Showing titles in Library & Museum Studies

Information is power. It drives commerce, protects nations, and forms the backbone of systems that range from health care to high finance. Yet despite the avalanche of data available in today's information age, neither institutions nor individuals get the information they truly need to make well-informed decisions. Faulty information and sub-optimal decision-making create an imbalance of power that is exaggerated as governments and corporations amass enormous databases on each of us.

The dream of capturing and organizing knowledge is as old as history. From the archives of ancient Sumeria and the Library of Alexandria to the Library of Congress and Wikipedia, humanity has wrestled with the problem of harnessing its intellectual output. The timeless quest for wisdom has been as much about information storage and retrieval as creative genius. In Cataloging the World, Alex Wright introduces us to a figure who stands out in the long line of thinkers and idealists who devoted themselves to the task.

Libraries have existed for millennia, but today many question their necessity. In an ever more digital and connected world, do we still need places of books in our towns, colleges, or schools? If libraries aren't about books, what are they about? In Expect More, David Lankes, winner of the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature, walks you through what to expect out of your library.

Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, is possibly the greatest writer in television history. His work has been seen by many around the world for the last half century. This audiobook aims to give the casual viewer or Serling enthusiast some insight into the legendary television scribe's career and probe into how and why he got the reputation he has.

>Luminous and revealing, a daughter's memoir of the art world and a larger-than-life father. Gabrielle Selz grew up in a home full of the most celebrated artists of the 1960s and 1970s: Rothko, de Kooning, Tinguely, Giacometti, and Christo. Her father, Peter Selz, was the chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Selz's father was vibrant and freewheeling, but his enthusiasm for both women and art took its toll on their family life.

American Libraries editor in chief Leonard Kniffel offers a compelling collection of interviews with prominent figures--all of whom have special connections to libraries. From President Barack Obama to actress Julie Andrews; from basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to former First Lady and librarian Laura Bush and many others, stars of literature, politics, entertainment, and the public arena speak with Kniffel about the ways libraries have been critical in their lives.

Today, nearly one million books are published each year. But is the era of the book as we know it - a codex of bound pages - coming to an end? And if it is, should we celebrate its demise and the creation of a democratic digital future, or mourn an irreplaceable loss?

Flora Miller Biddle was born a blue-blood. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world. But money itself is not the source of happiness. In this wonderfully evocative memoir, Flora Miller Biddle examines, critiques, and pays homage to the people and places of her childhood that shaped her life.

The gigantic covert wartime mission led by the men and women of London's museums and galleries to save the nation's priceless heritage. As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London's museums, galleries and archives formulated...

"Big Data" is on the covers of Science, Nature, The Economist, and Wired magazines, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. But despite the media hyperbole, as Christine Borgman points out in this examination of data and scholarly research, having the right data is usually better than having more data; little data can be just as valuable as big data. Borgman, an often-cited authority on scholarly communication, argues that data have no value or meaning in isolation; they exist within a knowledge infrastructure.

माणूस जन्माबरोबरच कुतूहल सुद्धा घेऊन येतो. दिवा कसा लागतो? पाटाचं लाकूड कुठून येतं? गॅस कसा पेटतो? फरशी कशाची...

तिसरे महायुद्ध म्हणता येईल असा लढा संपूर्ण जग एका अतिसूक्ष्म विषाणूशी देत आहे. करोना आला कोठून, पसरला कसा...

New York Times bestseller Named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, the Financial Times, the New York Post, Book Riot, and The Sunday Times (London). An “exquisite” (The Washington Post) “hauntingly beautiful” (Associated Press) portrait of the Metropolitan...

A provocative, progressive rejoinder to the status quo, from the perspective of a disrupter and global leader in the museum world. The challenge to transform museums is unapologetically real and complicated. But everything we learn about reconciliation, science and biodiversity, climate change, and sustainability gives us the confidence and freedom to break through the conventions of the past. Each essay in this collection emphasises key features that are driving change in museums, such as globalization, society, authenticity, and technology.

Bloomsbury presents Just Plain Filthy by Anthony Aycock, read by John Chancer. With the threat to intellectual freedom increasing around the country, this book takes a look at the first ever school book ban case to be decided by the high courts, and offers insights into how we can use history to...

In 1980, Katina Strauch started the Charleston Conference: Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition to bring together librarians, publishers, and vendors to discuss issues shared by the three groups. The meeting has continued annually and boasts over 3,000 attendees in person and virtually. This memoir is Katina’s diary and story of the Charleston Conference and its development concurrently with her career as a professional librarian.

An illuminating exploration of the relationship between the restitution of looted art, global status, and the international construction of national cultural heritage. Why is art restitution a matter of politics? How does the artwork displayed in national museums reflect the international status...

The Louvre is more than the world’s largest art museum. It is a fortress, a palace, a treasure house of revolutions, and a stage for mysteries that continue to fascinate millions. To step inside its echoing halls is to journey through nearly a thousand years of history—where monarchs once schemed, artists found inspiration, and the world’s most famous masterpieces found their home. In Masterpieces and Mysteries, architectural historian Caspar Dene takes you far beyond the crowds gathered at the Mona Lisa.

The story of the making, loss, and recovery of some of the greatest treasures of antiquity, raising questions about ancient mosaic art and its creation, the work of archaeology, and museum practice. In 1932, after years of fundraising and flurries of letters back and forth, an archaeological...

In The Politics of Collecting, Eunsong Kim traces how racial capitalism and colonialism situated the rise of United States museum collections and conceptual art forms. Investigating historical legal and property claims, she argues that regimes of expropriation—rather than merit or good...