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Author
Language
English
Description
"Libraries have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era, through war as well as willful neglect. Burning the Books describes the deliberate destruction of the knowledge safeguarded in libraries from Alexandria to Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets to the torching of the Library of Congress. The director of the world-famous Bodleian Libraries, Richard Ovenden, captures the political, religious, and...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Americans tend to imagine their public libraries as time-honored advocates of equitable access to information for all. Through much of the twentieth century, however, many black Americans were denied access to public libraries or allowed admittance only to separate and smaller buildings and collections. While scholars have examined and continue to uncover the history of school segregation, there has been much less research published on the segregation...
Author
Language
English
Description
The ways in which people of all ages use and obtain that information has changed drastically in recent years: e-book readership has increased, Wikipedia has largely supplanted encyclopedias and reference books, and many people now consume news and media through their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. With digital culture ascendant, it seems counterintuitive to argue that libraries, of all things, are more important than ever. But that is exactly...
Author
Language
English
Description
On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, patrons and staff outside of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie.'" The fire was disastrous, reaching 2000 degrees and burning for more than seven hours. It consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more....
Author
Pub. Date
[2015]
Language
English
Description
Despite dire predictions in the late twentieth century that public libraries would not survive the turn of the millennium, their numbers have only increased. Two of three Americans frequent a public library at least once a year, and nearly that many are registered borrowers. Although library authorities have argued that the public library functions primarily as a civic institution necessary for maintaining democracy, generations of library patrons...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Daraya is a town outside Damascus, the very spot where the Syrian Civil War began. Long a site of peaceful resistance to the Assad regimes, Daraya fell under siege in 2012. For four years, no one entered or left, and aid was blocked. Every single day, bombs fell on this place--a place of homes and families, schools and children, now emptied and broken into bits. And then a group searching for survivors stumbled upon a cache of books in the rubble....
Series
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
"Creativity, like information, is free to everyone who steps into a library. The Artist's Library offers the idea that an artist is any person who uses creative tools to make new things, and the guidance and resources to make libraries of all sizes and shapes come alive as spaces for art-making and cultural engagement. Case studies included in the book range from the crafty (pop-up books) to the community-minded (library galleries) to documentary...
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