This week, Penguin Random House announced changes in their e-book lending terms. Alan Inouye of the ALA Washinigton Office discusses the changes and next steps for libraries.
Libraries are a national infrastructure, at the ready to meet some of the greatest challenges our communities face. You can’t put a price tag on the benefits America’s 120,000 public, school, research and special libraries offer our communities every day.
The least we can do is authorize and fund the only federal agency dedicated to advancing innovation, lifelong learning and civic engagement through libraries.
In 2014, the American Library Association found
that about 23 percent of all public libraries offered a fitness class
in the last year, while another survey from the same time learned that
37 percent of the libraries they reached out to offered yoga. More than
60 percent of North Carolina library systems offer
fitness classes. There’s a lot left to understand about how and why
librarians focusing on physical health and wellness, but the most
important thing to know is also the most obvious: The classes are
needed.
I’m not sure exactly when I started making a point to visit libraries when I traveled, but I think it was a trip to see my sister in Birmingham, UK just a few years ago. We walked by their amazing brutalist library – that was being torn down. I happened to be in town for the grand opening of the brand new wedding cake library, and Malala was speaking SO of course we had to go. After that, it became A Thing. Even on a recent day trip within my own state, we visited two small town libraries that happened to be open. If there’s a gift shop or a used book sale, I buy something. I love seeing the different spaces. Definitely recommend this!
It’s still National Library Week. You should be especially nice to a librarian today, or tomorrow. Sometime this week, anyway. Probably the librarians would like tea. Or chocolates. Or a reliable source of funding.
House of Brat 