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Oklahoma Moves To Revoke License From Teacher Who Directed Students To Brooklyn Public Library’s “Books Unbanned” Website

State Superintendent Ryan Walters has filed paperwork to cancel Summer Boismier's teaching certificate — despite the fact that she's now moved to New York and works for, yes, the Brooklyn Public Library. - Oklahoma Watch

Book-Banning Attempts In The US Soared To A New Record Last Year

"More than 1,200 challenges were compiled by the association in 2022, nearly double the then-record total from 2021 and by far the most since the American Library Association began keeping data 20 years ago." - AP

Ukraine’s Publishing Industry Struggles On Through Invasion And War

"The number of titles published in Ukraine was cut almost in half last year, dropping from 17,000 in 2021 to just under 9,000. … The war has been especially difficult on the printing sector, which is centered in Kharkiv and had a significant amount of infrastructure destroyed." - Publishers Weekly

Timbuktu Isn’t The Only West African City With Libraries Full Of Priceless Medieval Manuscripts

The oasis town of Chinguetti in north-central Mauritania, a major trans-Saharan trading stop in centuries past, has 13 libraries housing more than 6,000 manuscripts. As desertification spreads ever onward, outside experts fear for the books, but their custodians are holding on. - MSN (The Washington Post)

Yes, Negative Headlines Work, But They Don’t Have To Be Angry Or Frightening: Study

A large survey of click stats from Upworthy.com (!) found that headlines with negative words had a higher clickthrough rate than those with positive words, that sad words were more effective than angry words, and that the general rate for any kind of headline is depressingly low. - Nieman Lab

When The Pandemic Hit, Pico Iyer’s Income Dropped To Zero

His mother was dying, and, like everyone, he couldn't travel. But, he says, "given so much external suffering, as the Dalai Lama pointed out, it didn’t seem helpful to compound that by creating even more suffering, internally, through anxiety or rage." - Los Angeles Review Of Books

Is The Internet Archive A Library, Or Is It A Publishing Scam?

Librarians argue that a lawsuit filed by four major publishers, should it succeed, "would jeopardize the future development of digital libraries nationwide. The Internet Archive is the most significant specialized library to emerge in decades." - Inside Higher Ed

This Year’s Best Picture Winner Signals A Linguistic Change In Hollywood

It's complex - see the Indigenous villains in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but "Increasing use of non-English languages and subtitles demonstrates both a trend toward linguistic realism in Hollywood and also broader acceptance of linguistic diversity." - Raw Story

Poet Warsan Shire’s Influences Include Toni Morrison – And The Goosebumps Series

Not to mention luck at the library: "I found Krik? Krak!, a short story collection by Edwidge Danticat, in the Ealing Road Library and fell in love. This book raised me." - The Guardian (UK)

Why The Exclamation Point Started Fading Away, And How It Came Roaring Back!

Mid-20th-century writing guides taught that this emphatic punctuation mark should be used sparingly -- not least because advertising and marketing overuse it. But ! filled a real void when it was invented in the 1340s, and it fills one now (which is why our text messages have so many). - MSN (The Washington Post)

Amazon Stops Selling Periodical Subscriptions For Kindle And Print

"Amazon hasn't shared its exact reason for the change …, but one obvious explanation is that relatively few people are buying these subscriptions and it doesn't make financial sense to continue to support them." - Nieman Lab

The Gift (and Curse) Of English As Our Universal Language

English may have become universal, but not everyone believes it is a gift. In fact, many hold diametrically opposite views. - Aeon

The Shocking Decline Of Reading, Thinking

What I (and everyone I know) is talking about now is a seismic shift in the preparedness, study skills, attention spans, and reading comprehension of the average college student, across the board. - 3 Quarks Daily

Who Are Wikipedia’s Editors (And Who Checks Them?)

The typical Wikipedia editor is a man (fewer than 10 per cent are women) who works in a desk job which involves being online a lot (IT workers have always been over-represented), lives in a first-world country, and who has leftish politics. In other words, the typical Wikipedia editor is a Guardian reader. - The Critic

There’s Somewhere In America Where Newspapers Are Growing? Yes — Prisons

"According to the newly launched Prison Newspaper Directory by the Prison Journalism Project, there are 24 prison-based newspapers in 12 states. At least four of the papers were launched in the last year." - Nieman Lab

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