The Gift of a Public Library

Andrew Carnegie was the force of Gilded Age philanthropy behind the building of public libraries. Along with other recognizable names who made their fortune in the late 1800s and early 1900s—Rockefeller, Ford, Mellon, Morgan, Stanford, Harriman, Heinz—Carnegie’s influence endures today largely because of the way he gave away the vast fortune he amassed.

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It's Banned Books Week. Here are the 11 most challenged books last year

Books have long been the source of changing perspectives, but not without some controversy.

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CENSORSHIP LEAVES US IN THE DARK: A BANNED BOOKS WEEK READING LIST

Happy Banned Books Week 2019! This year, we’re highlighting how censorship leaves us in the dark. Keep the lights on by adding some of the titles below to your reading list!

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Banned Book Week: Keep Us In The Light

All week, we will be posting about Banned Books. 

What they mean? 

Why are they banned? 

#BannedBooksWeek

Collaborating on Flipped Library Sessions: 8 Best Practices for Faculty & Librarians By: Nicole Webber and Stephanie Wiegand

A common practice at many colleges and universities involves course faculty inviting librarians into their classrooms to teach research and information literacy skills and concepts customized to disciplinary or course needs. Library instruction varies in format but often manifests in the librarian teaching a single, isolated class session—what librarians refer to as a “one-shot.” Many challenges accompany this traditional format, including time-constraints, disengaged audiences, and little understanding on the part of the student as to how the library instruction integrates with course content.

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What makes for a great library in 2019? This duo thinks they know

Some people review restaurants, some review movies. Two men have taken it upon themselves to review every library in Massachusetts.

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America Has a Digital Skills Gap. Libraries Can Help Fix It

When Calvester Sanders was promoted to head of housekeeping at the Redmont Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama, in 2016, she felt conflicted. On the one hand, she was excited about the greater responsibility and better pay. On the other, the thought of managing her staff’s schedules through the hotel’s computer system made her anxious. “I literally didn’t know how to turn it on,” she says.

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A Novel Concept: Silent Book Clubs Offer Introverts A Space To Socialize

The air tingles with prose. Patrons perch atop bar stools, but they aren't drinking. Individuals congregate together as a group, but they aren't talking.

Paperbacks adorn a table stained by water rings, and tote bags dangle over the backs of chairs. Classic rock is blaring from the speakers, but at this table, silence rings out.

A Silent Book Club is meeting.

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Audiobooks or Reading? To Our Brains, It Doesn’t Matter By Jennifer Walter

If you don’t have time to sit and read a physical book, is listening to the audio version considered cheating? To some hardcore book nerds, it could be. But new evidence suggests that, to our brains, reading and hearing a story might not be so different.
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28 Books You Should Read If You Want To LISTS NOTABLE ARTICLES by Janet Potter

Earlier this month Amazon released a list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. It joins Esquire’s 80 Books Every Man Should Read, The Telegraph’s 100 Novels Everyone Should Read, Huffington Post’s more manageable 30 Books You Should Read Before You’re 30, and The Guardian’s ambitious and inflexible 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read.
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50 MUST-READ BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY ROXANE GAY

Is it just me, or are we all just biding our time until the next piece of work by Roxane Gay is released? Whether she’s writing fiction, nonfiction, short stories, comics, or screenplays, her writing makes an unforgettable impact.

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Anonymous Reviewer: "Wild Ride" by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

If you've never read a Crusie book, you are missing out! And when Jennifer and Bob team up, it is a truly wonderful read! That being said, if you HAVE read Crusie before, "Wild Ride" is NOTHING like any of her others. Most Crusie or Crusie/Mayer books are fun contemporary romance...but not boring! There's plenty of twists and the dialogue is laugh-out-loud fantastic, so even though you know it's gonna end happily you can't guess exactly how they're gonna get to the end. The cover insert on "Wild Ride" tells you that Dreamland is an amusement park that doubles as a prison for the five most powerful demons in world history and they want to be let out. Even after reading the insert and first few chapters, this AR stayed under the delusion that there wouldn't really be actual demons; Crusie'll Scooby-Do it and it'll simply be pranksters trying to ruin the park. (This AR can be quite talented at ignoring the obvious.) A supernatural battle wasn't what this AR particularly wanted to read, but the heart of what I look for when reading Crusie was still there and it turned out to be a fabulous read. I especially recommend picking it up in October.

25 WRITERS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LIBRARIES

http://bit.ly/2GV99Gp

British children’s author Terry Deary — best known for his Horrible Histories series and controversial chatter about the nation’s school systems — told the Guardian he thinks libraries “have had their day.” He’d prefer that people buy their books instead of borrowing them, claiming that “books aren’t public property.” Deary added, “Authors, booksellers and publishers need to eat. We don’t expect to go to a food library to be fed.” The cranky comments feel like a swift kick in the teeth since libraries around the world are struggling against significant budget cuts each year, and authors have been tirelessly advocating for their importance. We gathered a few passionate statements from 20 writers that emphasize why libraries aren’t “sentimental” institutions. See what Neil Gaiman, Judy Blume, Ray Bradbury, and other writers have to contribute to the conversation, below.

Anonymous Reviewer: Gwendy’s Button Box By Richard Chizmar and Stephen King

Reading, after the fact, that Stephen King had a hard time ending the book, thus brought in Richard Chizmar seems a little lazy on King’s part, at least to this AR. This story was pretty tight, and I can’t imagine the master needing the help. Maybe that’s why it hit, but not with the usual dull hammer claw King’s books typically swing with. 

What Makes The Perfect Book Club Read? By SADIE TROMBETTA

http://bit.ly/2LOvGJ2

It's true that the act of hosting book clubs has been a part of the American literary tradition since the 19th century, but in recent years, it has become more popular than ever. Celebrities like Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey host digital book clubs with hundreds of thousands of followers. Newspapers and online publications from the Los Angeles Times to BuzzFeed to Bustle have launched book clubs of their own. On social media and on websites like Goodreads, there are hundreds of online book clubs a reader can join. And, of course, there are clubs run by every day readers who love talking about books with like minded lit-lovers.

Anonymous Reviewer TV Series: Black Sails

If your weekend was like mine, you'd rather be doing anything than be at work, but here is an #anonymousreviewer to make it better.
TV Series: Black Sails

Check out our Reader's Advisory Lists 
(new ones added regularly)
http://bit.ly/2xCuyz9

Anonymous Reviewer- Rick Gavin: Beluga

It's too hot out for a long winded #AnonymousReviewer so....

"This might be the worst book I ever started. I got it yesterday and I had to get it out of my house"

Anonymous Reviewer: Gwendy’s Button Box By Richard Chizmar and Stephen King

Reading, after the fact, that Stephen King had a hard time ending the book, thus brought in Richard Chizmar seems a little lazy on King’s part, at least to this AR. This story was pretty tight, and I can’t imagine the master needing the help. Maybe that’s why it hit, but not with the usual dull hammer claw King’s books typically swing with.

Anonymous Reviewer: The Girl From Summer Hill by Jude Deveraux

Dust off your brain with this #AnonymousReviewer 

The Girl From Summer Hill by Jude Deveraux

The very first line will grab the attention of any lady who reads it! There have been many retellings of "Pride and Prejudice" over the years, and most of them fall short because it's hard to keep a tale interesting when the reader knows the plot already. This one is successful! Jude gives the story a fresh, modern air while still keeping with the spirit of Jane Austen. As a bonus it's set in Virginia, which always makes a story appeal just a bit more to this AR. It's your usual romance plot, but it's not JUST another first class/lower class, famous actor/regular person love story. This AR thinks it qualifies more as a rom-com or even rom-adventure. Deveraux knows how to give her characters depth so that they're not just a batch of young women simply looking for marriage. They have lives of their own and the men are an addition to it rather than the center of it. At the end, I was helped to believe the story by something a child told me a few weeks ago: "Well EVERYBODY can be a good actor because it's just like pretending!"