Monthly Archive for March, 2020

Awareness, Planning, Resilience: Thoughts on Libraries’ Cyber Defense in 2020

Digital vulnerabilities pose serious challenges for organisations, governments, companies and the wider public – libraries included. Cyberattacks and data breaches made headlines many times throughout 2019, from social media and popular software to public agencies. For libraries, the importance of protecting the data and information they work with every day – not least in order to protect staff and users – is readily apparent. What is at stake, and what suggestions and tips for boosting libraries’ security can be drawn from broader literature and available toolkits?

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European Copyright Directive EU-DSM – COVID19 and implementation

EU-DSM directive: March 2020 update In June 2019, the new European Copyright Directive entered into force. Countries have until June 2021 to implement it in their national laws.   Process Each country has its own process and timetable to prepare for the implementation of this reform. Some countries like Germany […]

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Library Stat of the Week #11: Despite sparse populations, there are relatively dense public library networks in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Canada

As highlighted last week, a key characteristic – and indeed mission – of public libraries is to provide a service that responds to the needs of their communities. This job can be made more difficult when the distance between people and libraries is greater, for example in rural communities. For […]

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Library Stat of the Week #10: On average, each public or community library serves an area of 254km2 – that’s 254 000 Olympic swimming pools! But in the European Union, it’s only 59km2, and in Asia, 85km2

One of the key strengths of libraries – in particular public and community libraries – is the fact that they are local. Being close to the communities they serve gives them a unique potential to understand what people need, and to provide collections and services accordingly. Of course, ‘closeness’ is […]

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Libraries – The Hidden Wealth of Cities: the World Bank Report on Public Space in Urban Development

At last month’s World Urban Forum, the World Bank launched a new report – The Hidden Wealth of Cities* – exploring on the importance of public space. Taking public space to mean all spaces in urban areas which are open to the public, both outside and inside, it includes a […]

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Essential, Meaningful, Equal? The World Wide Web at 31

The need for resilience in the face of a crisis lay behind the creation of one of the key forerunners of the World Wide Web – ARPAnet. Through facilitating more direct communication between people, the goal was to be able to cope with the consequences of a nuclear attack destroying […]

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Library Stat of the Week #9: Globally, one in every 1525 workers is a member of library staff, but it’s 1 in 613 in North America, and 1 in 237 in Estonia!

Last week, we looked at the number of librarians for every 100 000 people around the world, with Oceania coming in highest at 84 – that’s one in every 1190 people. But what about library staff in the workforce? How big a share of jobs are as librarians and related […]

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