what if public libraries were open late every night so that:

- children and teens who cant get home until a later time have a safe, warm, well lit, populated area to socialize, charge devices, rest, etc

- children and teens have a safe place to go to stay away from danger

- people who have jobs that take up most of the day would still have time ANY DAY OF THE WEEK to go use the libraries facilities (printing, computers, etc)

This is exactly what public libraries are trying to achieve - public libraries as a third place is a whole thing - it’s just that the funding isn’t there (yet).

Libraries need and deserve so much funding

I’m going to apologize if this post comes off as sounding very aggressive, but having just been through one of the most stressful experiences of my entire career in libraries: 

if you want this, you need to be at your local community government meetings. you need to be talking to your representatives.  you need to be out there Lobbying.

Just a few weeks ago, my library, me, my coworkers, we had to write letters, send emails, make phone calls, speak at council meetings, just to beg our aldermen to give us our usual funding. Which they didn’t even give to us last year.  Losing last year’s funding forced us to cut staff, hours, and all of our databases.  If we’d lost this year’s funding? two positions would have been gone and we would have likely had to close on Saturdays.  On Saturdays.  The day of the week most of y’all working M-F jobs actually have time to go to the fucking library.

And do you want to know how much money we were asking? We were asking for an increase of approximately 13 cents a person.

13.

Fucking.

Cents.

ACROSS AN ENTIRE YEAR.

No one seems to understand how libraries are funded.  It’s not just Free Stuff.  It’s your tax dollars being paid back into your community.  It’s crowdfunding.  The highest cost anyone in my community pays for the library a year is approximately $250.  Divide that up.  That’s just $4 a week.  That’s less than a coffee.  It’s the equivalent of purchasing about 10 hardcover books a year.  For that price, you could have access to every book that has ever been written, a place to go that’s not a bar, programs for kids, teens, and adults, educated staff that can help you find the answers to your questions, and so much more.

You want these late-night libraries?  You want all this stuff?  Start fighting for it.  Start showing up.  Start making phone calls.  It’s not going to come out of thin air.  Start fighting to erase the idea that taxes = evil.  Start fighting to spread the understanding that taxes are what help us build a better society.

Make sure the people who represent you know that you want this.  That this is where you want your tax dollars to go.  That this is what you want them to support.  That you are willing to see your tax bill go up a few more dollars for this.

Because otherwise?  None of this is going to happen.  Libraries are going to keep cutting their opening hours.  Keep cutting staff.  Keep cutting programs and databases and collections.

We NEED your support, and we need more than just a post on Tumblr.  We need to see people show up and speak out. 

Ever wondered how libraries are funded? Here’s a very informative post, along with a plea for our help.

so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!

Ooooooooh

FUCK YEAH

a dude came into the library stoned out of his mind and was like, “do I need a library card to look at books?” And I said, “to take books home, yes. To look at them, no” and he looked so relieved. bro was staring at a fish encyclopedia for like an hour and then just left.

this is literally all society needs to be

spotify is selling audiobooks now…..once again tapping the sign:

dont give them your money when you could be supporting your local library!

I clean at an audiobook recording studio and one of voice actors explained to me that the author of the book and the voice actor only get paid if you rent the audiobook from your country’s library app. Anywhere else like Audible or Mofibo only pay a small amount once and the creators never see a dime again.

I can’t be sure how it works in your country but I had to visit my local library and ask for a library card/number. I was given one and logged into the Danish library app eReolen and from there I could log into the English library app Libby.

You can only “check out” three books at a time but Libby lets you return the books when you’re done while the Danish app insist you keep the books a month but let you rent shorter books (and podcasts) on the side that doesn’t count as a full book, all for free.

You can literally support your favourite authors monetarily for free by using the official library apps so I think it’s worth looking up what your country’s library app is called.

Harvard has a pigment library that stores old pigment sources, like the ground shells of now-extinct insects, poisonous metals, and wrappings from Egyptian mummies, to preserve the origins of the world’s rarest colors.

A few centuries ago, finding a specific color might have meant trekking across the globe to a mineral deposit in the middle of Afghanistan. “Every pigment has its own story,” Narayan Khandekar, the caretaker of the pigment collection, told Fastcodesign. He also shared the stories of some of the most interesting pigments in the collection.

Mummy Brown

“People would harvest mummies from Egypt and then extract the brown resin material that was on the wrappings around the bodies and turn that into a pigment. It’s a very bizarre kind of pigment, I’ve got to say, but it was very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.”

Cadmium Yellow

“Cadmium yellow was introduced in the mid 19th century. It’s a bright yellow that many impressionists used. Cadmium is a heavy metal, very toxic. In the early 20th century, cadmium red was introduced. You find these pigments used in industrial processes. Up until the 1970s, Lego bricks had cadmium pigment in them.”

Annatto “The lipstick plant—a small tree, Bixa orellana, native to Central and South America—produces annatto, a natural orange dye. Seeds from the plant are contained in a pod surrounded with a bright red pulp. Currently, annatto is used to color butter, cheese, and cosmetics.”

Lapis Lazuli “People would mine it in Afghanistan, ship it across Europe, and it was more expensive than gold so it would have its own budget line on a commission.”

Dragon’s Blood “It has a great name, but it’s not from dragons. [The bright red pigment] is from the rattan palm.”

Cochineal “This red dye comes from squashed beetles, and it’s used in cosmetics and food.”

Emerald Green “This is made from copper acetoarsenite. We had a Van Gogh with a bright green background that was identified as emerald green. Pigments used for artists’ purposes can find their way into use in other areas as well. Emerald green was used as an insecticide, and you often see it on older wood that would be put into the ground, like railroad ties.”

Source

This is pure alchemy. I love it! 

If you know how much I love colors you know how much I’m freaking out right now. I WANT TO BE THERE

lol like half of these are insanely poisonous

@bunjywunjy lol, you think it’s only half

sure, the other half are ludicrously poisonous

Love logging on to tumblr dot com and seeing posts about why libraries should be Cancelled because they don’t pull problematique books

Also let’s be real, Problematic Books are one of the strongest arguments for libraries’ continued existence?

Let’s say you need an outdated queer theory textbook that uses biphobic and cissexist rhetoric for your gender studies thesis, but you don’t particularly want to own that book.

Let’s say you need a primary source to strengthen your argument to your college as to why a certain political figure does not deserve to be a speaker at your graduation because they perpetuate hate speech.

Let’s say you and your friends want to hateread a book by your least favorite author but you don’t want to give him your money.

You deserve the ability to access that content legally without having to purchase and own it. And so does everyone else, no matter how suspicious you might be of their motives for reading a Problematic book.

When I was doing my masters in library science, they reiterated over and over: there should be something in a library to offend everyone. Believe me. There are books in my library that I find offensive. But my job is to provide access. Not to question WHY people need stuff or to judge them. Libraries should function as a neutral space. We are providing information, which in and of itself is neutral. It’s what people DO with that information that matters. And even then, it’s not my place to judge.

When I was in college, I was doing a paper for an African-American Studies class, and I found myself suddenly in need of info on exactly what sort of self-justification white people were using during the days of slavery.

And I found one in the college library.  An original slave-owner’s apologia from eighteen hundred or so.

Nasty stuff.  But studying the mechanics of evil is a useful pursuit.  One that has relevance in today’s world, certainly.

(My African-American Studies professor thought so too; he gave me an A.)

The point being, no matter how bad a book is, there is value in preserving it—if only to demonstrate, “This, this right here, this is a bad thing.“  Mein Kampf?  Worth picking through to note the psychology of a depraved leader.  (Did you know that Hitler framed every damn thing as a war, including farming, which he characterized as wrestling food from an unwilling land, or some such bullshit?  Might be a characteristic worth paying attention to.  Be cautious about leaders who use “war” rhetoric for things that aren’t actually wars, such as … oh, to pull an example out of a hat, how about “drugs.”)  Slavery apologia?  Leans heavily into Biblical justification, from the one I read, so maybe, just maybe, we should examine Biblical justifications very carefully.  Even the worst stuff teaches us things.

Which is part of what a library is there for.

Libraries with a sense of humour.

Wait what? The Library should be a safe place for everyone - of all ages - regardless of gender, orientation, ethnicity, income, or whatever.

Lol OK

Unreal.

hey shout out to PBS and public libraries

like dudes for real PBS has so many resources for education and stuff. you can watch HOURS of documentaries online for free on their site. like no joke go on pbs dot org right now and you’ll find an entire netflix of public television with full transcripts to boot. the american experience site alone is loaded with multipart docuseries about american history the availability can vary but even then watch pbs sometimes!! they have really cool crap on all the time. sometimes they play ballets and broadway shows. (donation ad voice) support public television

strange and bizarre how community-funded and supported programming and resources are made to be free and easy to access, and it’s some of the highest quality stuff you can get my friends! sorry not sorry socialism works

And this is exactly why Republicans are constantly attacking PBS.

There is nothing new under the sun.

“…I need this.”

libraries do more for communities than cops or any other branch of law enforcement ever has

i was thinking about the weirdest phone calls i got when i still worked at the public library and i remembered this one phone call. it was probably less than 20 seconds long, but it still makes me laugh.

anyways, this woman called and without even saying hello after i said the usual “public library, how can i help you?” spiel, she said, “i have a very important question: when you shelve books, do you push them all to the front of the shelf or all the way back?”

it took me a second to process the question and then i answered that, at the library, we always shelve them so that they are even with the front edge so they’re easier to grab and see. she was obviously delighted by this answer and then, as if an afterthought, she asked, “okay, what about you? what do you do at home with your books?” i said i did the same thing. she hummed in obvious agreement and then just like that she said “thank you!” and hung up.

i never heard from her again. i hope she won whatever argument she was having.

for about a year, i worked at a call center for sprint. i have a similar kind of story. a woman called, and said she had a question about the call history on her bill. “sure, let me just pull up your account-” and she cut me off going, “no, no, it’s not anything specific, it’s just. so, if you change the time on your phone, does that change the time on the bill?” “uh… no? the time on the phone doesn’t matter, the call history is recorded by the towers.” “ohhhh” she said in the saltiest voice i have ever heard “so even if you changed the timezone it wouldn’t change the time on the bill? to, say, the middle of the night?” i stg yall i looked into the camera like i was on the office. “um… no? it would still be the local time of the tower. is there anything else i can help you with?” to me, overly chipper: “nope! thank you! have a great day!” turning on someone as she hung up: “she says yoU’RE A LYING SACK OF-” i still mean-snicker every time i think about it.

I work at a call center for Stanley Steemer - y’all know, the carpet cleaning company with the annoying jingle - and this lady calls in crazy late at night in a huff. As soon as I pick up after the recorded greeting, she says “I can’t afford carpet cleaning.”

And I’m thinking okaaay, why are you calling then??? But before I can ask one of our probing questions™️ she goes on, “But do you know if soda really does clean out blood? I saw it on TV I think. Like cops use Coke to clean blood??”

Now I’ve seen the exact reference she’s making by some weird coincidence. “I think… wasn’t that for roadways? Like asphalt or concrete?”

She pauses for such a long time that I have to check my phone to make sure she hasn’t hung up. Then she gives this huge sigh and sounds 1000% done now. “I should have called before I poured an entire two liter on my carpet, shouldn’t I have?”

At this point I have a very clear image in my head and am filled with pity, so I answer with a really quiet “Yeah probably.”

“Okay.” Another big pause. “I need to go get some paper towels.” And she’s gone with a click, making me feel like I’m in the twilight zone as I slowly remove my headset.

That call still haunts me.

Everytime you fill in CAPTCHA you’re helping to digitalize old books and documents. Using CAPTCHA abt 250 books are added to a digital database everyday

Its called RECAPTCHA! The creator of CAPTCHA (Luis von Ahn) realised a lot of time was being wasted with CAPTCHA (worldwide we spend about 500,000 hours doing CAPTCHA every day)

So he wanted to put it to good use

The reason why CAPTCHA uses wonky letters is because computers can’t read them, but we can!

But when trying to automatically digitalise old books and documents this becomes a hindrance because computers often cant read the faded old letters. So the digitalising is done by humans (very costly and time consuming)

Anyway Ahn found out about these a integraded into captcha creating RECAPTCHA.

Everyday about 150 (sorry i meant 150 not 250) old books get digitalized this way. They are currently using it to digitalize the whole archive of The New York Times (since 1851)

So we’re all kinda building a digital library of alexandria this way by using captcha, noice

https://techcrunch.com/2007/09/16/recaptcha-using-captchas-to-digitize-books/

In case any of you thought this was BS

I always love seeing reCAPTCHA being used.

That’s what my dad told me too.

So when we fill out those wonky letters, we are basically helping the computer read weird handwriting.

Libraries are one of the few remaining public goods that haven’t been completely privatized and profitized. Libraries are virtually free to the public, regardless of race, class, gender, religion or sexual orientation. And it needs to stay that way. Capitalists need to keep their dirty, grubby little HANDS OFF libraries.