Vancouver, WA is a suburb of Portland, OR. From The Oregonian: Judging from the rate of circulation since the library reopened in March, other visitors like it, too. Patrons checked out a total of 18,484 items in April, compared to 23,715 in April of 2012, a sign that the small branch is quickly bouncing back [...]

Here’s a recently released “Broadband Brief” from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. From a Summary Blog Post: Since June 2010, broadband availability at all speed levels has increased and basic broadband service is nearly universal in urban areas. While there is still a gap in broadband availability between urban and rural areas, 91 percent [...]

The open letter from the CARL (Canadian Association of Research Libraries) to Prime Minister Steven Harper asks that the government consult with the library and archival community when selecting a successor to Daniel Caron who resigned as the leader of Library and Archives Canada last week. From the Letter: The Librarian and Archivist of Canada [...]

From the Data.gov Blog: Data.gov is launching two innovations today to mark both the anniversary of the Digital Government Strategy and the fourth anniversary of Data.gov. First is a comprehensive listing of the application programming interfaces (APIs) that were released from across the federal government as part of the Digital Government Strategy. [Clip] Data.gov is also launching a new data [...]

The update appears in a new post by Johan van der Knijff (National Library of the Netherlands) on the Open Planets Foundation blog. From the Introduction: Last year (2012) the KB released a report on the suitability of the EPUB format for archival preservation. A substantial number of EPUB-related developments have happened since then, and as a result some of the [...]

The research comes from the Arts Council of England and is found in a report titled, The Library of the Future. From an Arts Council Summary: This research has found that public libraries are trusted spaces, open to all, in which people continue to explore and share the joys of reading, information, knowledge and culture. [...]

From the National Center for Education Statistics: The 42 indicators presented in The Condition of Education 2013 provide a progress report on education in America and include findings on the demographics of American schools, U.S. resources for schooling, and outcomes associated with education. Report findings include: As of 2012, about 90 percent of young adults [...]

From Texas A&M University: The Texas A&M University System and The University of Texas System will celebrate the opening Friday (May 24) of their Joint Library Facility at Texas A&M University’s Riverside Campus. The 18,000-square-foot library facility represents an unprecedented collaboration between the state’s two largest university systems to provide joint storage of more than [...]

The “Open Access to Research Articles Act” (SB 1900) recently passed both houses of the Illinois General Assembly. From an Illinois Senate Democrats News Release: Legislation State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) [where Northwestern U. is located] sponsored to work toward making state universities’ taxpayer-funded research available to the public passed the House today [May 16, [...]

Since March, 2012, the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Dept. of State has been releasing digitized volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States series and making them available online. 103 volumes are currently online (free) and available in Mobi and EPUB formats. More volumes will be made available in the future. Today, the [...]