Sketch by Richard Dattner of a potential Obama Presidential Library. As President Barack Obama's tenure winds down and we mourn the lack of promised change that was to come to America perhaps it is time to look ahead to the future presidential library to be built in his honor. Enter the folks at Guardian US Opinion. They asked four award-winning, firm-founding architects "to sketch and describe their unofficial visions for a possible Obama Presidential Library. Their ideas expand our perceptions of what a library can be – indeed, what a building can be. Maybe even what the Obama presidency could’ve...
A Little Free Library loving third-grader on the power of books
"They fuel our minds like cars and gas" - Madison I think we might have met the poster child for the Little Free Library phenomenon. Her name is Madison and she is a third grader at Wade Park, a Cleveland public school. She was interviewed as part of a feature on the "huge impact" of Little Free Libraries for WKYC. Needless to say she stole the show. [youtube]http://youtu.be/GGHeh6OPhg4[/youtube] Full story at WKYC h/t The Root
After years of military rule books and hope are returning to Myanmar
After decades of repression and censorship the people of Myanmar are getting their books and libraries back! Since the military leadership lost power in 2011, the country has developed a network of mobile libraries to compensate for the vast network of public libraries that are in various states of disarray. Through the non-profit Daw Khin Kyi Foundation foundation, created by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and new leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, resources are being harnessed "to promote health, education and living standards". As you can imagine, little energy went to the development or care of the library system during military rule. The libraries were...
A visual tour of Halloween in America during the first half of the 20th century
Children dressed up in costumes for Halloween. from the Daily Reflector (Greenville, N.C.), 1950's What better way to wrap up American Archives month then with a Halloween stroll through the Digital Public Library of America. From turn of the century Hallow'een postcards through photos from the 1950's we get a taste of Halloween in America during the first half of the 20th century. From the small town to the segregated South to the Japanese American internment camps of WWII Halloween offered an opportunity to shed the daily trials and tribulations and have some fun. Enjoy! A little boy examines a Halloween display of two jack o'lanterns and...
Ruth Beale’s Bookbed
'Bookbed' was an installation that tapped "into the idea of the book and library in the collective imagination." The work was made up of three giant books and invited reading and writing groups, classes and workshops to book the space while also programming events that "explored learning, imagination and the book-as-symbol alongside current thinking in culture, education and public space" The three giant books were: The bed - complete with mattress and duvet cover pages, the bed featured an index of story titles culled from the series of creative writing workshops with young people held at the Peckham Library in London; A...