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+14 +1
‘Freedom Libraries’ aim to transform prisons, 500 books at a time
The libraries are meant to provide beauty, access to literature and cultivate a community space in prisons nationwide.
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+18 +1
Furries Are Leading the War Against a Book-Banning Mississippi Mayor
Furries are helping fund a library after a mayor tried to ban books containing “homosexual materials.”
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+15 +1
An 8-year-old slid his handwritten book onto a library shelf. It now has a years-long waitlist.
Staff librarians who found it agreed that as unconventional as it was, Dillon’s book met the criteria for the collection.
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+19 +1
People look to libraries for more than books. That’s why some are hiring social workers
Yanna McGraw has a unique role at the Indianapolis Public Library. She’s the library’s first full-time social worker – one of about a dozen employed by libraries across the Midwest. The library hired McGraw because it was seeing more patrons dealing with complex issues. She’s only been on the job for four months, but McGraw has already worked with library guests dealing with issues like: housing insecurity, difficulty accessing federal stimulus money and challenges finding mental health services.
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+16 +1
Overdue book returned anonymously to Idaho library 111 years later
A children's book checked out from the Boise, Idaho, public library in 1910 vanished for 111 years only to be returned anonymously, library officials said.
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+20 +1
Abandoned Walmart is Now America’s Largest 1-Floor Library
There are thousands of abandoned big box stores sitting empty all over America, including hundreds of former Walmart stores. With each store taking up enough space for 2.5 football fields, Walmart’s use of more than 698 million square feet of land in the U.S. is one of its biggest environmental impacts. But at least one of those buildings has been transformed into something arguably much more useful: the nation’s largest library.
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+14 +1
Layout in ancient writing: UX inspiration from history
The oldest known sample of using the alphabet to structure information can be seen in the Great Library of Alexandria and is presumed to be created by Zenodotus.
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+24 +1
Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books
Unread books are as powerful as the ones we read. An antilibrary is a private collection of unread books capturing the vastness of the unknown.
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+9 +1
She Kept a Library Book for 63 Years. It Was Time to Return It.
“I think that says a great deal about how much we as a society value the written word,” a shocked librarian said.
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+15 +1
See how libraries are meeting ebook demand for the NYT Best Sellers list with this visualization
Fiction author, sourdough bread lover, and former Twitter executive Robin Sloan is answering a question you may have never thought to ask: which New York Times Best Sellers list ebooks are in the highest demand in the US public library system?
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+3 +1
Virtual meetings spur sales in books for backgrounds
Home workers are bulk buying books to enhance their video-calling backgrounds, a rental firm claims.
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+12 +1
What Hundreds of American Public Libraries Owe to Carnegie’s Disdain for Inherited Wealth
One reason why the steel magnate spent much of his fortune building libraries is that he saw handing large fortunes to the next generation as a waste of money.
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+3 +1
Tome raiders: solving the great book heist
When £2.5m of rare books were stolen in an audacious heist at Feltham in 2017, police wondered, what’s the story? By Mark Wilding
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+13 +1
How German Librarians Finally Caught an Elusive Book Thief
For decades, often using a fake identity, he stole antique maps worth thousands of dollars each.
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+21 +1
Libraries focus on books challenged during “Banned Book Week”
For nearly 40 years, the American Library Association (ALA) has used the last week in September to celebrate Banned Books Week. The annual event was launched in the 1980s during a time of increased challenges and organized protests against books. The ALA and other groups have been promoting the event each year to celebrate the freedom to read. This year, Banned Book Week runs from Monday, Sept. 27 through Oct. 3.
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+13 +1
The healing power of books and libraries
Letters: Libraries are a profound resource that can use bibliotherapy to support people with fragile mental health, writes John Duffy
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+4 +1
The Inside Story of the 25-Year, $8 Million Heist From the Carnegie Library
Precious maps, books and artworks vanished from the Pittsburgh archive, and the caper’s final chapter was just written
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+1 +1
'Moist wheat bread', 'old socks': Why scientists are bottling the smells of old books
Using cutting-edge technology, researchers are extracting the age-old scents of books and manuscripts dating back to the 13th century. So, what does the Magna Carta smell like?
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+14 +1
People are microwaving library books and masks to kill COVID-19 — and that's bad
A book was returned to Kent District Library after it had been microwaved and burned due to the metal sensor located inside.
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+25 +1
How to Protect Your Library With Medieval Book Curses
IN THE MIDDLE AGES, CREATING a book could take years. A scribe would bend over his copy table, illuminated only by natural light—candles were too big a risk to the books—and spend hours each day forming letters, by hand, careful never to make an error. To be a copyist, wrote one scribe, was painful: “It extinguishes the light from the eyes, it bends the back, it crushes the viscera and the ribs, it brings forth pain to the kidneys, and weariness to the whole body.”
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