MORE 'CALIFORNIA' POSTS
Reference: Money in Government: MapLight's Launches Topic Pages, Search for Bills by Issue Area
| Data Files, News
From a MapLight News Release: MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization that reveals money’s influence on politics, is pleased to announce the launch of its newest transparency tool, Topic Pages, during Sunshine Week. The new tool allows journalists and citizens to search for and track bills by issue area in the U.S. Congress and in the […]
Multiple Articles. 1. Monterey County Free Libraries Celebrates 100 Years of Service (via Monterey County Weekly) [Last] Saturday, the MCFL system kicks off a year-long celebration of its centennial with a party at its Marina branch, with cake, music, crafts and a historical presentation (the actual birth date of the system will arrive in August). […]
From KALW Radio: The bad news is that state funding for California libraries has been completely eliminated. There’s not really any good news about that except that it was expected. This past July, state library funding was sliced in half, and there was a trigger amendment attached to the budget that would eliminate state funding […]
From the The Press Democrat [Santa Rosa, CA]: In Marin [County], the consortium of eight libraries that includes the Free Library saw the number of e-book check-outs bound from 1,623 in September to 4,082 in December, a 150 percent jump. But no such flurry occurred in Sonoma County. The library system belongs to an increasingly […]
From the Mercury News: In an effort to preserve the cash-strapped city’s budget, a San Jose councilman wants to replace retiring city library workers with community volunteers or face the more serious alternative of outsourcing the libraries altogether. “We have beautiful libraries, and if we allow volunteers to augment current city staff, our libraries would […]
Via California Watch: For the past five years, the Division of the State Architect has erased the entire computer hard drives and copies of records saved on computer servers within a month of an employee’s departure. Those records included all e-mail correspondence, directives, meeting notes and minutes, policy documents, and appointment calendars. Such records help […]
California Senate President Pro Tem Wants Digital Library of Free Textbooks
| Digital Collections, Funding, Interactive Tools, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Publishing
From the Sacramento Bee: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced today that he will push for legislation to create an online open source library to reduce the cost of course materials for college students across the state. [Clip] Steinberg plans to seek $25 million to create his proposed Open Education Resources system, with some […]
California: Fewer Schools Keep Librarians on Staff
| Academic Libraries, Funding, Libraries, Patrons and Users, Public Libraries, School Libraries, Special Libraries
Unfortunately, we don’t think these stats will come as a big surprise to many. However, that doesn’t mean it this sad trend needs to continue. If there was ever a need for a clear and well executed marketing plan in the library community this is it. It’s sad that it needs to happen in the […]
From a California Watch Article: This week, the U.S. Geological Survey added 13,688 historical California topographic maps to its online archive [free], hundreds of which date back to the 1800s. From the Gold Rush town of Downieville in the Sierras to El Cajon in the hills above San Diego Bay, the maps provide a picture […]
New From David Rumsey Map Collection: San Francisco Aerial Photographs 1938
| Digital Preservation, Libraries, Maps, Public Libraries, Resources
Super cool images and a great example of library collaboration. From a Rumsey Map Collection Blog Post (With Highlights): We have put online a set of 164 large format, sharp, black and white vertical aerial photographs of San Francisco taken in 1938 from an airplane by Harrison Ryker, a pioneer in aerial photography. The photographs […]
