Brilliantly Bookish: 15 Dazzling Library Designs
A wonderful list of 15 wonderful looking designs of library buildings around the world. Some are still in the design stage while others are already operating. Unfortunately, the NLB Building is not featured in the list. I particularly like the designs for Ballard Library, Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Library, and London’s Peckham Library. Go have a look and see which are your favourites.
{via LISNews}
Luckenwalde Public Library, Germany
The library is housed in a former train station and looks really beautiful. And the interior looks even nicer with the specially designed furniture.
{via walking paper}
Eat a scorpion? Anything to motivate teens to read
This is a really bizarre news article where the teen services librarian ate a scorpion pop as a challenge for the teens to post a certain number of comments about the books they have read. So, any other teen librarians interested?
{via LISNews}
Merry Christmas to all the readers of Blogging Librarian!
Sorry that the blog hasn’t been updated for quite some time … nearly 2 whole months. Have been a little busy with moving the whole family to Adelaide, Australia. Have settled in a little and will definitely continue blogging about libraries, librarians and the wonderful stuff happening in libraries all around the world.
And before I resume my blogging, here’s a video of a wonderful performance by the staff at the National Library of Australia during their Christmas Party of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Given the strong emphasis on climate change and being green, the library system in Multnomah County in the US has installed a US$180,000 eco-roof. The eco-roof is a structure that uses the plants to help clean the air and absorb rainwater.
Maybe MPOW can consider doing something similar for our library buildings.
Meet EA’s cellphone librarian, Jackie Lin. The librarian keeps track of up to 15,000 different cellphones that aids EA develop and test new mobile games. In addition, he has to take care of all the chargers for the different cellphones. And he gets to see the latest cellphones before they are even available in the market.It is definitely a job I wouldn’t mind applying for.
Quite a scary look at how the large number of vandalised edits are done, particularly for political figures. Although Wikipedia works on a community moderation system, some of the hurtful and defamatory edits of US Senators were left as is for up to weeks at a time.
Like what librarians like to tell you, use Wikipedia as a very basic search and background study. Then use other resources such as books, encyclopedia, and online databases to verify the facts.
- Reference Books This Wall Street Journal article suggests some reference books that are essential for a home library. Do you think they are essential for your library as well? And in our increasingly online-oriented world, do you think printed references are still essential when anyone with Internet access can just search for it through Google or Wikipedia? (via LISNews)
- Is the use of book covers legal? A wonderful blog post, written by lawyer and librarian Mary Minow, on the legality of the use of book covers by libraries on their Web sites and blogs. Do read the comments in the post for more discussion. What are your views? (via LibrarianInBlack)
- The Back Nine Stacks Ever thought of converting part of your stack into a mini golf course! Well, there’s now a non-profit organisation, the Library Mini Golf non-profit group, in the United States doing just that. The mini golf course is meant to be a one-off event for fundraising purposes as well as a way to get people to have a fun day at the library. The founder, Rick Bolton, estimates that a library can raise about US$10,000 in just one day. Maybe we can just do something similar at V.A.T. at Jurong Regional Library for the teens. I think they’ll enjoy it.
- Why Public Libraries Close? A report on a nationwide study done in the United States on the impact of public library closures. What was interesting in the study was the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map out the impacts on library users. We don’t see GIS used much in Singapore in analysing any kind of information. (via LISNews)
- China national library is the world’s third most spacious library With the opening a new building, China’s national library is now the third biggest national library in terms of floor space in the world, behind France and the United States. With this new building, the total floor space has reached 250,000 square metres. As a comparison, the National Library building at Victoria Street is about 58,783 square metres. (via LISNews)
- Discounts with Your Library Card (pdf) A cluster of public libraries in Northern Kentucky in the United States have collaborated with businesses in its community to bring discounts for members of the library. The discounts cover a good range of products and services. (via LISNews)
