#libraryofcongress — Public Fediverse posts

Library News

https://barland7.wordpress.com/2026/09/06/library-news-25/

Library News

https://barland7.wordpress.com/2026/09/06/library-news-25/

Library News

https://barland7.wordpress.com/2026/09/06/library-news-25/

Library News

https://barland7.wordpress.com/2026/09/06/library-news-25/

Library News

https://barland7.wordpress.com/2026/09/06/library-news-25/

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTWH1Fdkjow

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTWH1Fdkjow

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTWH1Fdkjow

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTWH1Fdkjow

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTWH1Fdkjow

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbXw4EFioRI

"Soul Man" is a 1967 song written and composed by #IsaacHayes and #DavidPorter, first successful as a number 2 hit single by #AtlanticRecords #soul duo #SamAndDave, which consisted of #SamuelSamMoore and #DavidDavePrater. In 2019, "Soul Man" was selected for preservation in the #NationalRecordingRegistry as "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the #LibraryOfCongress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0TUtqddpg

The Hill

Several years ago, I started a birthday tradition of taking either a day trip or a vacation. In 2017, it was a day trip to the Peabody Essex Museum for their Ocean Liners: Glamour, Speed and Style exhibition. Last year, I went to Ticonderoga, NY, for a few days to visit, among other things, the Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour. But for my birthday this year, I decided to visit Washington, D.C., for nearly a week. Although I have been to D.C. a few times on business, I never really had the chance to explore the city during those trips, except for a quick afternoon walk around the National Mall. That changed last week.

Although I considered flying, I decided to drive because I’ve always wanted to visit the WWII battleship USS New Jersey. After a slightly over four-hour drive, I arrived at the Iowa-class battleship. Having previously visited the USS Iowa in Los Angeles, I found the New Jersey no less impressive. As the most decorated of all the Iowa-class ships, the New Jersey’s tour reflected the pride of those who work on and visit her.

The following day, I arrived by the Metro’s Red Line in Washington, D.C., and walked down to the National Mall. I had forgotten how majestic the city is. It doesn’t matter what your political views are; it’s the city’s design and grandeur that engulfs you. With the United States Capitol on one side and the Washington Monument on the other, the city invites exploration.

My first museum visit was to the storied National Gallery of Art. Its outstanding collection spans the Middle Ages to the present and encompasses two buildings—the neoclassical original and a contemporary one designed by I.M. Pei. The sculpture garden is also a delight. There are so many wonderful exhibitions and works of art on display that it’s hard to pick a favorite. I did, however, love Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life. If you love museums, the National Gallery will take most of the day.

The next day started with a VIP tour of the United States Capitol by a staff member of my state congressional representative. From the spacious visitor center and Exhibition Hall, the tour traveled from the original entrance, Senate, and Supreme Court to the wondrous Capitol Rotunda and National Statuary Hall. The tour concluded with a visit to the House of Representatives Chamber (no cameras/cell phones were allowed). As all points in Washington, D.C. radiate from this point geographically and politically, it is here that you literally feel our republic in action.

From an architectural standpoint alone, the Library of Congress is well worth a visit. The Main Reading Room would compel even the most reluctant reader to pick up a book. I particularly enjoyed the Two Georges: Parallel Lives in an Age of Revolution exhibition. The exhibition contrasts two living legends who lived at the same time – George Washington and King George III.

Needless to say, a visit to the top of the Washington Monument reveals breathtaking views of D.C. From there, a visit to the solemnity of the World War II Memorial, followed by the Lincoln Memorial, was in order. One can’t help but be reflective and thankful when viewing President Abraham Lincoln’s statue. If it were not for Lincoln, there would not be a United States of America. Although I had to memorize the Gettysburg Address in grade school, the following excerpt from his speech, written over 150 years ago, still resonates today, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” I know we can.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As an American citizen (and for all those who aspire to be), that singular sentence in the Declaration of Independence forms the bedrock of this country. My visit to the National Archives the next day to view the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was rightly an emotional one. For it was the authorship, execution, and adherence to these documents that established the United States. While it’s easy to take what we have here for granted if you’ve never traveled outside the country, I, for one, am both happy and thankful to see the sign “Welcome to the United States” when I return from an international trip.

For those who follow me on social media or know me personally, you know I love the world of James Bond. Therefore, a visit to the International Spy Museum was a must! When you first enter the lobby, you are greeted by the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. That certainly gets you in the mood for spying! But this museum is much more than Bond. It takes you into the world of covert intelligence agencies around the world, with their stories, gadgets, and missions. The museum does an excellent job of covering spy networks in the OAS (precursor to the CIA) from WWII through the Cold War decades, and it features riveting exhibitions that test your abilities as a spy. Although I was there for 3.5 hours, I easily could have spent the majority of the day.

With my passion for NASA, space exploration, and all things aviation, day four was my visit to the National Air and Space Museum. Although I had previously visited the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia near Dulles International Airport, I had yet to visit the museum’s location on the Mall. As you enter the lobby, you’re greeted by the Friendship 7 space capsule that carried John Glenn—the first American to orbit Earth—to space. Just next to the capsule is the unflown Lunar Module from the Apollo era. You don’t need to walk far from the Lunar Module to see the iconic model of the Starship Enterprise from the 1960s TV series Star Trek. When you juxtapose the original Wright Flyer with the Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, in the same building, you can’t help but be in awe of what mankind can accomplish. In less than a century, we went from flying 120 feet at just over 6 miles per hour to landing a man on the Moon. In a museum like this, you can imagine what’s possible in the next 100 years.

My vacation to Washington, D.C. concluded the next day with a visit to the National Zoo. Having grown up on a farm, I became very familiar with a variety of animals. But certainly, the variety I lived with didn’t compare to what this magnificent zoo offered! From Giant Pandas, Asian elephants, Andean Bears, Brown Pelicans, and Siberian Tigers to over 2,000 other animals, the National Zoo has something for everyone. I particularly loved seeing the Beavers. When we lived on our farm, a family of Beavers turned our small brook into a large lake!

While my vacation to our nation’s capital may have come to an end, I left with a renewed appreciation for my country. While the Capitol represents our government, it is the museums that embody the very essence of the country. From history to art to science and all their interrelated fields, one leaves Washington, D.C., knowing more than when they arrived. The uniqueness of the United States should never be taken for granted. As the United States will soon celebrate its 250th anniversary, the founding fathers would be proud that, because of three words in the Constitution, the United States has withstood tyranny and triumphed, resulting in American exceptionalism. 

“We the People”

Library of Congress Blogs: 2026 Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Collections. “This year’s event attracted 172 of the world’s leading experts in data storage infrastructure, best practices, innovation, and future projections of the digital preservation ecosystem. The Library’s DSA organizers arranged a robust agenda to foster open discussion of current challenges in digital […]

What To Watch On YouTube Right Now – Part 138

Welcome back my readers, YouTube viewers and all others who followed this series of articles focused on YouTube videos worth watching.

Have you been searching for something fun or interesting to watch on YouTube? Do you feel bored right now and you crave for something to see on the world’s most popular online video destination?

I recommend you check out the following videos I found.

#1 How To Get The Strongest And Most Optimized Spaceship Crew In Starfield – This year, Bethesda launched several important updates to make their 2023 science fiction role-playing game Starfield better and they also offered new DLC for those who crave for new content. One of the more defining aspects of the game is space travel and this includes setting up your own crew for your spaceship and there is impact on its functions and capabilities. If you want to learn how to get the stronger and most optimized crew for your ship, I encourage you watch the video below.

https://youtu.be/vy8iOx7eqVU?si=gn7W1mZxTOQ4SSrd

#2 Mari Iijima And The Defining Song of Macross: Do You Remember Love? – I really love watching the 1984 anime feature film Macross: Do You Remember Love? Apart from the great animation, the spectacle, the memorable characters and the solid storytelling, the movie also has a great soundtrack made to delight the long-time Macross fans. Still, the movie has its very own song performed by none other than Mari Iijima (Minmay) and it is a classic among Macross fans. In the videos below, you will see Mari Iijima perform the song live in a 1980s TV broadcast and the song playing with selected footage of Macross: Do You Remember Love? Enjoy these!

https://youtu.be/OfuW_Wbt73c?si=Q1DE8eJxo4Zk90pc

https://youtu.be/uJBMYV9e1Nc?si=veDGYU4r7s0flQ_H

#3 The Tuna City In Japan Is Changing With Tourism In Mind – If you plan to visit Japan at all, you might want to discover Miura City located in Kanagawa Prefecture. Miura City is famous for its fresh tuna and in recent times there has been a series of changes as several room-only hotels and new trends have sprouted as the locality is finding new ways to turn visitors into overnight guests. This is a place I would like to visit someday if ever I get the opportunity to return to Japan. Watch and learn from the Nippon TV video below.

https://youtu.be/fUPP30fYH78?si=MrC6Dml3IRVe7fcV

#4 Women’s Rights Activist Marries Islamist And Things Went Wrong – Did you notice that there is a gradual rising number of feminists and women’s rights activists who not embrace Islam (wicked and ugly) but also marry Islamists believing that things will be alright and they can just continue their activism. Of course, many of them activists and feminists do not fully understand Islam nor the full content of the Quran. As such, when things go very wrong, they are get into deep trouble. Watch and learn from the video below.

https://youtu.be/bx3YvoyP6cw?si=omxqhyR8CQfpfhYK

#5 Islamists Violate Hindu Women In India And Get Arrested – Let’s be very clear here. Islamists are oriented to conquer others even though they may not be numerous within a locality. Believe it or not, a group of such people who wielded power inside a business violated the Hindu women (plus at least one male employee) with regards to cultural norms and doing things that go against their faith. Even forced religious conversion happened. Watch and learn from the video below.

https://youtu.be/9xjFS-3Vuws?si=xuDIivIonrp9tQux

#6 Meatballs Reaction And Retrospective – When it comes to cinematic comedy, Bill Murray is iconic and his early work in 1979’s Meatballs already involved the late Harold Ramis and the late director Ivan Reitman. That said, there is something about Meatballs – produced for less than $2 million – that helped it achieve tremendous commercial success with ticket sales of $70 million. Remember, three of the creative minds behind the classic Ghostbusters are involved in this old movie and you will see how You, Me and The Movies react to it in the video below. Be aware that as of this writing, there are not too many movie reaction videos about Meatballs on YouTube. Also posted below is an in-depth retrospective about Meatballs by GoodBadFlicks.

https://youtu.be/nhR9xUCvpAI?si=Zh6gjAX0SdIrtSfT

https://youtu.be/D0BS-K3K_vE?si=HtyR_VThLUKv0Wj6

#7 Ashleigh Burton Reacts To The Thin Man – Have you ever heard of The Thin Man? It’s not a UFO reference. It’s the 1934 American pre-Code comedy-mystery movie that was eventually named to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress having been deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 1997. Apart from its reputation in American film history, The Thin Man also resulted in five sequels. If you want to discover the 1934 movie but you don’t have the time nor resources to watch the movie, watch Ashleigh Burton’s reaction video and see how it impacts her.

https://youtu.be/IJRQXuw–20?si=mSYY7_Eb4EK6reBY

+++++

Thank you for reading. If you find this article engaging, please click the like button below, share this article to others and also please consider making a donation to support my publishing. If you are looking for a copywriter to create content for your special project or business, check out my services and my portfolio. Feel free to contact me with a private message. Also please feel free to visit my Facebook page Author Carlo Carrasco and follow me on Twitter at @CarloCarrascoPH as well as on Tumblr at https://carlocarrasco.tumblr.com/ and on Instagram athttps://www.instagram.com/authorcarlocarrasco

Her groundbreaking sea floor discovery was dismissed as 'girl talk.' But science proved her right.

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/marie-tharp-tectonic-discovery

Plunder, Mystery, and Intrigue: Visiting the British Museum and the British Library

After leaving the Lake District, I traveled to London by train, for the third part of my trip. This was where I saw the most libraries during my trip. On my last day in London, August 3rd, I visited the British Museum, located in London’s West End, which was overcrowded with tourists. This made viewing the so-called “chronicle of Western collection,” which was acquired through extensive plunder and theft, as American tour guide Rick Steves describes the museum, very uncomfortable. Even so, there were two highlights. The first was the stately and round reading room. English writers Virginia Woolf and Beatrix Potter, Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen, radical thinkers Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, women’s rights campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst, independence activist Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Irish author Bram Stoker all studied there.

Note: This serves as second part of my series on this blog about my library tourism last year, with the first part, about my attempted and successful library tourism in Edinburgh and Northern England, posted on this blog last week. The series begins, chronologically, with my guest post on Reel Librarians, on February 11th, in a post entitled “Edinburgh and the National Library of Scotland: Library tourism redux.” It will be reposted on here over a month later. There will be one more parts of this series, focusing on my continued library tourism in Belgium coming next week.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, as noted in Doyle’s “The Complete Sherlock Holmes,” studied in the reading room. In the 1893 short story “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” (sometimes abbreviated as “The Musgrave Ritual”), he studied “those branches of science which might make me more efficient” in the reading room. He learned other information from the British Museum in chapter 15 of 1902 novel The Hound of the Baskervilles and “The Tiger of San Pedro” chapter, within a 1917 collection entitled His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (sometimes abbreviated as “His Last Bow”). There are mentions of libraries in the short stories “The Five Orange Pips”, “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”, and “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” in the 1892 short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

The same is the case for “The Musgrave Ritual,” “The ‘Gloria Scott’”, and “The Reigate Squires” all within the 1893 short story collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and the stories “The Adventures of the Three Students” and “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” in the 1905 short story collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Apart from that, chapter 10 of The Hound of the Baskervilles, chapter 7 of the 1915 novel The Valley of Fear, and the story “The Problem of Thorn Bridge” in the 1927 set of short stories The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes feature libraries as well. Lastly, there’s a mention of a London Library in St. James’s Square and Lomax, who is said to be a “sublibrarian,” in “The Illustrious Client.” This is another short story within The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.

In an email communication, Nathalie Belkin, an archivist who works for the London Library, told me that Doyle was a library member, joining in 1896 after his friend, and fellow writer, Arthur Griffith, nominated him. According to Belkin, Doyle was an active library user, even serving on the library’s committee. In fact, it is believed that The Illustrious Client, also entitled The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, was written in the library’s main reading room. While the borrowing history from the time has been lost, he was a “well-known fixture” of the library.

Otherwise, Karl Marx formulated ideas on communism, including within Das Kapital (also known as Capital), in the aforementioned reading room within the British Museum. Displays within the room describe it as a place for diverse thought. Many patrons left behind their mark in the visitors log. It was even one of the first places in London to have electric light (in 1879)! The room could, at maximum, hold 302 readers sitting at 38 tables, sitting across from each other, and was heated from underneath. Readers would consult a catalogue of printed books in the room’s center, then fill out a request form. In some ways, this makes this room similar to the Library of Congress’s Reading Room, since books for the British Library could be accessed there until they were moved to their current location in 1997. In fact, 62,000 people came when this reading room opened in 1857. A sign, when looking into the reading room, tells visitors to be quiet, feeding into the common conception of libraries as quiet places, which is not always the case for all libraries anymore.

What Rick Steves didn’t mention is that the historic reading room only re-opened to the public in 2024 after being closed for eleven years. The room was designed by Sydney Smirke, inspired by Rome’s domed Pantheon, and opened in 1857. It first re-opened to visitors in 2000 (after it stopped being an active reading room in 1997), then closed in 2013, when it was used for archival storage. The room, described by some as “legendary,” “stunning,” and an impressive sight for bibliophiles (protagonist and book-defender Elianna Bernstein of Bibliophile Princess would be right at home there) is not technically a library anymore. You can’t borrow any of the 25,000 books, and photography is now permitted (it wasn’t previously). Even so, it is still a marvel to see. You can even go on a twenty-minute tour there and there is currently a plan to completely transform the galleries and reading room.

The second highlight was the Enlightenment Gallery, formerly known as the King’s Library. It once held the British Library’s treasures when it was founded in 1753. Today it holds objects about the Age of Enlightenment, as Rick Steves notes. A display board, when you enter the room, says that it was developed in partnership with the House of Commons Library and the Natural History Museum. The current books on display are being loaned from the House of Commons Library. The aforementioned display notes that those who lent non-book artifacts to the gallery included the British King, the Science Museum in London, King’s College in London, Wellcome Collection, Society of Antiquities of London, Victor and Albert Museum, the Linnean Society of London, and the Royal Asiatic Society (also in London). Of these institutions, most have their own libraries. In fact, the D. Leonard Corgan Library at Kings College, the college’s main library, served as a location in Dan Brown’s controversial novel The Da Vinci Code. The building’s exterior appeared in the 2020 film Enola Holmes, a mystery film about Sherlock Holmes’ teenage sister.

The room itself was originally created, in 1823, to house King George II’s library, hence the original name. It was designed by architect Robert Smirke, known for the British Museum’s main facade and block, along with various clubs and houses within London. Of these, the Inner Temple, for which he did some work on, has a library, which continues to operate to this day, as did Bickley Hall. Smike also completed building restoration of the Bodleian Library’s Upper Reading room, which is part of the “old library.” As for the Enlightenment Gallery, it has a Greek Revival design, with neoclassical decoration. It’s said to be in keeping with the “styles of libraries in grand houses all over Britain” at the time, with claims it has echoes of “ancient wisdom and learning.” In 1998, the British Library moved to a new location across from the current St. Pancras station. The latter is not to be confused with pancreas or the Japanese anime film which centers on libraries and librarians, entitled I Want to Eat Your Pancreas. It is far too easy to call it “pancreas” by mistake, a name that almost stuck with me.

This gallery is where thousands of objects can be viewed and serves as an introduction to the British Museum’s collections. Even so, for me, I visited it at the end of my time at the overcrowded museum. I was inspired to visit this room by one particular scene in the December 2011 anime film, K-On! the Movie, a spinoff from the 2009-2010 anime series, K-On!. It features two episodes with libraries, including one about studying in the library and featuring a student librarian at an information desk. In fact, I rewatched this film before my trip to London, just for this scene. During the film, Yui Hirasawa, Ritsu Tainaka, Mio Akiyama, Azusa Nakano, and Tsumugi Kotobuki bop around London, visiting many sites, including walking through the strangely empty Great Court of the British Museum. They make their way into the gallery. During a short scene, Azusa points out that the Rosetta Stone (she put it on their itinerary) is also a replica. In fact, they used a replica in a school play as the death stone for a Romeo & Juliet play, because the fake tombstone they wanted to use had been misplaced.

The British Museum also has the actual Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian sculpture room, but like Yui, Ritsu, Mio, Azusa, and Tsumugi, I only looked at and touched the replica. The aforementioned gallery likely would have been overcrowded, as the gallery rooms I visited were extremely overcrowded and not suited for visitors. They had inadequate airflow and no overhead fans. As for the film, there were a few other short library scenes in the private all-girls school the protagonists attend, Sakuragaoka High School.

The same day I visited the British Museum, I visited the British Library. It sits across from St. Pancras station, and would be the last library I visited in the U.K. As Rick Steves put it, the British empire built its “greatest monuments out of paper.” The library holds every publication within the U.K. and Northern Ireland, with over 170 million items, such as sacred texts, maps, the Magna Carta, Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebook, plays by William Shakespeare, and lyrics of songs by the Beatles. This library, established by an act of Parliament in July 1972 and opened in July 1973, is one of the biggest in the world. It’s only rivaled by the Library of Congress, Russian State Library in Moscow, or Shanghai Library in China. Many such institutions are the legal deposit libraries for their respective countries. Anyone is open to explore the British Library reading rooms and peruse exhibits. You can get a readers registration pass if you are over 18, allowing you to enter the reading rooms.

When I visited, on August 3rd, the reading rooms for humanities, manuscripts, rare books, music, science, maps, and Asian and African studies, were not open. I even saw rooms reserved for the sole purpose of prayer, and went through the “Treasures of the British Library” exhibit in the St. John Ritblat Gallery. It contained many of the artifacts I noted in the previous paragraph. Perhaps because they have the space, the British Library holds the library collections of the British Museum. Rare books fill the middle of the library in a massive climate-controlled column, allowing the upper floors to only be accessed by stairs or elevators, and affecting the structure of each floor. There was also a fascinating collection of foreign currency, stamps, and other postage from former British colonies, called the Philatelic Collection. It could be easily overlooked, but was fun to look through, especially in the way it was displayed.

Like the British museums I visited during my travels, they asked for a donation, but they were free to enter, without payment or restriction. The number of visitors using the study area made clear that they were open to all, in line with library ethical principles, as did the books in their bookshop, some of which would likely be on banned books lists of in U.S. libraries. In the next part of this series, I’ll talk briefly about the university library I visited in Belgium.

© 2025-2026 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Sources used

• “About this Reading Room,” Library of Congress, 2025.
• “About Us,” British Library, 2025.
• “About us,” House of Commons Library, 2025.
• “About us,” Royal Asiatic Society, 2025.
• “About us,” Wellcome Collection, 2025.
• “Archives,” London Library, 2025.
• Barker, Sam. “The British Museum’s Secretive Round Reading Room Has Reopened To The Public,” Secret London, 4 Jul. 2024.
• “Bickley,” Wikishire, 13 Jul. 2025.
• “D. Leonard Corgan Library,” Kings College, 2025.
• “Dana Research Centre and Library,” Science Museum, 2025.
• “Everything you ever wanted to know about the Rosetta Stone,” British Museum, 2025.
• Fox, Caroline. “Every Enola Holmes Filming Location (And What Every Place Looks Like Now),” ScreenRant, 26 Oct. 2020.
• Funk, Alex. “The British Museum’s mysterious domed Reading Room has officially reopened to the public,” TimeOut, 3 Jul. 2024.
• Hermann, Burkely. “Librarians and libraries in anime,” Pop Culture Library Review, 2025 (orig. 25 Jul. 2020).
• Hermann, Burkely. “More than a coming-of-age drama: The value of libraries and librarians in “I Want To Eat Your Pancreas”,” Pop Culture Library Review, 8 Jan. 2024.
• Hermann, Burkely. “Recently added titles (March 2025),” Pop Culture Library Review, 2 Apr. 2025.
• Hermann, Burkely. “The fictional library and the value of studying redux,” Pop Culture Library Review, 30 Jul. 2024.
• Hickley, Catherine. “British Museum’s historic Reading Room opens to the public after 11 years,” The Art Newspaper, 3 Jul. 2024.
• “History of The London Library,” London Library, 2025.
• “Library,” Linnean Society of London, 2025.
• “Library & Collections,” Society of Antiquities of London, 2024.
• Mathur, Rhea. “The British Museum’s Reading Room: Past and Present,” gowithyamo, 2 Sept. 2024.
• Moran, Sarah. “The British Museum’s Stunning Domed Reading Room Reopens to Public,” Home Journal, 27 Sept. 2024.
• “National Art Library,” Victor and Albert Museum, 2025.
• “Philatelic Collections: Introduction,” British Library, 29 Mar. 2010.
• Hermann, Burkely. “Remembering “Bibliophile Princess” and its significant fictional depiction of libraries,” Pop Culture Library Review, 14 May 2024.
• “Spaces at the Bodleian Old Library,” Bodleian Library, 2025.
• “Spotlight: the Reading Room,” British Museum, 2025.
• Steves, Rick and Openshaw, Gene. London (24th Edition, US: Avalon Travel, Sept. 2022): 212, 214-215, 236, 238, 240, 244-247, 249.
• “Strand Campus: Self-guided tour,” King’s College, 5 Oct. 2014, p. 8.
•  “The British Library Philatelic Collection,” The Royal Philatelic Society London, Nov. 2005.
• “The Present Buildings,” Inner Temple Library, 2025.
• “Treasures of the British Library,” British Library, 2025.
• “Update on progress with the Masterplan,” British Museum, 19 Dec. 2024.

#AncientEgypt #archives #ArthurConanDoyle #artifacts #BeatrixPotter #Belgium #BibliophilePrincess #BlackPatrons #BlackPeople #BramStoker #BritishLibrary #BritishMuseum #China #ChinesePatrons #colonialism #communism #electricity #EnolaHolmes #HouseOfCommonsLibrary #JapanesePatrons #JenniferSnoekBrown #KOn #KOnTheMovie #KarlMarx #LibraryOfCongress #libraryStereotypes #libraryTourism #LondonLibrary #MarcusGarvey #MohandasKGandhi #quiet #railroads #reading #ReelLibrarians #restrictions #RickSteves #RosettaStone #royalLibraries #royalty #Russia #RussianStateLibrary #ShanghaiLibrary #SherlockHolmes #SunYatSen #SylviaPankhurst #TheBeatles #TheDaVinciCode #TheIllustriousClient #trains #VirginiaWoolf #WhiteLibrarians #WhiteMen #WhitePatrons

Trump’s campaign of retribution: At least 470 targets and counting – Reuters

A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT

Trump’s campaign of retribution:
At least 470 targets and counting

Reuters documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.

By PETER EISLER, NED PARKER, LINDA SO and JOSEPH TANFANI

Another 224 people were caught up in broader retribution efforts – not named individually but ensnared in crackdowns on groups of perceived opponents. Nearly 100 of them were prosecutors and FBI agents fired or forced to retire for working on cases tied to Trump or his allies, or because they were deemed “woke.” This includes 16 FBI agents who kneeled at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. The rest were civil servants, most of them suspended for publicly opposing administration policies or resisting directives on health, environmental and science issues.

The retribution took three distinct forms.

Most common were punitive acts, such as firings, suspensions, investigations and the revocation of security clearances.

Reuters found at least 462 such cases, including the dismissal of at least 128 federal workers and officials who had probed, challenged or otherwise bucked Trump or his administration.

The second form was threats. Trump and his administration targeted at least 46 individuals, businesses and other entities with threats of investigations or penalties, including freezing federal funds for Democratic-led cities such as New York and Chicago.

Trump openly discussed firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for resisting interest rate cuts, for instance. Last week, he threatened to have six Democratic members of Congress tried for sedition – a crime he said is “punishable by DEATH” – after the lawmakers reminded military personnel they can refuse “illegal orders.” This week, the Defense Department threatened to court-martial one of them, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, a former Naval officer.

The third form was coercion. In at least a dozen cases, organizations such as law firms and universities signed agreements with the government to roll back diversity initiatives or other policies after facing administration threats of punishment, such as security clearance revocations and loss of federal funding and contracts.

It’s a campaign led from the top: Trump’s White House has issued at least 36 orders, decrees and directives, targeting at least 100 individuals and entities with punitive actions, according to the Reuters analysis.

Trump openly campaigned on a platform of revenge in his latest run for the presidency, promising to punish enemies of his Make America Great Again movement. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he said in a March 2023 speech. Weeks later, while campaigning in Texas, he repeated the theme. “I am your justice,” he said.

Today, the White House disputes the idea that the administration is out for revenge. It describes recent investigations and indictments of political adversaries as valid course corrections on policy, necessary probes of wrongdoing and legitimate policy initiatives.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump’s campaign of retribution: At least 470 targets and counting

#2025 #224People #470Targets #America #DemocraticCities #DonaldTrump #Education #FBI #FBIFirings #Firings #FreezingFunding #History #Investigations #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #PeterEisler #Politics #Resistance #Retribution #Reuters #RevokeSecurityClearances #Science #Suspensions #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpSCampaign #UnitedStates #WhiteHouse

Donald Trump Calling Women Pigs and More -A Brief History – Vanity Fair

Editor’s Note: Thank you, Vanity Fair. Excellent report and coverage of this outrageous exchange by this poor President. Time for 25th Replacement…

Politics

Donald Trump Calling Women Pigs and More: A Brief History

The president recently revisited one of his favorite insults for women he doesn’t like, snapping, “Quiet, piggy,” at a female reporter who dared to ask a question about Jeffrey Epstein.

By Eric Lutz, November 19, 2025

He had deflected her first question, about a recently released Jeffrey Epstein email in which the late sex trafficker said Trump “knew about the girls.” Lucey was merely doing her job. But Trump, of course, doesn’t have much respect for good journalism—or, it would seem, for women, as his puerile “piggy” taunt indicates.

The exchange—which has since gone viral—is shocking in its crudeness and nastiness, even by Trump administration standards. But this is also a familiar insult for Trump. Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe pageant winner, previously said that Trump once called her “Miss Piggy.” Trump didn’t exactly deny the incident after Hillary Clinton brought it up during a 2016 debate.

“She gained a massive amount of weight,” Trump said of Machado on Fox & Friends the next morning, apparently in defense of his insult, “and it was a real problem.” During another debate that cycle, before he became the GOP’s nominee, moderator Megyn Kelly noted that Trump had “called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.”

“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump replied, referring to the comedian he’s been feuding with for nearly 20 years now.

Trump doesn’t only love comparing women to pigs. In 2011, The New York Times’ Gail Collins wrote that Trump once told her she had “the face of a dog.” In 2018 he described Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former Apprentice contestant and White House aide, as a “dog” and a “lying lowlife.”

Trump also dubbed Stormy Daniels—the adult-film actor who said she had a sexual encounter with him in 2006—“Horseface.” (Trump’s effort to silence Daniels about the alleged encounter—which he has denied—resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records; Trump is still trying to get the conviction thrown out.)

“The president of the United States is supposed to be the moral leader, the leader of the country, and he’s acting like some thug on the street,” the longtime White House reporter April Ryan, who was called “Miss Piggy” by a Trump official in 2018, told The Guardian Tuesday. “It’s one thing for his minions to say that, but for him to call a woman that? That also shows how upset he is about the Epstein files. It lets us know that there’s probably some fire there.”

The intensified scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein—and his administration’s handling of the case—has been a particular point of political vulnerability, testing his typically tight grip on his party. When ABC News’ Mary Bruce asked Trump about the matter on Tuesday, before lawmakers on Capitol Hill passed legislation calling on the Justice Department to release files related to the Epstein case, the president in turn attacked her and threatened to revoke the outlet’s broadcasting license.

“I think you are a terrible reporter,” he told Bruce in the Oval Office, where he was hosting Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who, according to US intelligence, ordered the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. (“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,” Trump responded when Bruce asked an earlier question about Khashoggi, who was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw. “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”)

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Donald Trump Calling Women Pigs and More: A Brief History | Vanity Fair

#2025 #america #books #callingReporterPig #demeaning #donaldTrump #education #epsteinFiles #ericLutz #health #history #historyOfTrumpCallingWomenPigs #insulting #insults #jeffreyEpstein #libraries #library #libraryOfCongress #opinion #politics #reading #resistance #science #trump #trumpAdministration #trumpCallsWomenPigs #unitedStates #vanityFair

Trump Cuts Veteran Employees, Benefits Under False Claims of Fraud – Rolling Stone

Trump Is Turning the Screws on Vets So the Rich Can Get Richer

The president claims his administration’s cuts to the VA and care for veterans is due to fraud — despite a lack of real evidence

November 14, 2025

Donald Trump has long insisted that no one cares about America’s veterans more than him. He continued to do so while delivering a Veterans Day address from Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday, claiming his first administration fired “thousands” of government employees — “sick people” and “thieves” — who didn’t take care of veterans, only to see them rehired by Joe Biden.

“We got rid of them,” the president said of his new administration. Trump also praised Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect who is overseeing the administration’s cost-cutting spree. “What a good job he’s doing, cutting, cutting, cutting,” Trump said.

The speech came as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was struggling through the longest government shutdown in modern history — during which the Republican Party has wasted no time advancing Project 2025 and stripping veterans of their earned disability payments. Trump’s VA is also cutting 30,000 employees — many of them service-disabled veterans — after initially planning to cut 80,000 of the “sick people,” as Trump calls them, who are somehow defrauding the system. The cuts come as the department is already hemorrhaging medical professionals, and as the Trump administration has imposed strict hiring limits that prevent replacing those who leave.

Along with gutting federal agencies like the VA, Project 2025 calls for narrowing the list of medical conditions eligible for disability compensation, automating claims decisions, and tying future payments to “work incentives.” Its authors frame these proposals as modernization, but the effect would be to de-rate veterans — to downgrade or deny legitimate claims under the guise of efficiency. Veterans with pending applications could lose eligibility altogether, while those already receiving compensation could see their ratings reduced by algorithm. 

This is all by design, and Trump and his administration are building a case against our veterans with lies. Fraud within the system is exceedingly rare. According to the VA inspector general, few VA fraud cases involve veterans themselves, and most of those are isolated, small-dollar offenses.

So, what is this really about? It’s simple. It’s the same thing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was about, the same thing Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill was about. It’s about dismantling the U.S. government and diverting trillions of dollars away from veterans, the poor, the uninsured, and other less fortunate Americans — all to enrich a handful of well-connected, Trump-aligned billionaires.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump Cuts Veteran Employees, Benefits Under False Claims of Fraud

#2025 #america #billionaires #corruption #cutsVeteransBenefits #departmentOfGovernemntEfficiency #dismantlingGovernment #doge #donaldTrump #education #employees #falseFraudClaims #health #history #libraries #library #libraryOfCongress #musk #opinion #politics #resistance #science #trump #trumpAdministration #unitedStates #va #veterans #veteransAdministration

School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

Guest Blogger

Eleanor Howell-Shryock (she/they) is the Head Children’s Librarian, managing family and outreach services at Burlington Public Library in Burlington, Washington. They are the Chair Emeritus of the Washington Library Association’s Children and Young Adult Services Section. They are excited to highlight some of the unique challenges and opportunities of working in small and rural libraries for the ALSC blog.

School Outreach from Your Library Desk

October 20, 2025| Guest Contributor

I am consistently in awe of the incredible student-serving initiatives that librarians develop. From onsite collections to in-school reading tutors, there is always something inspiring to discover.  If you’re like me, you’ve likely thought to yourself, “How in the world could I make that work at my library?”

School partnerships and your capacity for out-of-building work are highly dependent on your library, your staffing model, and your partners. With limited time and staff for outreach programming, my team keeps an eye out for any opportunities to involve off-site patrons in on-site initiatives. These projects have been some of the most effective in efficiently utilizing staff time, reaching caregivers, and showcasing our outreach work to library stakeholders.

Expansive Programs

Libraries already excel at offering passive programs, competitions, and displays to engage patrons outside of scheduled programming hours. These projects, with a little planning, can be retooled to serve a more expansive audience.

Contests

Last winter, we held a sweater design contest. Children were invited to take a sweater template to decorate and return their completed submission.

Always in search of outreach activity ideas, I took our contest on the road. Crafting supplies in hand, I invited classrooms and after-school programs to design and complete a submission during our visit. The same could be accomplished by providing
the template to partners and having them complete designs without library staff present.

Not only did this allow me to speak about the library and our space, but it also dramatically increased participation. The sweaters made for a fantastic display that spread across the children’s area! Many children visited the library for the first time to find their design on the wall.

Interactive Displays

Displaying contest submissions isn’t the only way to include students in in-library displays! During March, our children’s area hosts a March Book Madness bracket. Each week, library visitors can vote on which titles should advance to the next week. In the library, we’ve used stickers and thrown paper into baskets to cast votes. Outside the library, I teamed up with school librarians to share the results with their students each week. They gave students a chance to vote and sent their totals to me to be added to the in-library count.

Expand your RSVP List

Stuffed animal sleepovers are always a blast! By inviting patrons to leave their beloved stuffed animals overnight, you can ignite the imagination of young ones by posing their animals all over the library (while strategically highlighting library services). Traditionally, families drop stuffies off at the library to start their evening of fun, but if you have school partners who are game to join in, you can easily have students drop their stuffies off at school.

Stuffies return home with some goodies and a printout featuring pictures of their adventures. This printout, almost guaranteed to be looked at by families, was a perfect showcase for more information about the library and an invitation to visit.

This can quickly become a big one! Just look at our over 100 stuffies!

A few tips for feasibility: Ask your partners to label stuffed animals with each student’s name and classroom information. Limit the event to certain grade bands. If you have more than one school participating, consider doing multiple events, one for each school. Allow yourself more time by extending the program’s duration. Stuffed animal spring break, anybody?

In Closing

Even if you’re beholden to a desk schedule that keeps you in the library, don’t hesitate to reach out to partners to see if any of your upcoming library programs might be of interest to their students. With your partners, you can brainstorm ways to include a wider audience. What programs are you offering in the library that can be modified and marketed to allow for easier off-site participation?

(All photos by Eleanor Howell-Shryock, ALSC Member)

Continue/Read Original Article Here: School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

#2025 #ALA #ALSC #America #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildren #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildrenALSC_ #Education #Libraries #Library #LibraryDesk #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Reading #SchoolOutreach #UnitedStates

School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

Guest Blogger

Eleanor Howell-Shryock (she/they) is the Head Children’s Librarian, managing family and outreach services at Burlington Public Library in Burlington, Washington. They are the Chair Emeritus of the Washington Library Association’s Children and Young Adult Services Section. They are excited to highlight some of the unique challenges and opportunities of working in small and rural libraries for the ALSC blog.

School Outreach from Your Library Desk

October 20, 2025| Guest Contributor

I am consistently in awe of the incredible student-serving initiatives that librarians develop. From onsite collections to in-school reading tutors, there is always something inspiring to discover.  If you’re like me, you’ve likely thought to yourself, “How in the world could I make that work at my library?”

School partnerships and your capacity for out-of-building work are highly dependent on your library, your staffing model, and your partners. With limited time and staff for outreach programming, my team keeps an eye out for any opportunities to involve off-site patrons in on-site initiatives. These projects have been some of the most effective in efficiently utilizing staff time, reaching caregivers, and showcasing our outreach work to library stakeholders.

Expansive Programs

Libraries already excel at offering passive programs, competitions, and displays to engage patrons outside of scheduled programming hours. These projects, with a little planning, can be retooled to serve a more expansive audience.

Contests

Last winter, we held a sweater design contest. Children were invited to take a sweater template to decorate and return their completed submission.

Always in search of outreach activity ideas, I took our contest on the road. Crafting supplies in hand, I invited classrooms and after-school programs to design and complete a submission during our visit. The same could be accomplished by providing
the template to partners and having them complete designs without library staff present.

Not only did this allow me to speak about the library and our space, but it also dramatically increased participation. The sweaters made for a fantastic display that spread across the children’s area! Many children visited the library for the first time to find their design on the wall.

Interactive Displays

Displaying contest submissions isn’t the only way to include students in in-library displays! During March, our children’s area hosts a March Book Madness bracket. Each week, library visitors can vote on which titles should advance to the next week. In the library, we’ve used stickers and thrown paper into baskets to cast votes. Outside the library, I teamed up with school librarians to share the results with their students each week. They gave students a chance to vote and sent their totals to me to be added to the in-library count.

Expand your RSVP List

Stuffed animal sleepovers are always a blast! By inviting patrons to leave their beloved stuffed animals overnight, you can ignite the imagination of young ones by posing their animals all over the library (while strategically highlighting library services). Traditionally, families drop stuffies off at the library to start their evening of fun, but if you have school partners who are game to join in, you can easily have students drop their stuffies off at school.

Stuffies return home with some goodies and a printout featuring pictures of their adventures. This printout, almost guaranteed to be looked at by families, was a perfect showcase for more information about the library and an invitation to visit.

This can quickly become a big one! Just look at our over 100 stuffies!

A few tips for feasibility: Ask your partners to label stuffed animals with each student’s name and classroom information. Limit the event to certain grade bands. If you have more than one school participating, consider doing multiple events, one for each school. Allow yourself more time by extending the program’s duration. Stuffed animal spring break, anybody?

In Closing

Even if you’re beholden to a desk schedule that keeps you in the library, don’t hesitate to reach out to partners to see if any of your upcoming library programs might be of interest to their students. With your partners, you can brainstorm ways to include a wider audience. What programs are you offering in the library that can be modified and marketed to allow for easier off-site participation?

(All photos by Eleanor Howell-Shryock, ALSC Member)

Continue/Read Original Article Here: School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

#2025 #ALA #ALSC #America #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildren #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildrenALSC_ #Education #Libraries #Library #LibraryDesk #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Reading #SchoolOutreach #UnitedStates

School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

Guest Blogger

Eleanor Howell-Shryock (she/they) is the Head Children’s Librarian, managing family and outreach services at Burlington Public Library in Burlington, Washington. They are the Chair Emeritus of the Washington Library Association’s Children and Young Adult Services Section. They are excited to highlight some of the unique challenges and opportunities of working in small and rural libraries for the ALSC blog.

School Outreach from Your Library Desk

October 20, 2025| Guest Contributor

I am consistently in awe of the incredible student-serving initiatives that librarians develop. From onsite collections to in-school reading tutors, there is always something inspiring to discover.  If you’re like me, you’ve likely thought to yourself, “How in the world could I make that work at my library?”

School partnerships and your capacity for out-of-building work are highly dependent on your library, your staffing model, and your partners. With limited time and staff for outreach programming, my team keeps an eye out for any opportunities to involve off-site patrons in on-site initiatives. These projects have been some of the most effective in efficiently utilizing staff time, reaching caregivers, and showcasing our outreach work to library stakeholders.

Expansive Programs

Libraries already excel at offering passive programs, competitions, and displays to engage patrons outside of scheduled programming hours. These projects, with a little planning, can be retooled to serve a more expansive audience.

Contests

Last winter, we held a sweater design contest. Children were invited to take a sweater template to decorate and return their completed submission.

Always in search of outreach activity ideas, I took our contest on the road. Crafting supplies in hand, I invited classrooms and after-school programs to design and complete a submission during our visit. The same could be accomplished by providing
the template to partners and having them complete designs without library staff present.

Not only did this allow me to speak about the library and our space, but it also dramatically increased participation. The sweaters made for a fantastic display that spread across the children’s area! Many children visited the library for the first time to find their design on the wall.

Interactive Displays

Displaying contest submissions isn’t the only way to include students in in-library displays! During March, our children’s area hosts a March Book Madness bracket. Each week, library visitors can vote on which titles should advance to the next week. In the library, we’ve used stickers and thrown paper into baskets to cast votes. Outside the library, I teamed up with school librarians to share the results with their students each week. They gave students a chance to vote and sent their totals to me to be added to the in-library count.

Expand your RSVP List

Stuffed animal sleepovers are always a blast! By inviting patrons to leave their beloved stuffed animals overnight, you can ignite the imagination of young ones by posing their animals all over the library (while strategically highlighting library services). Traditionally, families drop stuffies off at the library to start their evening of fun, but if you have school partners who are game to join in, you can easily have students drop their stuffies off at school.

Stuffies return home with some goodies and a printout featuring pictures of their adventures. This printout, almost guaranteed to be looked at by families, was a perfect showcase for more information about the library and an invitation to visit.

This can quickly become a big one! Just look at our over 100 stuffies!

A few tips for feasibility: Ask your partners to label stuffed animals with each student’s name and classroom information. Limit the event to certain grade bands. If you have more than one school participating, consider doing multiple events, one for each school. Allow yourself more time by extending the program’s duration. Stuffed animal spring break, anybody?

In Closing

Even if you’re beholden to a desk schedule that keeps you in the library, don’t hesitate to reach out to partners to see if any of your upcoming library programs might be of interest to their students. With your partners, you can brainstorm ways to include a wider audience. What programs are you offering in the library that can be modified and marketed to allow for easier off-site participation?

(All photos by Eleanor Howell-Shryock, ALSC Member)

Continue/Read Original Article Here: School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

#2025 #ALA #ALSC #America #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildren #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildrenALSC_ #Education #Libraries #Library #LibraryDesk #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Reading #SchoolOutreach #UnitedStates

School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

Guest Blogger

School Outreach from Your Library Desk

October 20, 2025| Guest Contributor

I am consistently in awe of the incredible student-serving initiatives that librarians develop. From onsite collections to in-school reading tutors, there is always something inspiring to discover.  If you’re like me, you’ve likely thought to yourself, “How in the world could I make that work at my library?”

School partnerships and your capacity for out-of-building work are highly dependent on your library, your staffing model, and your partners. With limited time and staff for outreach programming, my team keeps an eye out for any opportunities to involve off-site patrons in on-site initiatives. These projects have been some of the most effective in efficiently utilizing staff time, reaching caregivers, and showcasing our outreach work to library stakeholders.

Expansive Programs

Libraries already excel at offering passive programs, competitions, and displays to engage patrons outside of scheduled programming hours. These projects, with a little planning, can be retooled to serve a more expansive audience.

Contests

Last winter, we held a sweater design contest. Children were invited to take a sweater template to decorate and return their completed submission.

Always in search of outreach activity ideas, I took our contest on the road. Crafting supplies in hand, I invited classrooms and after-school programs to design and complete a submission during our visit. The same could be accomplished by providing
the template to partners and having them complete designs without library staff present.

Not only did this allow me to speak about the library and our space, but it also dramatically increased participation. The sweaters made for a fantastic display that spread across the children’s area! Many children visited the library for the first time to find their design on the wall.

Interactive Displays

Displaying contest submissions isn’t the only way to include students in in-library displays! During March, our children’s area hosts a March Book Madness bracket. Each week, library visitors can vote on which titles should advance to the next week. In the library, we’ve used stickers and thrown paper into baskets to cast votes. Outside the library, I teamed up with school librarians to share the results with their students each week. They gave students a chance to vote and sent their totals to me to be added to the in-library count.

Expand your RSVP List

Stuffed animal sleepovers are always a blast! By inviting patrons to leave their beloved stuffed animals overnight, you can ignite the imagination of young ones by posing their animals all over the library (while strategically highlighting library services). Traditionally, families drop stuffies off at the library to start their evening of fun, but if you have school partners who are game to join in, you can easily have students drop their stuffies off at school.

Stuffies return home with some goodies and a printout featuring pictures of their adventures. This printout, almost guaranteed to be looked at by families, was a perfect showcase for more information about the library and an invitation to visit.

This can quickly become a big one! Just look at our over 100 stuffies!

A few tips for feasibility: Ask your partners to label stuffed animals with each student’s name and classroom information. Limit the event to certain grade bands. If you have more than one school participating, consider doing multiple events, one for each school. Allow yourself more time by extending the program’s duration. Stuffed animal spring break, anybody?

In Closing

Even if you’re beholden to a desk schedule that keeps you in the library, don’t hesitate to reach out to partners to see if any of your upcoming library programs might be of interest to their students. With your partners, you can brainstorm ways to include a wider audience. What programs are you offering in the library that can be modified and marketed to allow for easier off-site participation?

(All photos by Eleanor Howell-Shryock, ALSC Member)

Continue/Read Original Article Here: School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

#2025 #ALA #ALSC #America #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildren #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildrenALSC_ #Education #Libraries #Library #LibraryDesk #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Reading #SchoolOutreach #UnitedStates

School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

Guest Blogger

School Outreach from Your Library Desk

October 20, 2025| Guest Contributor

I am consistently in awe of the incredible student-serving initiatives that librarians develop. From onsite collections to in-school reading tutors, there is always something inspiring to discover.  If you’re like me, you’ve likely thought to yourself, “How in the world could I make that work at my library?”

School partnerships and your capacity for out-of-building work are highly dependent on your library, your staffing model, and your partners. With limited time and staff for outreach programming, my team keeps an eye out for any opportunities to involve off-site patrons in on-site initiatives. These projects have been some of the most effective in efficiently utilizing staff time, reaching caregivers, and showcasing our outreach work to library stakeholders.

Expansive Programs

Libraries already excel at offering passive programs, competitions, and displays to engage patrons outside of scheduled programming hours. These projects, with a little planning, can be retooled to serve a more expansive audience.

Contests

Last winter, we held a sweater design contest. Children were invited to take a sweater template to decorate and return their completed submission.

Always in search of outreach activity ideas, I took our contest on the road. Crafting supplies in hand, I invited classrooms and after-school programs to design and complete a submission during our visit. The same could be accomplished by providing
the template to partners and having them complete designs without library staff present.

Not only did this allow me to speak about the library and our space, but it also dramatically increased participation. The sweaters made for a fantastic display that spread across the children’s area! Many children visited the library for the first time to find their design on the wall.

Interactive Displays

Displaying contest submissions isn’t the only way to include students in in-library displays! During March, our children’s area hosts a March Book Madness bracket. Each week, library visitors can vote on which titles should advance to the next week. In the library, we’ve used stickers and thrown paper into baskets to cast votes. Outside the library, I teamed up with school librarians to share the results with their students each week. They gave students a chance to vote and sent their totals to me to be added to the in-library count.

Expand your RSVP List

Stuffed animal sleepovers are always a blast! By inviting patrons to leave their beloved stuffed animals overnight, you can ignite the imagination of young ones by posing their animals all over the library (while strategically highlighting library services). Traditionally, families drop stuffies off at the library to start their evening of fun, but if you have school partners who are game to join in, you can easily have students drop their stuffies off at school.

Stuffies return home with some goodies and a printout featuring pictures of their adventures. This printout, almost guaranteed to be looked at by families, was a perfect showcase for more information about the library and an invitation to visit.

This can quickly become a big one! Just look at our over 100 stuffies!

A few tips for feasibility: Ask your partners to label stuffed animals with each student’s name and classroom information. Limit the event to certain grade bands. If you have more than one school participating, consider doing multiple events, one for each school. Allow yourself more time by extending the program’s duration. Stuffed animal spring break, anybody?

In Closing

Even if you’re beholden to a desk schedule that keeps you in the library, don’t hesitate to reach out to partners to see if any of your upcoming library programs might be of interest to their students. With your partners, you can brainstorm ways to include a wider audience. What programs are you offering in the library that can be modified and marketed to allow for easier off-site participation?

(All photos by Eleanor Howell-Shryock, ALSC Member)

Continue/Read Original Article Here: School Outreach from Your Library Desk – ALSC Blog

#2025 #ALA #ALSC #America #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildren #AssociationForLibraryServiceToChildrenALSC_ #Education #Libraries #Library #LibraryDesk #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Reading #SchoolOutreach #UnitedStates

Opinion – Amy Coney Barrett Is Looking Beyond the Trump Era – The New York Times

Opinion Interesting Times

Amy Coney Barrett Is Looking Beyond the Trump Era

The Supreme Court justice isn’t making decisions based on public opinion.

 There’s a roster of cases before the Supreme Court that could reshape the entire Trump presidency and redefine executive power. And my guest this week, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is likely to be the decisive vote in some of these cases.

Unfortunately but predictably, that means that she couldn’t or wouldn’t respond to my most direct questions about the Trump administration.

But my goal was to push the justice on a question that she can answer, and one that she addresses at length in her new book, “Listening to the Law.” I wanted to know whether her preferred legal theory, originalism, can bend and flex in response to prudential and political concerns.

Barrett believes strongly that it shouldn’t, that justices should rule without worrying about public opinion or who happens to be in the White House. But I tend to think real-world politics constantly tests and limits that ideal. So in our conversation, I’m trying to find those limits and the ways in which even justices devoted to the original meaning of the Constitution have to deal with the highly unusual pressures of right now.

Amy Coney Barrett Doesn’t Need You to Like Her

The Supreme Court justice isn’t making decisions based on public opinion.

Below is an edited transcript of an episode of “Interesting Times.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Editor’s Note: Embedded from Spotify below.

Ross Douthat: Justice Barrett, welcome to “Interesting Times.”

Amy Coney Barrett: Thank you for having me, Ross.

Douthat: I honestly would never have said no. [Barrett chuckles.]

Your book is mostly about — and we’re mostly going to talk about theories of jurisprudence, the place of the Supreme Court in American life, possibly some issues related to the Trump presidency and executive power — but it does start with a little window into the personal world of Amy Coney Barrett, so I’m going to start with a couple of questions about that terrain.

We looked it up, and you are the first guest we’ve had on the show who has more children than I do — which is only because we haven’t yet succeeded in booking Elon Musk, I should say.

Barrett: [Laughs.] There’s still time for you to catch up with me.

Douthat: That’s a bold statement. I appreciate your confidence in my youthful energy and vigor.

When you were being nominated, this newspaper, The New York Times, ran a story that talked about your mix of personal and professional obligations and how it made you a certain kind of trailblazer. And the story described you — and you can accept this description or not — as “a woman who is both unabashedly ambitious and deeply religious, who has excelled at the heights of a demanding profession,” even as she speaks openly about prioritizing her faith and family.

I’m curious if you actually see yourself this way at all? Do you see yourself as a particular kind of trailblazer or role model in that kind of balancing act?

Barrett: I don’t see myself as a trailblazer, nor do I love the word “ambitious,” because I feel like the word “ambition” puts a focus on success or ambition for its own sake, which isn’t how I’ve ever conceived of my career.

When I was growing up — I was born in 1972 — my mom stayed home, and the parents of most of my friends had a working dad and a stay-at-home mom. My kids have had a mix, and for them, it’s become unexceptional to have a mom that worked, whereas it felt like a big thing for me to make the choice because my own mother had a large family — I’m one of seven — which is, I say in the book, that’s what I always wanted. That was my No. 1 priority. And I wasn’t sure that I could do that and work at the same time, but I always have, since I had our first child.

So I think my life looks different than the life of my mom and my aunts and my friends’ parents at the time, but it’s one that my own daughters and sons and their friends, I hope, can just treat as unexceptional. Like, you can stay home if you want. You can work if you want. You can do both.

Douthat: Do you think of yourself as a feminist — a conservative feminist, if that is a category that you would accept?

Barrett: I don’t know, labels are so dangerous because they mean different things to different people. I mean, if being a feminist simply means having the view that women can do whatever it is they put their minds to and have opportunities open to them, then yes, I am.

But I think any stripe of feminism that you describe is going to have — labels are risky. So I’ll just say: Yes, yes, labels are risky.

Douthat: Labels are risky, especially when you are charged with the interpretation of the entire U.S. Constitution.

Barrett: [Laughs.] It’s so true.

Douthat: How do you actually do it? And I say this as someone who, obviously, works. Here I am working. My wife is a journalist and writer, and we do a lot of the same kind of balancing that you and your husband have done, and it takes some strange forms. But it’s very challenging. Any number of kids is challenging, but to have a large family and have a busy professional life — I’m just curious: As a Supreme Court justice, how do you feel like you guys make it work?

Barrett: A lot of people ask. That’s probably the question that I get asked most often.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Opinion | Amy Coney Barrett Is Looking Beyond the Trump Era – The New York Times

#2025 #America #AmyConeyBarrett #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #History #InterestingTimes #Interview #JusticeBarrett #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Podcast #Politics #Resistance #Science #SCOTUS #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #Technology #TheNewYorkTimes #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpEra #UnitedStates

Trump posts vulgar and racist AI video on government shutdown with Schumer saying: ‘Nobody likes Democrats anymore’ – The Independent

News World Americas US politics

Trump posts vulgar and racist AI video on government shutdown with Schumer saying: ‘Nobody likes Democrats anymore’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, depicted wearing oversized sombrero and handlebar mustache, condemned video as ‘disgusting’

By Josh Marcus, in San Francisco, Tuesday 30 September 2025 07:35 EDT

Trump posts bizarre deepfake government shutdown video showing Schumer saying: ‘Nobody likes Democrats anymore‘

President Donald Trump on Monday posted a profane, apparently AI-modified video of Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, mocking the White House’s main negotiating partners as the government heads towards a looming shutdown.

In the video, the digitally altered Schumer says, “nobody likes Democrats anymore” because of “all of our woke trans bulls***,” before erroneously claiming Democrats support giving undocumented immigrants healthcare because the party needs “new voters.”

In Trump’s deepfake clip, a silent Jeffries stands alongside the senator wearing a sombrero and handlebar mustache.

The video appears to be a reference to the misleading GOP claim that Democrats are threatening to shut down the government unless an agreement can be reached to fund healthcare for undocumented people.

Illegal immigrants are not able to access most federally backed healthcare. Democrats are instead pushing to keep a set of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are not available to undocumented people, as well as other health funding that can go to “lawfully present” immigrants.

Jeffries and his fellow Democrats condemned the White House video, with the House leader calling the clip a “malignant distraction from people who are determined to continue to rip healthcare away” in an interview with MSNBC on Monday night.

“It’s a disgusting video and we’re gonna continue to make clear bigotry will get you nowhere,” Jeffries said. “We are fighting to protect the healthcare of the American people in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault.”

On X, meanwhile, Jeffries posted a genuine photo of Trump and his former friend the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, with the caption, “This is real.”

Rep. Ro Khanna of California joined his Democratic colleague, telling CNN the video was “abnormal” and not befitting the seriousness of the political moment at hand.

“You don’t mock someone and put a video out about how they look,” he said. “You don’t ever mock people’s ethnicity. How do you negotiate with that? And how have we made this normal?”

Khanna also pointed to the Trump administration’s repeated attempts not to spend already approved congressional money as another factor confounding normal negotiations around the shutdown.

Sen. Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, defended the president’s video, saying the comments in the clip were “said in jest” and meant to toy with the press “like a little boy” taunting a dog with a flashlight.

“I think it’s the president making fun of a couple of people who didn’t bring a serious offer to the White House,” Marshall told CNN.

The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.

Despite a meeting on Monday between Vice President JD Vance, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Jeffries and Schumer, the parties appear no closer to an agreement to avert the shutdown, which is slated to begin late Tuesday.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Trump posts vulgar and racist AI video on government shutdown with Schumer saying: ‘Nobody likes Democrats anymore’ | The Independent

#2025 #AI #AlteredVideo #America #ArtificalIntelligence #ChuckSchumer #Deepfake #DonaldTrump #Education #HakeemJeffries #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Technology #TheIndependent #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TruthSocial

5 takeways on RFK Jr. and vaccine policy from former CDC director’s Senate testimony – The Washington Post

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Health Health Care Medical Mysteries Science Well+Being

Takeaways from fired CDC director’s Senate testimony

Susan Monarez told the Senate health committee that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pressured her to back changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

Updated, September 17, 2025 at 3:05 p.m. EDT, 57 minutes ago, 9 min

Key moments from ex-CDC chief’s Senate testimony

By Rachel Roubein, Dan Diamond and Mariana Alfaro

Susan Monarez, who was fired last month as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told senators Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pressured her to support changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, subverting the agency’s scientific expertise and endangering public health.

The former CDC chief who served in the position for only 29 days, told the Senate’s health committee that Kennedy told her that “he spoke to the president every day about changing the childhood vaccine schedule” and that she “needed to be on board” with coming changes in September. The recommendations from the CDC call for administering multiple vaccines at key milestones, and potential changes to the schedule have alarmed major medical associations who worry the nation’s vaccine infrastructure may crack.

Monarez’s testimony on Capitol Hill marks her first public appearance since the White House fired her in late August. She told the panel she was fired for “holding the line on scientific integrity,” citing concerns about her ability to continue leading the agency while “preserving evidence-based decision-making.”

Throughout the hearing, some senators critical of Kennedy, who has an extensive history of anti-vaccine advocacy, sought to highlight what they believe is at stake: the potential for infectious diseases to reemerge and erosion of trust in public health.Some Republican senators allied with Kennedy pressed Monarez on the details of her meetings with Kennedy, casting her as out of step with the Trump administration and suggesting she was not trustworthy.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: 5 takeways on RFK Jr. and vaccine policy from former CDC director’s Senate testimony – The Washington Post

#2025 #America #CDC #CentersForDiseaseControlAndPrevention #DonaldTrump #FormerDirectorCDC #HealthAndHumanServices #History #JFKJr #JohnFKennedyJr #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Science #SusanMonarez #Trump #USSenate #UnitedStates

Accelerating AI adoption for the US government – The Official Microsoft Blog

Official Microsoft Blog

Accelerating AI adoption for the US government

Sep 2, 2025 | Chris Barry – CVP for US Public Sector Industries

Today, Microsoft and the US General Services Administration (GSA) announced a comprehensive agreement to bring a suite of productivity, cloud and AI services, including Microsoft 365 Copilot at no cost for up to 12 months for millions of existing Microsoft G5 users, to help agencies rapidly adopt secure and compliant advanced AI tools that will enhance operations, strengthen security and accelerate innovation for the American people.

As an unparalleled milestone in advancing GSA’s OneGov strategy, Microsoft’s offerings will be available through a governmentwide unified pricing strategy that is expected to drive $3 billion in cost savings in the first year alone.

Enabling AI innovation and acceleration for federal agencies

This expansive offering will help agencies achieve key pillars of the America’s AI Action Plan by enabling federal agencies to serve at the forefront on driving AI innovation and adoption in service to the American people. Through this agreement federal agencies will access the latest AI capabilities at scale, now integrated in many of the products they already use, to achieve key administration priorities:

• Transforming productivity with AI: A unique Microsoft 365 and Copilot suite, offered exclusively to the federal government, enables agencies to automate workflows, analyze data and collaborate more efficiently, freeing public servants to focus on their core mission.
• Driving automation with AI agents: With AI agents, and no per-agent fees, agencies can build solutions for citizen inquiries, case management and contact centers, extending the reach and responsiveness of government services.
• Accelerating cloud modernization: With significant Azure discounts and the waiving of data egress fees, agencies can modernize infrastructure, reduce barriers to interagency collaboration and unlock the full power of advanced analytics and AI.
• Streamlining government operations: Dynamics 365 applications help agencies enhance citizen service, optimize supply chains and increase field responsiveness, directly impacting everyday public outcomes.
• Strengthening security across all levels: Integrated platforms such as Microsoft Entra ID and Sentinel provide advanced identity and threat protection, supporting the Zero Trust journey across federal environments.

Federal agencies can opt-in to any or all of these offers through September 2026, with discounted pricing available for up to 36 months.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09/02/accelerating-ai-adoption-for-the-us-government/

#2025 #America #AmericaSAIActionPlan #DonaldTrump #Education #GeneralServicesAdministration #GSA #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Microsoft #Microsoft365Copilot #MicrosoftAI #Politics #Resistance #Science #Technology #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #Writing

Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit | Reuters

By Andrew Goudsward, July 14, 20256:29 AM PDT, Updated July 14, 2025

• Summary
• Companies

• Federal Programs Branch loses nearly two-thirds of staff since Trump’s election
• Exodus strains unit defending Trump’s policies amid legal challenges
• Political appointees fill vacancies

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.

The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but four names on the list.

Reuters spoke to four former lawyers in the unit and three other people familiar with the departures who said some staffers had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump’s administration.

“Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system,” said one lawyer who left the unit during Trump’s second term. “How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit | Reuters

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Health #History #LawyersLeavingTrump #Legal #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #ResigningDOJ #Resistance #Reuters #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpLawsuits #TrumpLawyers #TrumpPolicies #UnitedStates

Le renvoi brutal d'une icône sans explication. Carla Hayden, 1ère femme et personne afro-américaine à occuper le poste de #bibliothécaire du Congrès aux US a été la cible d’un groupe conservateur militant l’accusant de promouvoir des contenus radicaux #CarlaHayden #LibraryOfCongress #Diversité‍ #LibertéIntellectuelle #LeadershipFéminin #Bibliothèques

Library of Congress Blog: Raúl Ruiz, La Raza Collection Lands at the Library. “Passion, grief and change come with protests, riots and strikes. That is exactly what journalist, photographer and activist Raúl Ruiz captured when he joined La Raza, a newspaper and magazine in East Los Angeles started by Chicano activists and creatives in the last half of the ’60s…. The Library will […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/05/12/library-of-congress-blog-raul-ruiz-la-raza-collection-lands-at-the-library/

#Autumn #Suite
#violin #piano
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Today's #mood is #calm and #melancholic

May this music #cherish you during the #coldest and #darkest days of the #northern hemisphere.

#music #classical #classicalmusic #live #libraryofcongress #Coolidge #bernecoli #Corazza #Italy #usa #Washington #dc #kluge #modernclassical #chamber #chambermusic #Bandcamp #bandcampcodes

@classicalmusic

https://elijax.bandcamp.com/album/autumn-suite-live-at-coolidge-auditorium-washington-dc-10-11-2018