Arriving by camel in remote areas of Mongolia or on boat along the coast of Norway, contemporary libraries are often mobile, creative, and community-driven, and are adapting rather than fading with the rise of electronic books and decrease in budgets.
libraries
Posted inNews
8,000 Books and Manuscripts Lost After ISIS Bombs Mosul Library
On Sunday night, more than 8,000 books and manuscripts were destroyed after ISIS militants bombed Mosul’s Central Library.
Posted inArt
Four Million Images from the World’s Endangered Archives
Despite the vast and growing resources available online, much of the world’s knowledge and history remains ephemeral and under threat of disappearance.
Posted inArt
Where the Library Gets Its Books
Up on a hill in a guarded compound, not far from where Harvard University keeps its primate labs, a 127,000-square-foot structure holds the heart of the institution’s library.
Posted inNews
Younger Americans More Likely to Read Books, Go to the Library
A new survey by the Pew Research Center has found that the 16–29 demographic in the United States reads books and patronizes libraries at rates higher than those exhibited by adults over 30.
Posted inBooks
A Photographic Survey of America’s Public Libraries
Walking into my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, it looks more or less like any other: computers to the left, children’s section to the right, non-fiction dead ahead. It’s only when I go upstairs to the already small fiction section that I see something abnormal: more shelves are empty than full.
Posted inNews
NY Public Library Drops Controversial Makeover of Flagship Building
The New York Public Library (NYPL) has done an about-face on its controversial plan to renovate its flagship research building on 42nd Street and sell the nearby building that currently houses its Mid-Manhattan library, the New York Times has reported.
Posted inBooks
Library Workers Zine a Bastion for Brooklyn Bookworms
Though the internet may have upended the physical dimension of recorded knowledge, The Borough is My Library zines, created by library workers in the New York City area, harness that accessibility and create a dialogue around the future of such brick-and-mortar institutions amid the swell of digital information.
Posted inNews
Bad Book News: Libraries Burned in Lebanon, Dismantled in Canada
Arsonists torched a historic and beloved library in Tripoli, while the Canadian government has gutted its science libraries.
Posted inOpinion
The Ongoing Importance of Libraries
OAKLAND, Calif. — Take a stroll downtown or to your nearest shopping center, and you’ll see firsthand that big bookstores are on the decline. But that doesn’t mean books — and the spaces in which we consume them — have less importance.
Posted inOpinion
Libraries Aren’t Irrelevant Yet
As more and more people get their information and do their research online, often from the comfort of their own couches, the future of public libraries seems very much up for the debate these days. Should libraries ship some of their books off to storage facilities and bring in more computers, as the New York Public Library is attempting to do? Should they follow San Antonio’s lead and go bookless altogether? Should we devote more public resources to libraries to renovate them and make them more “relevant,” whatever that actually means, in the digital age? Or should we just say throw in the towel and privatize them all?
Posted inArt
What Makes a Library a Library?
The latest controversy striking the tumultuous world of libraries (a very shocking place) is the announcement of a bookless library to open this fall in San Antonio, Texas. The new space will look and function more like an Apple store than what we would traditionally think of as a library, but how much does that matter when it comes to providing public access to information?