Posts tagged lapl
Los Angeles officials are considering a plan to turn the library card into a form of identification that the city’s large illegal immigrant population could use to open bank accounts and access an array of city services.
LA!
How Archivists Helped Video Game Designers Recreate the City’s Dark Side for ‘L.A. Noire’
“Earlier this week, video game enthusiasts and fans of L.A. history cheered the release of Rockstar Games’ L.A. Noire, a police procedural game noted for its faithful reproduction of Los Angeles circa 1947. To recreate a city now hidden beneath 64 years of redevelopment projects and transformed by age and expansion, production designers with the game’s developer, Team Bondi, consulted several Los Angeles area archives.”
(via LISNews)
“The Library Foundation of Los Angeles is taking steps to make the library cool again by hosting ‘This is Your Library.’ It’s supposed to be the beginning of a new series of ‘late-night talk show-like events,’ featuring discussions with prominent people from and about the wonderful city of Los Angeles. There’ll also be live music, DJs, food trucks and a bar, and overall just a good time hanging out at the library at night, appreciating L.A.” (via LISNews)
Smaller libraries with unique collections are going digital too. At the Conjuring Arts Research Center, a dimly lighted magic library in New York, magician and librarian William Kalush has been working to scan in the entire collection, including 12,000 magic books dating to the 15th century.
“It sounds ridiculous,” he said, “but we want to digitize everything in the magic domain.”
Nothing new in this article, really, but it does do a decent survey of the situation, geared toward non-librarian readers.
This is a really great, in-depth article that sheds some light on the unfortunate situation facing the libraries in Los Angeles. (via LISNews)
“The Los Angeles City Council abandoned a plan Tuesday for putting a tax on the Nov. 2 ballot to raise money for city libraries, but left the door open for a similar proposal to go on the municipal ballot in March.
The decision came roughly two weeks after the council moved ahead with the layoffs of 98 library employees.
Proponents of the levy said it would provide money to restore those positions and have six days of library service per week, instead of the five that were put in place on July 6. But several council members said the city could not afford to risk spending the $4.2 million that county elections officials would charge to put the measure on the ballot, only to see it fail.” (via Library Stuff)
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s appointees at the Los Angeles Public Library voted Thursday to cut the number of library hours by eight per week as part of the city’s larger plan to trim expenses by reducing public services.
In a 3-0 vote, the Board of Library Commissioners unanimously cut one day of service from each of the city’s 73 libraries, keeping them open five days a week starting July 6.
Villaraigosa’s budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 calls for the reduction of 761 employee positions. Of that total, at least 101 are in the Library Department.
<… Council President Eric Garcetti, who voted for the cuts last month, said this week that he expects cuts to libraries and Fire Department service will be the first to be reversed once the city’s financial picture improves. (via Library Stuff)
15% cut in operating budget would mean loss of 328 positions, six-day service
- Seven-day service already reduced in April
- Union, advocates, library leaders argue against cuts
- Cap on retirements would mean young librarians get laid off
Ouch.
The cap on early retirement combined with layoffs of younger, lower paid librarians is certainly weird: “Wouldn’t it make more sense for the City’s future to keep the young professionals who earn less, use less benefits, and will be paying into the pension system for many years—rather than keeping older librarians who are ready to go and will be retiring in a few years anyway?” [LAPL librarian Daniel Dupill] asked. “Why can’t we offer those librarians the opportunity for early retirement that they were denied?”
