My friend Lena always says she wished she had taken advantage of my fluency in Spanish to learn the language while we were roommates, since as a doctor in the USA she is constantly running into patience who have a hard time explaining their medical needs in English. Well I may not be in the [...]

Here’s a slide show of the world’s longest outdoor bookcase. The bookcases were filled with books that visitors could swap with their own book, or which they could purchase for a donation to The Australian Literacy and Numeration Foundation. Aquí hay una galería de fotos del estante de libros, al aire abierto, más grande del [...]

Of course none of us has ever fallen asleep at the library! (Full gallery of pictures) ¡Por supuesto que ninguno de nosotros se ha quedado dormido en la biblioteca! (Galería completa de fotos)

While at ALA I attended the meeting for the Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS) Subject and Bibliographic Access Committee of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). The meeting was quite small, but everyone was very nice and welcoming, and all seemed very dedicated to the group’s work. ANSS Subject and Bibliographic Access Committee brings [...]

A couple days ago my father sent me this slide show from the BBC on the pirate book industry in Peru. The author comments that Peru has one of the worst cases of book pirating in all of Latin America, and that books from all over the world find their way into the industry. It [...]

This morning, bright and early, I attended an ALA Midwinter Conference session hosted by OCLC titled “Redesigning Technical Services Workflows.” The session was composed of three presenters, two of which shared their experiences on how their technical services departments are adapting to decreased budgets and new technology trends. The third presenter, Ruth Fischer (R2 Consulting), [...]

AZ­Knowledge River (KR) is now accepting applications for KR Cohort 9. This is a program for individuals who are connected to the Native American or Latino community and who wish to become librarians and information professionals. The program will offer the recipient financial aid, work experience, cohort support, mentorship, conference assistance, and a curriculum which [...]

I grew up with 80F/26C degree weather all year around, and while I tolerate the cold winters while I’m outside waiting for the bus, I absolutely hate being cold while indoors. I just found an article from the NYT describing how the cold is affecting workers at the NYPL. Turns out the librarians working for [...]

The Latin American Briefing Series is part of the University of Chicago’s Center for Latin American Studies; they regularly invites guest to discuss a wide range of topics and issues, and kindly makes them available through their website for free! Look through their online archive to find videos of previous events. Some of these include [...]

OCLC is receiving application for a fellowship position that will train a budding librarian in cataloging and metadata  procedures and standards. Given OCLC’s size and the amount of contact cataloging they do, I figure this must be a unique experience to work with a fascinating array of material. For a full description of the position [...]