Tufts University Connection To Purdue Pharma’s Connection To OxyContin

Tufts University is reviewing its connection to OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma in the wake of court documents filed last week detailing explosive allegations about the company, the mega-donors that own it and their alleged influence over the university’s medical school.

The court filing from Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey alleges that members of the Sackler family knew the opioid was causing overdoses and were involved in efforts to mislead doctors and the public about the powerful painkiller’s effects. They did not tell authorities about reports the drug was being abused and peddled on the street, it says.

The filing claims one member of the family, Richard Sackler, wanted to blame abusers, writing in a 2001 email that abusers “are the culprits and the problem” and that they “are reckless criminals,”.

The filing alleges that Purdue funded “an entire degree program at Tufts University to influence Massachusetts doctors to use its drugs.” Purdue sponsored an annual “Sackler Lecture” at Tufts on pain medicine, and Richard Sackler for many years held a seat on the school of medicine’s board, it alleges. (Purdue Pharma is unrelated to the university in Indiana.)

A Tufts spokesman, Patrick Collins, issued a statement Friday saying that the university has been and remains deeply committed to the highest ethical and scientific standards.

“The information raised in the Attorney General’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other defendants is deeply troubling,” it said. “We will be undertaking a review of Tufts’ connection with Purdue to ensure that we were provided accurate information, that we followed our conflict of interest guidelines and that we adhered to our principles of academic and research integrity. Based on this review, we will determine if any changes need to be made moving forward.”

It appears that members of the Sackler family have given money to many universities and museums over the years. Donations have resulted in their names being inscribed on campuses, including the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences and the Arthur M. Sackler Center for Medical Education at Tufts and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University.

The Boston Globe noted Harvard Art Museums have pointed out that the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation provides no continuing funding for the museum:

“Arthur Sackler generously donated the funds in 1982 that paid for the construction of the original building that housed the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway. In 2014, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum was relocated to 32 Quincy Street, as part of the renovation and expansion of the Harvard Art Museums.”

Tufts provided similar background information in response to a question about the Somerville mayor’s call to remove the Sackler name from campus:

“The Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences was established in 1980 by Jean Mayer, then president of Tufts University, and the Board of Trustees to promote collaborative and interdisciplinary graduate education to advance health. In 1983, Jean Mayer and the Board of Trustees established the Arthur M. Sackler Center. In both cases, the naming gifts were provided to the university more than a decade before OxyContin was introduced to the marketplace.”

A lengthy 2017 feature in The New Yorker says he became wealthy marketing the tranquilizers Librium and Valium. It quoted Allen Frances, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, saying that, “Most of the questionable practices that propelled the pharmaceutical industry into the scourge it is today can be attributed to Arthur Sackler.”

In 2014, Purdue medical liaison staff “succeeded in getting two Purdue unbranded curricula approved for teaching” to Tufts students, it alleges.

Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., did not respond to requests for comment. The company sent a statement to WBUR saying Healey is attempting to vilify “a single manufacturer whose medicines represent less than 2 percent of opioid pain prescriptions rather than doing the hard work of trying to solve a complex public health crisis.”

It also said that “the complaint distorts critical facts and cynically conflates prescription opioid medications with illegal heroin and fentanyl, which are the leading cause of overdose deaths in Massachusetts.”

Almost 218,000 people in the United States died from overdoses related to prescription opioids between 1999 and 2017, according to the CDC. Overdose deaths from prescription opioids were five times higher in 2017 than they were in 1999.

https://drugabuse.com/oxycodone/history-statistics/

More On The Beautiful Blackamoors

Adorned with in gilt and gemstones, blackamoor figures are particularly decorative and are commonly seen as furniture, paintings, jewelry and textiles. They are typically swathed in fine robes and almost always wear turbans. Fashion and beauty icons Coco Chanel and Helena Rubinstein collected blackamoor furniture (two Venetian Blackamoors graced the foyer of Chanel’s Paris apartment. Vogue magazine editor Diana Vreeland had a famous collection of blackamoor jewelry from Cartier and Grace Kelly owned a diamond-encrusted blackamoor brooch from Nardi Jewelers of Venice .One of the Pointer Sisters’, Anita Pointer has some blackamoor pieces in her collection of black memorabilia.  Aleksandr Pushkin kept a blackamoor figurine on his desk; it reminded him of Abram Petrovich Gannibal, his great-grandfather, an African slave who became a successful Russian general and military engineer.The most famous blackamoor figure is the gem-studded Mohr mit Smaragdstufe, which translates to “Moor with Emerald Cluster” . Created by Balthasar Permoser in 1724, it is housed in the Grünes Gewölbe museum in Germany. see below

At times blackamoors are depicted as exotic noblemen, while at others such as statues, take on positions of servitude, as footmen or waiters. Their noblemen status dates to the Moorish invasion of southern Italy more than a millennium ago; their roots are steeped in conquest. However, some find blackamoor imagery to be racially insensitive because some of the statues look like servants. This dates to the European courts in which black attendants were dressed in exotic finery – and, some feel, were objectified as ornaments. This was particularly true of the court of Versailles in the 17^th century.When Dolce & Gabbana featured blackamoor jewelry and clothing designs in its spring 2013 collection fashion show in Milan, the firm was criticized for being tone-deaf as to what blackamoors can represent. The firm responded that such imagery was a reflection of the Italian firm’s roots in a country in which Moors were of historic significance.

During the 18th century wealthy Venetians employed Moors as bodyguards, as they were impressed by their fighting prowess. The regal bearing of the resulting depictions seem to put these exotic immigrants in high regard; they are beautiful and are not demeaned in any way, as evidenced by this sculpture by Andrea Brustolon (photo, below). 

Blackamoors should not to be confused with emblems of American slavery, such as the more recent “Aunt Jemima” figures. To make this mistake is to make a mistake of history.

In 2011 a diamond, sapphire and gold blackamoor brooch once owned by Elizabeth Taylor sold for $60,000 at Christie’s. One look at the piece, photo left, reveals the delicacy and respect with which the piece was created by the famous Giulio Nardi, an artist of jewelry design .

 

The inhabitants of the coast wore gold earrings with enamels white and black like amulets to exorcize the danger of pirates or gave to the churches as votive promises. This is for sure the primigenial blackamoor jewelry that anyway arrived in few years to the motherland.

Venetian artisans created various kinds of Moors exploring all kind of jewelry: earrings, brooches, pendants and necklaces with blackamoors in ebony usually adorned with precious stones and enamels. They love to adorn jewels upon black men and women figurines

Blackamoors were a favorite style statement of the Victorian era;

 

Is Racism Becoming The Norm?

Racist Museum In China

A museum in China has removed an exhibit this week that showcased photographs of animals with portraits of black Africans, sparking complaints of racism.

The exhibit titled This Is Africa at the Hubei Provincial Museum in the city of Wuhan displayed a series of diptychs, each one containing a photo of an African person paired with the face of an animal. In a particularly striking example, a child with his mouth wide open was paired with a gorilla and other works included baboons and cheetahs.

The curator said exhibit was eventually removed after complaints by Africans, including some living in China, All the photographs were taken by Yu Huiping, a construction magnate who has traveled to Africa more than 20 times, has previously won awards for his work and is vice-chairman of the Hubei Photographers Association.

About 92% of the population belongs to the dominant Han ethnicity and ethnic minorities mostly live in the sporadically populated far west of the country. African countries are increasingly important trading partners, but cultural stereotypes dominate Chinese popular discourse on the continent.

Chinese App WeChat Apologizes for using the N word

WeChat apologized earlier this week after users discovered the app’s translation for hei laowai, or “black foreigner,” into English was “nigger.” Last year, Qiaobi, a home care company famously ran a television ad in which a black man put into a washing machine comes out Asian, thanks to Qiaobi’s extra strong detergent.

 

The issue was discovered by Shanghai-based theater director Ann James, who texted her Chinese colleagues in their messaging group this morning to say she was running late. As usual, the black American typed in English, using WeChat’s in-app translation feature to read the Chinese responses. She gasped when she saw that the next message contained a racist obscenity: “The n—– is late.”

 The story behind the racist Chinese ad where a black man gets his skin color scrubbed off

An ad for some unusually strong laundry detergent in China. (YouTube/Benoit Florençon)

In the video, a paint-splattered black man confidently approaches a young Chinese woman, only to have detergent placed in his mouth and his body shoved into a washing machine for a thorough rinsing. Once the wash cycle is done, out pops a pristine young Chinese man, as clean as can be.

video 

 Video

 

Dove apologises for ad showing black woman turning

into white one

Notice the similar hair styles and Brown shirts on the first two—–Shameful!

 

 https://youtu.be/UxV_A-5VKRc

 

Stream A Movie With Your Library Card

• You’ll need to go to nypl.kanopystreaming.com, or bklynlibrary.kanopystreaming.com, or access the site via the Library’s Articles & Databases page.
• You will need to create a sign-in, and then punch in your library card number and PIN.
• You can view up to 10 movies per month with an NYPL card, and 6 per month with a BPL card.
• Once started, you will have three days to watch each movie.

Appropriations Committee Voted To Approve Funding for Libraries

The full House Appropriations Committee voted to approve FY2018 funding for libraries. By a 28-22 margin, the committee approved the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LHHS) funding bill, which proposes roughly $231 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—including $183.6 million for Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) programs, and $27 million for the Department of Education’s Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) program—essentially at 2017 funding levels.

In addition to saving the IMLS, the LHHS bill includes level funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. However, it funds the Department of Education (DOE) at $66 billion—a cut of $2.4 billion from 2017, which includes the elimination of some important library-related programs, including the DOE’s Striving Readers program. ALA officials said they would work to restore it.

Meanwhile, on July 18, the House Appropriations Committee approved by a 30-21 margin the FY2018 Interior and Environment Appropriations, which includes $145 million each for the NEH and the NEA, roughly equal to FY 2017 funding levels.

The key votes come after President Trump’s call  in May to eliminate IMLS and virtually all federal funding for libraries, as well as a host of other vital programs and agencies, including the NEH and the NEA. And, it comes after Congress, earlier in May, passed a belated 2017 budget that actually upped the IMLS, NEH, and NEA budgets.

More Reading

New Book Out -Secret Brooklyn: An Unusual Guide

Michelle Young and co-founder Augustin Pasquet wrote  and provided photographs for their book  Secret Brooklyn: An Unusual Guide

Some of the unusual places featured in their book consist of the Roosevelt House at Brooklyn College, The Puppet Library features over 100 puppets, some as large as 20 feet tall, that sit on the bleachers of a gymnasium.

Abandoned Shooting Range in the Park Slope Armory

The militia of the 14th Regiment once used an extensive, multi-level shooting gallery below the Park Slope Armory.

Abandoned shooting range

Puppet Library located below Park Slope Armory

Park slop Armory once home to the 14th Regiment of the U.S. militia

 

   Wild Parrots of Brooklyn

The best way to see the parrots is through a monthly free tour run by Steven Baldwin, who estimates there are 150 Quaker Parrots in Brooklyn today.  The parrots are more famous for roosting in Green-Wood Cemetery, the location where you can see the parrots most up-close is on a leafy residential street in Flatbush.

The fake Town House in Brooklyn Heights  building number 58 is not what it seems; it is a fake brownstone, behind which lies a hidden subway ventilator. It also functions as a emergency exit.The fake brownstone on Joralemon Street is also rumored to serve as a secret passageway to the 4/5 trains running in the tunnel below. A writer for the Brooklyn Heights Blog swears that he saw a glimpse of the 4/5 station when he peered inside the metal door marked “Exit 1

Substation #21, active since 1908. The substation was built to power the IRT subway extention from Atlantic Avenue to both Flatbush Avenue and New Lots Avenue.  It’s a real gem because it simultaneously houses both vintage equipment and modern functioning equipment.

New York City’s Cultural Future

Brooklyn Borough-Wide Workshop. Image courtesy of Hester Street Collaborative and Create NYC

Queens Borough-Wide Workshop. Image courtesy of Hester Street Collaborative and Create NYC.

New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA)a report detailing the results of roughly seven months of public engagement conducted in the lead up to the city’s forthcoming cultural plan. The agency engaged 188,000 New Yorkers—via focus groups, phone surveys, and hundreds of community events—in order to compile its brief.

The plan’s website Residents are also invited to provide in-person feedback at city-wide events through May 31st. DCLA commissioner Tom Finkelpearl says The responses will be “data points,” used to further refine the city’s first-ever cultural plan.

Metropolitan Museaum Of Art Now Has Open Access

All images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction.

Anyone can just go over to the Metropolitan Museum’s website to search for images to download — just be sure to tick the check box for “Public Domain Artworks.” If that is too broad and you can’t be bothered to look for the “CC0” tag, you can always just choose from 20 thematic sets that the Met has arranged

The Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art

Actor George Lucas billion-dollar art museum is set to open in 2020, LosAngelas. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will feature pieces from Lucas’ personal art collection, which includes work by traditional artists such as Norman Rockwell as well as more modern artists like comic book legend R. Crumb. The museum will also feature movie matte paintings, props, and memorabilia from Star Wars and other films.

Museums Are Making Visitor Experiences More Exciting

New technologies are making the museum visit more exciting. From 3-D scanning and 3-D printing, to virtual reality and special apps, these technologies are being applied in a multitude of ways. Still other technologies are being tested and developed as museums seek to ever broaden public access.

The American Museum of Natural History. Has a new app called Explorer. It uses hundreds of Bluetooth hotspots to navigate visitors around its halls to artifacts that may interest them the most.Whenever you raise your phone, the thing you’re immediately in front of is at the top of the app. The app can also customize your tour.

Some museums are already using the latest 3-D printing technology to make replicas of historical artifacts to give visitors a new way to interact with the object without damaging the original.

3-D scanning tools also allow for detailed analysis of fragile specimens.

An example of that is an exhibition traveling around the country called “Mummies: New Secrets From the Tombs” organized by Chicago’s Field Museum. It used a medical CT scanner to “unwrap” the mummies. Museum-goers can peek under the wrappings by manipulating large table-top computer scans placed alongside the delicate specimens to see their clothes, hairstyles and the jewelry they took to their graves.

The library of Congress Hacked In July 2016

Some say,” The Library of Congress is simply not equipped to join the 21st century”. The Government Accountability Office estimates that the LOC spends roughly $120 million dollars on IT functions, but the library’s accounting records leave much to be desired, particularly when recording acquisitions of new IT assets. The copyright office still runs on a largely paper based system (some records kept are still kept in card catalogues) and is forced to share the library’s aging IT systems. Large digital projects have even failed to materialize, such as the promise of an archive of everything that has been tweeted since 2010. Digitization projects are so far behind that only a fraction of the Library’s 24 million titles have been made available online. It is the hope of many  policy advocates and scholars  that with Carla Hayden in the top job, the former crown jewel of American libraries can be pulled out of mothballs and dragged into the 21st century.

Scientist Working on Technology To Help Read Unopened Books

Scientists from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Georgia Tech (Georgia Institute of Technology have come together to develop a new technology that will allow users to read a book without even opening it. The results were published in the scientific journal, Nature Communications. Upon its use on a stack of newspapers with one letter printed on each, the system was able to identify the letters printed on the top nine sheets correctly. The scientists stated that the system could be useful to analyze any materials organized in thin layers, like on coatings on machine parts and others. The Metropolitan Museum in New York, think that the new system will be of monumental help in looking at some antique books that are too fragile even to touch.The system functions on a set of algorithms that read images from individual sheets of paper put up in a stack and interprets the distorted images from the stack as individual letters. A lot of websites have these letter certifications (captchas) to make sure you’re not a robot.

The system uses terahertz radiation, which unlike X-ray, can distinguish between printed and blank parts on paper. In the process, a terahertz camera emits ultrashort bursts of radiation, the reflections from which are picked up by the built-in sensor. The system can read the distance to the individual pages of a book from the time that a reflection takes to travel back to the sensor.

In its present stage, the system can only read up to nine pages in a stack correctly, beyond which the signals become too weak to interpret the results correctly.

New York City’s Museum Of Ice Cream

The chocolate chamber. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP

Photograph: Bebeto Matthew/AP

For the month of August, a studio space across from the Whitney Museum has been transformed into the Museum of Ice Cream where visitors can swim in a pool of rainbow sprinkles. The six-room experience is a sensory delight that looks like a hipster paradise – all the wall art is selfie-friendly, and the sprinkle pool has a mirror hanging above it.

 

 

The 3D Printed House

The 3D Print Canal House is a three-year publically accessible ‘Research & Design by Doing’ project in which an international team of partners from various sectors works together on 3D printing a full-size canal house in Amsterdam.
The building site is designed as a growing exhibition and open to the public. The feedback from audiences generates input for research and market explorations:

The 3D Print Canal House consists of 13 different rooms that each consist of various elements. Each room showcases a research update in shape, structure and material. The house is printed with the KamerMaker – a gigantic FDM printer that can print elements of 2 x 2 x 3,5 meters, developed by DUS. The building site is located in Amsterdam North.

 

Priceless Timbuktu Manuscripts Saved By Librarians

Mali’s cultural heritage, including its ancient manuscripts, was severely damaged. In Timbuktu, many valuable manuscripts were burned or stolen, forcing their owners, communities and local NGOs to send them to Bamako, the capital of the country. Timbuktu was the cultural, economic and intellectual capital of Mali and also the home of the first university. The scholars that visited Timbuktu studied astronomy, medicine, poetry, and music and debated the details of Islamic law.

Read & Listen 

 

 

 

Thirty Finalist For The National Medal for Museum & Library Service

Each year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services presents select museums and libraries with the nation’s highest honor,
the National Medal for Museum and Library Service.

The Thirty Finalist For 2016

Libraries

• Brooklyn Public Library (Brooklyn, New York)
• Dallas Public Library (Dallas, Texas)
• Haines Borough Public Library (Haines, Alaska)
• Illinois Fire Service Institute Library (Champaign, Illinois)
• James E. Brooks Library at Central Washington University (Ellensburg, Washington)
• Juneau Public Libraries (Juneau, Alaska)
• Kitsap Regional Library (Bremerton, Washington)
• Longmont Public Library (Longmont, Colorado)
• Madison Public Library (Madison, Wisconsin)
• North Carolina State University Libraries (Raleigh, North Carolina)
• Otis Library (Norwich, Connecticut)
• Richland Library (Columbia, South Carolina)
• San Mateo County Libraries (SMCL) (San Mateo, California)
• Santa Ana Public Library (Santa Ana, California)
• Terrebonne Parish Library System (Houma, Louisiana

Museums

• Chicago History Museum (Chicago, Illinois)
• Children’s Museum Tucson (Tucson, Arizona)
• Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, South Carolina)
• Dallas Holocaust Museum (Dallas, Texas)
• The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (Amherst, Massachusetts)
• Fitchburg Art Museum (Fitchburg, Massachusetts)
• Honolulu Museum of Art (Honolulu, Hawaii)
• Imagination Station, Toledo’s Science Center (Toledo, Ohio)
• Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (Wausau, Wisconsin)
• Lynn Meadows Discovery Center for Children (Gulfport, Mississippi)
• Mid-America Science Museum (Hot Springs, Arkansas)
• Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (Santa Cruz, California)
• Nantucket Historical Association (Nantucket, Massachusetts)
• Tomaquag Museum (Exeter, Rhode Island)
• Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, New York

Winner to be announced soon

President Barack Obama Announced His Intent To Nominate Carla D. Hayden As Librarian Of Congress

Dr. Carla D. Hayden is CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, a position she has held since 1993.  Dr. Hayden was nominated by President Obama to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board in January 2010 and was confirmed by the Senate in June 2010.  Prior to joining the Pratt Library, Dr. Hayden was Deputy Commissioner and Chief Librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993. She was an Assistant Professor for Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991 and Library Services Coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987.Dr. Carla D. Hayden’s  career  began as a Library Associate and Children’s Librarian from 1973 to 1979 with the Chicago Public Library and the Young Adult Services Coordinator from 1979 to 1982.  Dr. Hayden was President of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004.  In 1995, she was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an afterschool center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.  Dr. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

If confirmed, Dr. Hayden would be the first woman and the first African American to hold the position  at the Library of Congress

30 Finalists For The 2016 National Medal for Museum and Library Service

The Institute of Museum and Library Services today announced 30 finalists for the 2016 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community. For 22 years, the award has celebrated institutions that demonstrate extraordinary and innovative approaches to public service and are making a difference for individuals, families, and communities

The Finalist 2016

• Brooklyn Public Library (link is external) (Brooklyn, New York)
• Chicago History Museum (link is external) (Chicago, Illinois)
• Children’s Museum Tucson (link is external) (Tucson, Arizona)
• Columbia Museum of Art (link is external) (Columbia, South Carolina)
• Dallas Holocaust Museum (link is external) (Dallas, Texas)
• Dallas Public Library (link is external) (Dallas, Texas)
• The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (link is external) (Amherst, Massachusetts)
• Fitchburg Art Museum (link is external) (Fitchburg, Massachusetts)
• Haines Borough Public Library (link is external) (Haines, Alaska)
• Honolulu Museum of Art (link is external) (Honolulu, Hawaii)
• Illinois Fire Service Institute Library (link is external) (Champaign, Illinois)
• Imagination Station, Toledo’s Science Center (link is external) (Toledo, Ohio)
• James E. Brooks Library at Central Washington University (link is external) (Ellensburg, Washington)
• Juneau Public Libraries (link is external) (Juneau, Alaska)
• Kitsap Regional Library (link is external) (Bremerton, Washington)
• Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (link is external) (Wausau, Wisconsin)
• Longmont Public Library (link is external) (Longmont, Colorado)
• Lynn Meadows Discovery Center for Children (link is external) (Gulfport, Mississippi)
• Madison Public Library (link is external) (Madison, Wisconsin)
• Mid-America Science Museum (link is external) (Hot Springs, Arkansas)
• Nantucket Historical Association (link is external) (Nantucket, Massachusetts)
• North Carolina State University Libraries (link is external) (Raleigh, North Carolina)
• Otis Library (link is external) (Norwich, Connecticut)
• Richland Library (link is external) (Columbia, South Carolina)
• San Mateo County Libraries (SMCL) (link is external) (San Mateo, California)
• Santa Ana Public Library (link is external) (Santa Ana, California)
• Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (link is external) (Santa Cruz, California)
• Terrebonne Parish Library System (link is external) (Houma, Louisiana)
• Tomaquag Museum (link is external) (Exeter, Rhode Island)
• Whitney Museum of American Art (link is external) (New York, New York)

The National Medal winners will be named later this spring, and representatives from winning institutions will travel to Washington, D.C., to be honored in a White House ceremony

Google’s Cultural Institute

Now you can pay virtual visits a concert venue and even experience a performance from onstage. Google has made an online collaboration that made its debut Tuesday with more than 60 performing-arts organizations around the globe. The Google Cultural Institute, an online platform that uses the company’s technology to share art and culture allowing users to experience dance, drama and music from over 60 different organizations all over the world.

Companies Are Displaying Their Data Through Art

As companies hired Data Scientists, large tech companies such as Microsoft and Google are bringing in the data artists from museums and galleries and putting them to work with developing new visualizations that can help explain their message, promote company awareness, and help out with the marketing efforts.

See Video

See Video

South Carolina’s Governor Vetos Bill For Public Library Disrupters

 

Read More

Long Gone Are The Days When Public Libraries Were Extremely Quiet

Library of The Year

Edmonton Public Library (EPL) of Alberta, Canada has been chosen, the 2014 Library of the Year by Library Journal magazine and Gale, part of Cengage Learning. Each year, this prestigious recognition goes to a public library that most profoundly demonstrates service to community, creativity, leadership and innovation in developing community programs. EPL serves one of Canada’s fastest growing cities through its 17 branches operated by more than 600 employees who last year answered nearly 2.5 million questions and facilitated 5.2 million library visits (with another 4.7 million visits via their website). Every three seconds someone is borrowing from EPL. Their social media popularity – with 20,000 Twitter followers and 9,000 Facebook fans – leads almost all North American urban libraries.

 EPL lacks the stereotypical image of library as a book repository and serves as a center of civic engagement. Community librarians at each branch integrate deeply with local institutions such as school districts, health centers and outreach groups in order to understand needs, eliminate barriers, and inform services and policies. their  makerspace – is a location dedicated to creating with technology such as 3D printers, game development software, a sound and recording studio and more. New branches have been designed or redesigned to focus on open space, collaboration, and sustainability, and a focus on lifelong learning, including online learning, helps ensure the success of individuals as well as the community.

 Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, technology and services company, that empowers educators and driving learner engagement through personalized services and course-driven digital solutions that bridge from the library to the classroom. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, serves the world’s information and education needs through its vast and dynamic content pools, which are used by students and consumers in their libraries, schools and on the Internet.

Library Journal  was founded in 1876, Library Journal is one of the oldest and most respected publications covering the library field. Over 75,000 library directors, administrators, and staff in public, academic, and special libraries read LJ. Library Journal reviews over 8000 books, audiobooks, videos, databases, and web sites annually, and provides coverage of technology, management, policy, and other professional concerns.

View Here      

American Libraries Vintage Posters

Take A Look At The American Library Association Archives Poster Collection@ The University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign. The vintage collection  includes printed posters, rotogravures and architectural drawings of ALA divisions, committees, projects and events. Subjects include the work of the ALA during World War I and II, the 50th Anniversary of the ALA in 1926, the Andrew Carnegie Centenary in 1935, librarianship recruitment, and general library and readership promotion.

 

American Libraries

A recent report by the Pew Research Center revealed that Americans still value their libraries. When asked whether the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their communities, 90 percent of American adults (ages 16 years and older) said yes, it would, and 63 percent said the impact would be “major.” When asked if library closures would affect them and their families personally, only 32 percent responded the way I would have—with a “no.” The survey also reported that the most important things a public library offers, besides books and media, are safe, quiet places to read and assistance from librarians

Digital Public Library Of America

The Digital Public Library of America (http://dp.la),is one year old this week. In celebration, DPLA is proud to announce the addition of six major new partners and other significant milestones as it enters its second year.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) this week expanded access to the full breadth of its digital collections through its partnership with DPLA, a major increase over its initial contribution of 14,000 records at DPLA’s launch. Over 1 million digitized items from throughout the Library’s research holdings are available, significantly increasing DPLA’s offerings by nearly 20%.

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http://dp.la/

A Presidential Library In Hawaii

 

 

There are two sites that supporters say could be the future home for the presidential library of Barack Obama. In Kakaako, just behind the parking lot for the Point Panic bodysurfing spot, the land is made up of two vacant lots, and offers a tantalizing view of Diamond Head and the ocean.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D), who has been a proponent of having a presidential center in Hawaii said “We think it’s a great opportunity for the president to launch his post-presidential career and he’s going to be a young ex-president.”

“We know he’s going to be in public service, and Honolulu would be a great headquarters for a presidential center.” 

While President Obama was born and raised in Hawaii, he made his political mark and his current home in Chicago, which is also in the running. “We’re prepared to compete with Chicago, but we’re also prepared to collaborate with Chicago,” said Schatz. 

“There are a lot of different parts of a presidential center: a foundation, a policy school, the museum. And any one of those, or all of those, could be located here,” said University of Hawaii Professor Robert Perkinson, who has been coordinating the effort to have a presidential center here.

The White House isn’t ready to speak on it just yet. President Obama’s term still has three more years to go. That’s still time for him to decide where to house his museum, or any foundation that he wishes to establish.

George W. Bush’s Presidential Library and Museum opened just last year in his home state of Texas. While President Obama was born and raised in Hawaii, he made his political mark and his current home in Chicago, which is also in the running.

“We’re prepared to compete with Chicago, but we’re also prepared to collaborate with Chicago,” said Schatz.

At least one former president, Bill Clinton, has a presidential library in his home state of Arkansas, but his non-profit foundation is headquartered in New York. That has raised the hopes that Honolulu will get at least one part of a proposed center.

“There are a lot of different parts of a presidential center: a foundation, a policy school, the museum. And any one of those, or all of those, could be located here,” said University of Hawaii Professor Robert Perkinson, who has been coordinating the effort to have a presidential center here.

Local Obama supporters say that he — much like Clinton — will remain active as a former president. They also say that his annual holidays in Hawaii show that he likes being here.

But not so fast — the White House isn’t ready to talk just yet. After all, Obama’s term still has three more years to go. That’s still time for him to decide where to house his museum, or any foundation that he wishes to establish.

“When he’s ready to seriously engage with those proposals, then we’re ready to meet with him and partner with him,” said Perkinson.

 

Digitized Ancient Texts From Bodleian & Vatican Libraries Online

Viewers from all over the world will be able to view some of the most important and unique bibles and biblical texts in existence from the comfort of their own home.
A team of scholars and curators from around the world chose a selection of texts from the Bodleian and Vatican Libraries collections of Hebrew manuscripts, Greek manuscripts and early printed books. Conservation staff worked closely with curators to ensure that the objects chosen were appropriate in both content and condition.

The collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticano builds on both libraries’ individual digitisation projects. It has allowed them to increase the scale and pace with which they can digitise their most significant collections, while taking into consideration the fragile condition of these ancient texts.

The website is available in both English and Italian – reveals the first batch of digitised books in a four-year project. The images are zoomable, allowing them to be used for scholarly research and analysis. The website also provides essays and video presentations made by experts including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès.

Irina’s Children

Gallery Books executive editor Karen Kosztolnyik won North American rights after a three-day auction, to Tilar Mazzeo’s nonfiction proposal, Irena’s Children. The nonfiction book is about a woman who has been dubbed the “female Oskar Schindler.” The proposal unwinds the life story of Irena Sendler, who, along with the force of fellow Polish citizens, went to extremes during World War II to save over 2,000 children from the Warsaw Ghetto. (Sendler kept the names of all the rescued kids in a jar, so that they might one day be reunited with their families.) The book, Gallery noted, also weaves together two “intertwined wartime love stories.” The proposal has been acquired in Italy and Norway, and, at press time, auctions were underway in the U.K. and the Netherlands. Mazzeo (The Widow Clicquot) was represented by agent Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich

 

With Possibility of American Government Shutdown, Library of Congress and FTC Will Go Offline

 

It’s not known why some sites in Washington, DC, are going offline and others will stay online. Nor is it clear how shutting down a government website would save any significant amount of money.

“In the event of a temporary shutdown of the federal government, beginning Tuesday, October 1, all Library of Congress buildings will close to the public and researchers,” the Library of Congress wrote on its website on Friday. “All public events will be cancelled and websites will be inaccessible.”

The Federal Trade Commission (PDF) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (PDF) have told their employees to consult their respective websites for information about when the shutdown would be lifted. However, Peter Kaplan, a spokesperson for the FTC, told Ars that his agency’s site would be largely shut down except for a splash page.

 

Maker Faire 2013 New York/Bay Area

This year 3D printers were the talk of the town in New York’s Makerfaire. Held over the held only,  at the New York Hall of Science in Corona, Queens. The show highlighted the creations of hobbyists, hackers, and craftspeople in everything from electronics to rocketry to beadwork.  3D printers and related technologies—from established companies and newcomers were the  featured attraction. Intel futurist Brian David Johnson introduced Jimmie, an open-source 3D-printed robot, in a special presentation, and 3D printers occupied a large area within the show.

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Haute Couture

 

Books Expected To Become Movies

Stephen’s king’s son Joe Hill is getting a movie this year starring Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliffe will bring Hill’s gothic fiction Horns novel to life, in which he plays main character Ig Perrish, who grows horns after his girlfriend is murdered. And then he uses these magical horns to find out whodunnit. This book is  said to be crazy bloody & great.

The Hundred

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the human population is trapped in space, Earth being ruined with radiation and whatnot. But now enough time has passed that it might be habitable again… might. So the government sends 100 expendable kids from the space Juvenile Detention center to test it out. The CW picked up this just released book for a TV series; the trailer was just released, and you 

Under the Dome

An invisible forcefield traps a small town under an impenetrable dome. Then everything goes to hell, as it so often does in the small towns of Stephen King’s imagination. The series just aired this week on CBS, thanks to showrunner Brian K. Vaughan. The book is said to be long but a page turner.

Author: Stephen King

Ender’s Game

Boy genius Ender is plucked from obscurity and placed in the middle of an alien war in the future, because kids’ minds are the best weapon in this future world. Gavin Hood is directingHugo star Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggins, who will join Sir Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis and Harrison Ford in space to fight for the future of humanity.  A fast read — 

Author: Orson Scott Card

Release Date: November 1st, 2013

Divergent

A lot of people have been calling Divergent the new Hunger Games. Set in a future world of Chicago where the population is broken down by personalities (factions), the book features fantastic characters, great action and the love scenes . Granted, The movie is being directed by Neil Burger of Limitless, starring a cast of kids. Think knife-throwing, death and hard kisses mixed with conspiracy.

Author: Veronica Roth

Release Date: March 21st, 2014

The Futurological Congress/The Congress

Loosely (very loosely) based on Stanislaw Lem’s work, the upcoming movie blends cartoons and live-action. Its severely dark humor focuses around actress Robin Wright, playing herself, who’s stuck in actor’s limbo in L.A. Wright signs away her life rights to a futuristic machine that allows everything about her to be used for profit. She enters a utopian oasis that (just like all utopias) turns out to be a lie, but there’s a twist to the twist.

Author: Stanislaw Lem

Release Date: It premiered at Cannes, but doesn’t have an official release date yet (look for it at future festivals)

The Maze Runner

The hugely popular Young Adult novel is coming to the big screen starring that kid everyone likes fromTeen Wolf. Set in the future, the main character wakes up in a giant maze and no memories. Thus begins the running.

Author: James Dashner

Release Date: February 14th, 2014

If I Stay

A strange, out-of-body movie about a teenager who falls into a coma after a terrible accident. From outside her human shell she watches as friends and family visit her hospital room and is faced with a complicated choice: return to her body and lead a hard life… or die. This adaptation has been floating around FOREVER. First, Catherine Hardwicke was attached to direct, then Heitor Dhalia (both are out). Dakota Fanning was originally going to star, but now the torch has been past to Chloe Moretz, who is still attached to the project with RJ Cutler from Nashvilleas director. We have all our fingers crossed for the future of this film.

Author: Gayle Forman

Release Date: No date yet (still in development)

SEXPAND

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

There’s still time to catch up on everyone’s favorite airport reading. The second movie is still months away and while its premise is very similar to the first book  still suppose to be  great. 

Author: Suzanne Collins

Release Date: November 22nd, 2013

 

SEXPAND

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Percy Jackson is back with his band of  teen Greek gods, and they’ve got a new mission — they need to find the Golden Fleece. We continue to pledge our love for this cute book series and its similarly adorable movie franchise. Considered fun and clever .

Author: Rick Riordan

Release Date: August 7th, 2013

SEXPAND

The Last Apprentice/ Seventh Son

While penned for the younger breed of humans, The Last Apprentice is a pretty dark bit of fantasy. It’s good versus evil, and in the movie the good will be represented as a sorcerer (or Spook) played by Jeff Bridges, and the evil is gorgeous witch woman Julianne Moore.

Author: Joseph Delaney

Release Date: January 17th, 2014

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The Leftovers

The author of Election and Little Children takes on The Rapture. This book doesn’t describe the end of days, but rather what happens to all the leftovers still on the planet. Damon Lindelof and author Tom Perrotta are working together on an HBO series of this amazing book, and Perrotta is a freaking genius, so we can not wait.

Author: Tom Perrotta

Release Date: No date yet

3D Printed Fashions

Although 3D-printed haute couture garments have been working the catwalks, the real breakthroughs in printed clothing will come from more practical and subversive quarters. image is by Petrovsky & Ramone

The biggest development in 3D fashions is in sportswear. Footwear designers, in particular, are sldo excited about 3D printing because it means they can offer something truly unique.

London designer Ron Arad has created a range of 3D-printed spectacles and sunglasses for eyewear brand pq

3D printing allows easy customisation of products  ideal for the fashion industry, where every customer has a unique shape and differing tastes. However there are drawbacks, Fashion designers focus on feeling or touching the material and looking at how it drapes and how it moves with the motion of the body. There  is a limited  availability palette of  materials. “3D printing was designed for engineers. There are also generational issues at work. 3D technology allows greater freedom for young designers, who are able to produce runs of a few units rather than thousands, realising designs that, previously, would only ever have existed on paper.

Sports brand Nike has unveiled the first boots for American football players with 3D-printed studs. e fitted with a laser-sintered footplate and studs. Using 3D-printing technology meant Nike was able to prototype the boot and make alterations in a much shorter timeframe than normal – it allows design updates to be made in days rather than months.

Finally, since the consumer is used to wearing natural materials, and even though we do wear nylon and polyester in our clothes, the type of drape and feel and quality that we’d expect from something that’s been 3D-printed is a long ways off.

More Haute Couture 2013-2014

Trends In Wearable Technology