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War booty helped create Oxford’s renowned Bodleian Library

Oxford University’s Bodleian Library is one of Europe’s oldest libraries and one of the world’s eminent research libraries. Yet, some of its books carry a taint of unscrupulousness given the time of its founding. One of its founding collections is plunder from Portugal in 1596.

Between 1584 and 1604, Protestant England and Catholic Spain fought […]

Tim October 12th, 2021 | Tags: , , | Category: A Reading Life, History, Libraries | Comments are closed | |

The politics of Thomas Jefferson’s donation to the Library of Congress

In 1800, the seat of the U.S. government relocated to the District of Columbia. Among final preparations for the move, in April 1800, Congress appropriated funds for what would become the Library of Congress. With the U.S. Capitol as its home, the library’s first books arrived the following year. But in August 1814, the library […]

Tim September 27th, 2021 | Tags: , , , , | Category: A Reading Life, History, Libraries | Comments are closed | |

Rules outweigh rationality — again

I’ve posted before that there are times government elevates rules over simple common sense. While that post dealt with kids and “guns,” it now appears books can get cause government brain farts too.

A 9-year-old Kansas boy and his family had to move their “Little Free Library” after the town of Leawood said it violated […]

Tim June 20th, 2014 | Tags: , , , | Category: A Reading Life | Comments are closed | |

What kind of library user are you?

Libraries and the role they play in people’s lives and their communities is an area the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life project has been studying. Earlier this month, it released a report on what it calls “a typology of library engagement in American.” The report is based on Americans 16 years old and […]

Tim March 24th, 2014 | Tags: | Category: A Reading Life, Libraries | One comment - (Comments are closed) | |

2012’s most challenged books

Each year during National Library Week, the American Library Association releases a State of America’s Libraries report. One of the highlights (or lowlights) is that it contains the Top Ten List of Most Frequently Challenged Books, compiled annually by the organization’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. So here’s this year’s “winners”, in order, and the reasons […]

Tim April 16th, 2013 | Tags: , , , | Category: A Reading Life, Libraries | Comments are closed | |
 
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