Today I went to visit a couple of the libraries that make up the BiblioRed in Bogota. BiblioRed is Bogota’s public library systems, and it’s composed of a number of large, and small libraries, as well as a bibliobus. Today I went to visit the Biblioteca Parque El Tunal, and the Virgilio Barco, both of [...]

While I was growing up in Colombia libraries were very scarce, the only library one ever heard mentioned was the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (BLAA), which I finally got to visit.
While the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango is owned by the Banco de la República de Colombia, it is very much a public library, and open [...]

I arrived in Bogota last night and today I’m off to visit a few libraries, my first stop is the Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. As Colombia’s national library, one of their main responsibilities is serving as the country’s legal deposit.
The collection includes monographs, journals, and a large music collection. The library’s music collection includes both [...]

This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked up a galley of this book while attending ALA Midwinter, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Marilyn Johnson became interested in librarians while researching her previous book on obituaries, and running into a few fascinating [...]

Travesía is a website put together by Spain’s Ministry of Culture’s General Subcommittee on the Coordination of Libraries. Basically the sites aims at promoting collaboration among Spanish librarians, and offers them a space to work together.
Information on the site is divided into three main categories; 1) Documentation that will aid collaboration among Spanish Librarians; 2) [...]

The British Library is always up to something interesting; I just discovered their Database of Bookbindings. This is an entire online collection dedicated to the bindings of books held by the British Library, some of which date back to 1500! The collection also includes some items held by the National Library of Netherlands.
The collection includes [...]

Yesterday while I was riding the bus to work a new billboard caught my eye, one for Read.gov. Read.gov is part of the Library of Congress, and it aims to encourage reading of all kinds of material, by every age group. On the website you’ll find recommendations by age group, and for educators, and under [...]

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 together [...]

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), [...]