifications of conduct codes and other policies targeted at the homeless. Then, I will outline some of the barriers that prevent homeless people from taking full advantage of library services. Finally, I will propose some outreach efforts that libraries can enact to fulfill the special information and service needs of the homeless in their community.

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The ‘M’ Word – Marketing Libraries Marketing tips and trends for libraries and non-profits Thursday, March 06, 2014 Great Posters, for Free

Posted on March 7, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885


Do you sometimes see images online and wish you could print them out for your own library? It’s often hard to tell who created the images or what the copyright status is. 

Well, here are 2 great posters that promote librarians (note: not “libraries,” but the humans who make them work!). I’ve gotten permission from the source to share them with you.
 
The publisher Springer has some wonderful images, and its marketing department will send you the high-resolution PDFs, for free, so you can print as many posters as you like. If you want either of these, simply send an email to libraryrelations@springer.com to request them. Put “2600 BC” or “Keep Calm” in the subject line of your email to request your PDFs. (And the low-res versions I used above make for great social media posts.)
 
Thanks to the marketing-savvy staff at Springer for helping librarians show their value! I hope that many of you will take advantage of this generous offer.
 
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Public Library: An American Commons Thursday, Mar 20, 7 pm Dweck Center at Central Library

Posted on March 7, 2014 by newyorklibraryclub1885
March 2014
 
Public Library: An American Commons
 
Library built by ex-slaves, Allensworth, CA; Photo © Robert Dawson, 1995
 
Public Library: An American Commons
Join photographer Bob Dawson and author Pete Hamill as Dawson presents a photographic survey of public libraries throughout the United States, and discusses the role of rural and urban libraries in American life. Seating is limited; first come, first served.
Thursday, Mar 20, 7 pm
Dweck Center at Central Library
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