(10 Jun 2024) The City of Melbourne is running free cooking classes in an effort to address food insecurity among residents. A survey done by the council last year found almost a third of respondents were struggling to afford food. Councilor Olivia Ball says more needs to be done at all levels of government to…
(4 Mar 2024) “A good book is easy to find” reads the sign on Hernando Guanlao’s two-storey home located on the outskirts of the Philippines’ main financial district which he has turned into a public library where anyone can borrow books for free. Called the Reading Club 2000, Guanlao’s library showcases a wide variety of books…
(14 Feb 2024) A private library of more than 1,000 medical memoirs recently opened to the public here. The library is called “Tobyoki no Mori” (the forest of patients’ stories). Its owner is Kazuhiro Kanai, the 67-year-old president of Seikosha, a publishing house that mostly produces memoirs about battles with illness and disability.…
(6 Dec 2023) From the National Library of New Zealand blog: “The National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa is charged with ‘enriching the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchanges with other nations’ (National Library of New Zealand Act 2003). We have a growing commitment to…
(4 May 2022) A few years ago, Dunedin woman Ruth Arnison came across an unusual idea for a library – little, brightly painted cupboards full of books free for anyone to take, borrow or donate. She called them Lilliput Libraries, and placed 10 around the city – wondering whether they’d be used. Fast-forward eight years…
By Gina de Alwis Jayasuriya* (27 Dec 2021) At the 10th A-LIEP conference Apple Jusayan and Rhea Rowena Apolinario of the School of Library of Information Studies, University of the Philippines – Diliman, presented a paper on Developing a Makerspace for the Marikina Public Library: A Journey in Artisan Shoemaking. The authors’ vision is…
How a librarian’s trip to the car park planted the seed for a project to help people who can’t afford wifi. (31 Oct 2021) According to the 2021 Australian Digital Inclusion Index, 92% of Australians earning less than $52,000 a year would have to pay more than 5% of their household income to access a quality,…
(27 Oct 2021) The Institute of Museum and Library Services, in partnership with Reinvestment Fund, have released a new study, Understanding the Social Wellbeing Impacts of the Nation’s Libraries and Museums, which examines the role of museums and libraries in promoting social wellbeing in communities across the United States. The multi-year, multi-market study found the…
(March 2021) Ten years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake. One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in Japan, it caused widespread damage to the eastern coastal region, especially in the northeast. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami took a heavy toll of lives and caused massive damage to buildings and facilities, including…
(12 Aug 2020) From Guardian: When Melbourne’s Yarra Plenty regional libraries first went into lockdown in March, shut the doors and left the remaining unborrowed books on their shelves, staff were sent home with a phone… So the library staff pulled from their database the phone number of every library member over the age of…