NEWS
$820m of the Bard on display
THE Folger Shakespeare Library in Wash- ington DC will reopen in November after a three-year renovation with its 82 copies of Shakespeare First Folios – over a third of the copies remaining in the world – publicly displayed together for the first time in a 20-foot-long visible vault. (A First Folio sold at auction for nearly $10 million in 2020). The renovation, 10-years in the planning, aims to “make the Folger even more widely inclusive and accessible to all people” planned with a diverse cross-section of DC community to “create a sense of belonging and inspiration for all who come to the Folger.”
Liverpool twinned with Odesa
LIVERPOOL’s Central Library has been formally twinned with Odesa Regional Sci- entific Library to start the build-up to the Eurovision Song Contest, which Liverpool is staging on behalf of Ukraine. Attended by King Charles, The Queen Consort and the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, it was the start of a build up to the Eurovision Song Contest, which Liverpool is staging on behalf of Ukraine. First Lady Zelenska said: “Libraries, like people in Ukraine, face threats to their existence every single day… We thank you, Great Britain, for standing with us. Long live books, and long live those who read them.”
Book banning is organised claim
AMERICAN Library Association (ALA) data shows that 2,571 unique titles were targeted by 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022. Both of these are record-breaking figures. The ALA said the numbers were due to “prevalent use of lists of books compiled by organized censorship groups”. It said 12 per cent were in cases involving 2-9 books; 38 per cent were in cases involv- ing 10-99 books; 40 per cent were in cases involving 100 or more books. “Prior to 2021, the vast majority of chal- lenges to library resources only sought to remove or restrict access to a single book.”
6 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
60 years of television history digitally preserved
A NEW digital archive of British television has been made available to public libraries across the UK. BFI Replay was launched in spring and offers access to hundreds of thousands of items from more than 60 years of Brit- ish TV. It has been created and curated by library staff at BFI and has been one of the UK’s largest digitisation projects. The result ensures the long-term future of groundbreaking TV and film stored on video formats that are at risk of technical obsolescence.
BFI Replay is a free-to-access resource, which is only available through public libraries. It has already been rolled out across 13 partner library services that helped developed the platform alongside BFI. Emma Smart, Head Librarian, BFI said: “Working with library colleagues across the public library sector as part of our BFI Replay Library Network has been an immensely rewarding experience for us. These founding member libraries have been with us from the beginning, helping us to test ideas for the BFI Replay platform and informing our content decisions along the way, and I think the partnership has helped us a create a truly unique stream- ing service that visitors to libraries across the whole country are going to enjoy for years to come.”
The project has been funded by the National Lottery, with support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and sees
some of the BFI’s own collections digitised along side those from ITV and Channel 4. Arike Oke, BFI Executive Director of Knowl- edge and Collections said: “BFI Replay gives democratic, UK-wide, free access to our regional and national film and television archives which for too long have been inaccessible to many. Through the public libraries network we’re able to meet people where they are, regardless of their digital proficiency or home access to the internet. Connecting people in each UK nation to their stories and vital histories on screen.” Curated collections on the platform explore themes such as technological change; the changing nature of work and climate change as well as focusing on key historical events from the video era includ- ing the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike; and social change over the past 60 years. Regional programming is also covered extensively. Isobel Hunter, CEO Libraries Connected, which worked with BFI on the project, adds: “BFI Replay will give library teams the skills to curate targeted content for their local communities, to engage exist- ing library users and attract new audi- ences who might not expect to find this material within a library. The project has received strong support across the public library sector – libraries see it as an exciting addition to their existing cul- tural programme and an opportunity to open-up public access to this incredible archive.”
IP for early years with Wallace and Gromit
THE Intellectual Property Office has launched its 2023
Cracking Ideas
c ompetition which aims to introduce children to the concept of Intellectual Property.
This is the 14th competition and a continuation of the unique partnership, which started with ‘Wallace & Gromit Present a World of Cracking Ideas’ exhi-
bition at London’s Science Museum. For 2023 Wallace and Gromit ask young inventors to make the Wrong Trousers right and turn them into some- thing that can do good for our planet. Can they help plant trees? Can they col- lect rubbish in the sea? Are they made from recycled materials? For more details visit
https://bit.ly/3LPnzJW
April-May 2023
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