Library Stuff

NYTimes – “The Morgan Library and Museum’s landmark McKim, Mead and White building will reopen to the public on Oct. 30 after a $4.5 million restoration of its interior spaces.The Italianate marble villa, designed in High Renaissance style, was formerly the private study and library of the financier Pierpont Morgan. The project completes a physical transformation of the Morgan that began in 2006 with an expansion and renovation by the architect Renzo Piano.”

Associated Press – “New digital recordings of events in U.S. history and early radio shows are at risk of being lost much faster than older ones on tape and many are already gone, according to a study on sound released Wednesday. Even recent history – such as recordings from 9/11 or the 2008 election – is at risk because digital sound files can be corrupted, and widely used CD-R discs only last three to five years before files start to fade, said study co-author Sam Brylawski.”

Chicago Tribune – “Startup high school integrates subjects to focus on ‘things that matter in the real world”

AP – “Libraries are tweeting, texting and launching smart-phone apps as they try to keep up with the biblio-techs – a computer-savvy class of people who consider card catalogs as vintage as typewriters. And they seem to be pulling it off.”

NYTimes – “Perhaps you’ve heard: It’s Banned Books Week, and across the country, libraries, bookstores, teachers and countless readers are celebrating “the freedom to read.” For an event like this, it never hurts to have a cause célèbre, and this year, organizers needn’t have gone very far in search of one. They just had to turn to Twitter, where people have been rallying behind the young-adult author Laurie Halse Anderson, whose best-selling 1999 novel, “Speak,” has found itself at the center of a heated censorship debate.