Chile's Public Libraries: Rebuilding After the Quake
May 27, 2010

In this Issue

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Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief
bkenney@reedbusiness.com
 

INTERVIEW

  • Chile's Public Libraries: Rebuilding After the Quake
    It’s been three months since the devastating February 27 earthquake struck six regions along the central coast of Chile. Of 277 public libraries in the region that fall under the Directorate of Libraries, Archives and Museums (DIBAM), 98 were damaged so extensively from the quake and subsequent tidal wave that they collapsed or were forced to close. We spoke with Paola Gallegos, National Coordinator of the BiblioRedes Program (a program of the Directorate of Libraries, Archives, and Museums) by email, about how her country's public libraries are recovering.

    What is your first priority?
    The priority is funding the reconstruction efforts, repair infrastructure, to reopen libraries that, today more than ever, the community needs so much. Public libraries in Chile are meeting places for the community, where everyone has a place without exception; we have all worked very hard for them. Library workers struggle daily to deliver services. Today, many users who attended libraries are gone, and that is a very strong emotional blow to the libraries and the communities they serve because the library brings people together; there is friendship and love. more » » » 

Blogs

NEWS

  • Class of '46 Donates to MA School Library
    Dorothy Woodbury stuck to her guns.

    The graduate of Massachusetts’s Beverly High School’s class of 1946 knew her days of reunions might be waning. So with $1,000 sitting in a class account, she and two fellow alums decided to donate it to their school library—64 years later. more » » » 
  • NYC Kids Get Published as Part of the Writers of Tomorrow Project
    Close to 100 low-income elementary school children in New York City spent the last year learning about writing, editing, design, and layout from professionals in the business—and recently published their very own glossy hardcover books.

    The students, who hail from four classes in Brooklyn and Queens, showed up last Friday at Scholastic headquarters in downtown Manhattan for a book-signing ceremony and an evening of celebration. more » » » 
 

REMARKABLE READS

  • Witch Watch
    Teen witches have been around for a long time, but today’s tweens and teens may be more familiar with Alex, Selena Gomez’s character from The Wizards of Waverly Place, than with Abigail Williams or Ann Putnam, both 11 years old and residents of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Put the following titles on display along with Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin's The Salem Witch Trials (Marshall Cavendish, 2009), Phillip Margulies and Maxine Rosaler's The Devil on Trial (Houghton Harcourt, 2008), Christopher Hart's Drawing Witches, Wizards and Warlocks (Sixth & Spring, 2008), and other nonfiction titles to help make those cross-curriculum connections. more » » » 
 
 

LIBRARIAN'S INTERNET




JOB OF THE WEEK

Public Services Librarian / Assistant Librarian
Miami University - Middletown Campus
Middletown, OH
University Libraries (Gardner-Harvey Library, Middletown Campus): Public Services Librarian/Assistant Librarian to assist students, faculty, staff and general public with information-seeking and technology needs in-house and via phone, email and IM; develop and teach credit and non-credit courses, workshops, and instruction sessions for students, faculty and staff; serve as an embedded librarian for courses in the learning management system; apply computer skill to develop library services; create and maintain strong relationships with academic departments on campus; develop areas of the library's collections.