Libraries are warm, dry and safe spaces with free Internet, which many people need. But academics and researchers in the 21st century can get along very well without them.
Lara Skelly, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
African libraries have more of an opportunity than ever before to bring the continent’s knowledge to the world. They just need to adapt their traditional roles and functions.
It is no surprise that libraries are coping with a large number of patrons who are homeless or have mental illnesses. Public libraries are, after all, designed to be welcoming spaces for all.
The late Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and political philosophers Frantz Fanon and Achille Mbembe top the list of writers who get routinely abducted by discerning pirates of the book world.
The State Library of Victoria has received the greatest single bequest of rare books in its history, coupled with an endowment for the collection’s preservation. No wonder book scholars are smiling.
Australian’s museums, galleries and other cultural institutions must adopt more of a digital strategy with their collections if they are to remain relevant with audiences. Only about a quarter of the collections…
The Louvain library in Belgium and its priceless collection of medieval manuscripts were destroyed by German soldiers exactly 100 years ago today – and so it is timely to ponder the links between education…
What place do e-readers – and in particular ebooks – hold in the reading behaviour of Australia’s 10 million public library borrowers? There are some 181 million items loaned every year by the nation’s…
Today we eagerly embrace new technology for fear of being left behind. A toddler with an iPad in hand is a welcome sign of a child learning to succeed in a digital world. Remainders of the pre-digital…
Over the past few weeks, a petition called “Save Mitchell Library” has been circulating among writers and scholars. The petition calls for New South Wales State Librarian Alex Byrne to host a public meeting…
On January 4, Tripoli’s historic Al Sa’eh Library, one of Lebanon’s largest, burnt down. Two-thirds of its 80,000 books and manuscripts were lost in a fire that consumed the building. This is no anomaly…