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Weekly News Digest
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October 31, 2017 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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Credo's 'Spooky Reference'
Duncan Whitmire posted on Credo’s blog, “Digging up hard facts on mythical monsters can be tricky, but we offer several reference titles to help your users avoid the curse of faulty research. … Make sure students know that open-web searches can come back to haunt them, and give them the resources they need to survive the research process!”For more information, read the blog post.
Annual Reviews Launches Science-Focused Digital Magazine
Annual Reviews introduced Knowable Magazine, an online-only publication for exploring the real-world significance of scholarly research. It receives support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.“Knowable Magazine uses the deep well of expert knowledge from the Annual Reviews journals to increase the joy of understanding,” says Robert Kirshner, chief program officer of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Science Program. It is produced by experienced science journalists who cover topics such as health and disease, climate change, technology, economics, and human behavior. They use content from the 50 Annual Reviews journals to inspire stories in the magazine. “The name Knowable reflects our belief in the power of the scientific process to reveal more about how the world works,” says Eva Emerson, the magazine’s editor. “We want to empower readers with this knowledge by making it more accessible and freely available.” For more information, read the press release.
ALA Announces Recipients of Libraries Ready to Code Grants
ALA is providing more than $500,000 in grants to help 28 libraries in 21 states (and Washington, D.C.) develop coding programs for young patrons. Part of ALA’s Libraries Ready to Code initiative, the funding will give them the opportunity to gain computer science and problem-solving skills. Since libraries serve groups that are underrepresented in computer science—women, rural residents, people from low-income households or with disabilities, etc.—they are ideal spaces for these types of programs.According to the press release, some of the projects the grants will fund are: - designing educational escape rooms,
- making mechanical computers powered by marbles to solve logic puzzles,
- coding music with the use of assistive technology in special education classes, and
- building a residential-sized FarmBot machine to install a community garden.
For more information, read the press release.
'All the Candy That’s Sold During Halloween Week …'
According to an article on Vox by Julia Belluz and Javier Zarracina, “[W]e have reached a point where the amount of candy in circulation is excessive—and symbolic of our sugarcoated environment. In 2017, the candy industry expects Halloween will bring in a record $2.75 billion in retail sales. … If you took all the candy that’s sold during Halloween week and turned it into a giant ball … it’d be as large as six Titanics and weigh 300,000 tons.”For more information, read the article.
'New Online: Scary Stories and More'
A guest post by Stephen Winick brought a bone-chilling story to the Library of Congress’ blog: “‘Married to the Devil,’ an outstanding tale of the supernatural from the collections of the American Folklife Center.”Additionally, “the Library of Congress has released a new web guide to Halloween resources at the Library. It features select materials on the folk customs, fine art, pop culture and literature of Halloween and Día de Muertos, or ‘Day of the Dead,’ observed in Mexico and elsewhere in North America on November 1.” For more information, read the blog post.
IFLA Calls for Participants in #MyiflaGlobalVision Campaign
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is starting the #MyiflaGlobalVision social media campaign and invites libraries to get involved. The campaign asks, “What does IFLA Global Vision mean to you?”Interested participants are encouraged to create a public post on their preferred social media platform, use the hashtag #MyiflaGlobalVision, tag friends, and be creative (by posting a video, photo, drawing, etc.). For more information, read the press release.
HeinOnline Databases Come to EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service
EBSCO Information Services partnered with William S. Hein & Co., Inc. to make five HeinOnline databases accessible via EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service, bringing comprehensive collections of historical and government-related information to academic and public libraries. HeinOnline databases offer books; government documents such as coverage of the Congressional Record, hearings, House and Senate reports, and Congressional Research Service reports; constitutions; treaties; and coverage of the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations.For more information, read the press release.
'A Ghostly Image: Spirit Photographs'
Another Library of Congress guest post, by Kristi Finefield, is just in time for Halloween. She writes, “Claims of capturing a spirit with the camera lens were made as early as the 1850s, when photography was relatively new to the world. At that time, the process of photography was mysterious enough to most people that the idea of a photograph capturing the latent image of a spirit seemed quite possible.“By the time spirit photographs were being publicized in the 1860s, professional photographers had developed several techniques to portray ghost-like apparitions through composite images, double exposures and the like.” She shares some spirit photographs from the LC’s collection. For more information, read the blog post.
'Amazon Prime’s New Delivery Service Is Low-Key Terrifying'
Allie Flinn writes on The Zoe Report, “Amazon has decided to launch an in-home delivery service called Amazon Key. This new service allows Amazon couriers to open your door via a smart lock and leave your package inside your home. Congratulations Brad in Accounting for coming up with this horrible idea (because you know this was not a woman’s idea). You win a time-machine trip back to 1951 when people actually thought it was safe to leave their doors unlocked.”For more information and a roundup of the internet’s best reactions to the news, read the article.
Innovative Updates Sierra ILS With New APIs
Innovative rolled out the newest release of the Sierra ILS with two new RESTful APIs for open integrations on business processes. The Fines API gives users a list of fines, and the Invoices API gives users access to invoices and line item information. According to the press release, “These APIs are the beginning of a new portfolio of APIs to support accounting and finance operations at the library.”Additionally, this version of Sierra has a new feature that complies with the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The Sierra WebPAC discovery solution now warns patrons 20 seconds before it refreshes or closes pop-up windows. For more information, read the press release.
'Phantoms Among the Folios: A Guide to Haunted Libraries'
According to Alison Marcotte and George M. Eberhart’s American Libraries article on haunted libraries, “Bleak mansions and somber castles usually spring to mind when we think of haunted places. But ghostly phenomena—whatever the cause—can manifest in well-lit, modern offices as well as crumbling Carnegies. Of course, it helps if you inadvertently build your library on top of a graveyard.”Follow along with Marcotte and Eberhart’s story as they talk to librarians about their most spirit-ed encounters.
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Brandi Scardilli
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