Central Library, Edinburgh

From: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_Library,_Edinburgh_049.jpg

The War on Normal People

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you can't ignore the unconventional Democrat, Andrew Yang. The platform of the other candidates tend to vary in shades of gray, but Yang truly stands out with his solo championing of universal basic income.

It's almost surprising how controversial universal basic income, or ubi, is seen by the mainstream. As Yang is quick to remind us, ubi was being kicked around back when the New Deal was written, and Alaska has already had ubi for years. Yang lays out a compelling argument, complete with lots of statistics (he half-jokes that he will be the first President to use PowerPoint in his State of the Union addresses).

Interspersed in his argument are biographical details, some surprisingly candid, while most are the sort of details you expect from someone wanting you to get to know a soon-to-be Presidential candidate.

Best of all, at less than 300 pages, it's an easy read, and not as hard to digest as one might think. Universal basic income is going to be something we, as a society, are going to have to keep coming back to considering, so this is an essential purchase, even if Yang doesn't make it to the next debate stage.

Vehicle Emissions Test Locator

Do you know where the closest vehicle emissions test location is to your library?


https://illinoisairteam.net/testing-station-locator/

Lincoln Library Director Fired After Renting Out Gettysburg Address To Glenn Beck

Lincoln Library Director Fired After Renting Out Gettysburg Address To Glenn Beck

By Jermont Terry   November 22, 2019 at 10:50 pm

"CHICAGO (CBS) — President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is a priceless piece of history. 

"Yet someone placed a price tag on it and paid with his job..."

Link: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/11/22/lincoln-library-director-fired-after-renting-out-gettysburg-address-to-glenn-beck/

Fremont Public Library - part 4

 Last few pictures I took from Mundelein! This is a microform reading machine -- wonderful to see this format still being supported -- and what an amazingly tall monitor! Hopefully that makes people curious to use it.

This scanning station set-up is getting to be insanely popular; I'm seeing it everywhere! It's real easy to use once you get used to it, but patrons still look around for the photocopier you no longer have. ScanX has a solution for that I saw at ILA -- a scanning machine that's made to look like a photocopier.

I've seen all kinds of places to put magazines back for reshelving, but I like the look of this one, particularly since it was in use! It's good to see patrons still read magazines.

And lastly, they have this really nice quilt on display that tells the history of ...well, I don't remember if there was a plaque by this explaining it, but I'm guessing that's the history of Mundelein?

Fremont Public Library - part 3

Still at the Fremont Public Library and admiring the newspaper collection! It's wonderful to see that they still subscribe to so many newspapers and magazines (in the background). 

I found a vertical file! When I was at my old library, I thought I kept the last vertical file in the region. But at Fremont, at least, I had a kindred spirit.

And then I found phone books! Every so often I still get a patron who is upset because we don't have phone books, or at least the phone book he or she wants.

 Local documents! An impressive set of binders all holding local business directories. I forget how far back this goes back to...

But the local documents collection doesn't end there. They also have the local newsletter on microfilm going back at least to the 1990s.

 And government documents -- Census material!

 Illinois documents!

And check out how far back this local paper goes. Who wants to read about Lake County in 1894? I bet a lot of Lake County residents, if they knew about this.

Speaking of old stuff -- a typewriter, just sitting out in the open!

Fremont Public Library - part 2

There's a windchill around 8 degrees F outside and snow on the ground, but on my blog it's still a sunny summer day visiting the Fremont Public Library. Here's a lovely view of its (probably now frozen) lagoon out the south-facing windows.

Game shelves. You can't go wrong with Munchkin!

The library has lots of tech that circulates. If it was my local library, I'd be putting myself on the hold list for a Nintendo Switch. I've been dying to sample some of those games.

Enclosed patron lounge. Not one, but two, one on each floor!

The foreign language collection is amazing for a library of this size. Books in Gujarati? I had to look that one up. They also had Chinese, Korean -- all kinds of stuff besides the more obvious Spanish and Polish books.

The Indian languages are all separate. Even back in my day, when I was championing for a Hindi-Urdu collection in my library, I was only thinking of lumping them together. This is quite a progressive step.

I haven't mentioned them yet, but check out those shelf cards! Just about every shelf has its own card, with a succinct summary of its contents. I've never seen signage this good anywhere.

The quiet study room doubles as a classroom.

They have a big large print section, with lots of room for growth!