Tag Archives: Library

This Week In History, Library Style! Oct 27: Fences

barbwire fence on wheat field
Photo by JACK REDGATE on Pexels.com

Libraries are places where we connect people to information that may be useful or interesting to them. Looking at some history, and connecting it to the materials we may have in our libraries, can be a good way to convince patrons to use and enjoy all the things we provide!

This week we are looking at October 27. Of course a lot of things have happened on this date – news and the big stories are the unusual things that are going on around us. One interesting thing that has happened today in 1873: “Farmer Joseph F. Glidden applies for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually received five patents and is generally considered the inventor of barbed wire.”

Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, occasionally corrupted as bobbed wire or bob wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property. It is also a major feature of the fortifications in trench warfare (as a wire obstacle).”

Bring this historical fact to your library! You can do this with a variety of program and display ideas. We will help you to get started with a few ideas: set up a display of inventions and inventors, work on an indoor container garden, draw pictures of fences and different things you could use for fences, write a story about putting fences up on the moon, use a variety of craft items to build a new invention.

Here are a few books you might add to your collection or share with your patrons – or just enjoy yourself!

Library discount for Twin Cities Startup Weekend Education

Help books

From the ITEM Listserve:
“Hello, ITEM members,
I’m helping an education professor at St. Kate’s develop a Twin Cities Startup Weekend Education, so I was able to get a discount for any library staffers who are interested and I wanted to pass on the information to you.
*Launch a startup to help solve education’s greatest problems!* 2017 Twin Cities Startup Weekend Education (TCSWEDU) is a 54-hour event that brings together passionate educators, entrepreneurs, developers and designers to help design and produce viable products, services, and school models that solve some of education’s most pressing problems. *Pitch to prototype in 54 hours! No experience required!*
On Friday night, ANYONE with any idea related to education has 60 seconds to pitch it to the whole group. From there, participants vote and form teams around the boldest ideas. After that, it’s all about action!

Continue reading Library discount for Twin Cities Startup Weekend Education

Seattle Public library circulation data

2009-0604-19-SeattleCentralLibraryFrom the latest “Data is Plural” newsletter:

“A decade-plus of Seattle library checkouts. Last month, the Seattle Public Library released a dataset tracking the total number of checkouts for each title by year and month from April 2005 to December 2016 (so far). The dataset isn’t limited to physical books; it also includes e-books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, and more. Last year, the three most popular physical books were Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (2,355 checkouts), Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies (2,151 checkouts), and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me (2,134 checkouts).”

Sign up for this weekly newsletter, filled with databases of information – a great resource for library people!

Libraries and Pop Culture: A Natural Partnership!

https://www.pinterest.com/kayedacus/architecture-libraries-studies-offices/

We have already established that library people are extremely cool, and naturally other people have taken notice of that! Libraries and library people are represented prolifically in popular culture. Last week we talked about libraries in the comics. And we are also well represented across all types of pop culture: books, movies, games, TV shows.

Pop culture is not just for fun (though, of course that would be fine!); there are many academic areas of study looking at aspects of pop culture. The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association holds annual conferences for people involved in pop culture scholarship from across the country, as well as smaller regional conferences.

Of course, they have a section just for Libraries, Archives, and Museums! (Disclaimer: I have presented twice at their annual conferences. And it was fantastic!!)

One of my studies looked at the images of library people in pop culture, to see what kind of images people in our profession were identifying with as part of their own professional image. If you would like to build up your own reference collection of library pop culture images, here are some of their suggestions (not in any order): Continue reading Libraries and Pop Culture: A Natural Partnership!

Sixteen quotes about loving libraries

Library books
Libraries are great for so many reasons!

We all know libraries are fantastic, and good places to spend your time. Just in case you’d like a reminder though, check out this article from the Book Bub blog that features cool photos and quotes about the joy of libraries.

Here’s another article, this time from Buzzfeed, about people appreciating the importance of libraries, and this one even has lovely pictures of famous libraries!

Do you have any quotes from people that have said how much they appreciate your library or media center? Or, do you have a special shout-out to a particular library that is great? Share with us in the comments!