TILT #33 Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost
The very best in librarian procedurals
“Candidly reader we are going to tell you a true story…” is the first line of the newly discovered Walt Whitman novel. You can download the whole thing if you want (pdf link).
I am a sucker for a good library story. Whitman scholars can marvel at this new text. Librarian fans can enjoy the embedded librarian procedural discussing how graduate student Zachary Turpin made his find.
Mr. Turpin has made a specialty of looking for the “unknown unknowns,” using vast online databases that compile millions of pages of 19th-century newspapers. One day last May, he entered some names and phrases from fragmentary notes for a possible story concerning an embezzling lawyer named Covert and an orphan named Jack Engle….
Up popped the advertisement that included the name Jack Engle. The serial was to run in The Sunday Dispatch, a New York paper Whitman was known to have contributed to…. Mr. Turpin ordered a scan of the first page from the Library of Congress, which held the only known (and as yet undigitized or microfilmed) copy of that day’s Dispatch.
The last time Turpin found a long-lost Walt Whitman work, he tracked it down himself in the library’s microfilm archives (and then confirmed the find with scholars). This time someone had to pony up $1200 to pay the Library of Congress to make the scan for them.
People who love these sorts of stories should also read the story of historians and rare book dealers Madeleine Stern and Leona Rostenberg who discovered Louisa May Alcott’s pseudonymous writings as the result of perusing her letters.
Here’s another literary sleuthing story which is more about finding and reporting on a rare and unusual book held by only six libraries. Whenever anyone tells me it’s “all on the internet” this is the book I tell them to find.
Online privacy is a complex beast but it’s worth understanding who the players are. While the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) can set rules for merchants who do business online, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) sets the privacy rules for ISPs. Ajit Pai, the new head of the FCC appears to be working to undermine a lot of the work the FCC did under the Obama administration including changing the Lifeline program to include broadband as well as digital inclusion not just digital connection.
The Consumer Federation of America has a one-sheet explaining why the changes Pai wants to make are important, and why they should be resisted.
I used to have high-speed internet where I live in Vermont. Then they redefined high-speed and I don’t have it anymore. On this map, the lighter colors indicate less broadband. My county is practically white.
In his article Broadband internet can help rural communities connect — if they use it, Brian Whitacre talks about the digital divide in terms of civic engagement and digital inclusion.
Rural citizens are already typically more engaged in their communities than their urban counterparts. Boosting their involvement from its existing level is not as simple as setting up an antenna nearby or stringing a new wire past their home. They actually have to use the internet and explore its opportunities. It is this last step that is the crucial component of a more engaged rural citizenry.
Two more links to read start to finish, with one bonus link:
1. Fake News: A Library Resource Round-Up — while I’ve mentioned that I think the “fake news” framing can be problematic (most of this stuff is flat out lies, the “fake news” thing was a small microphenomenon surrounding the election) watching libraries dive in to attack it, whatever it’s called, has been gratifying. This is a good summary, and a good blog to be reading generally.
2. Plan, Prepare, Act — required reading by Jason Griffey. A lot of us have been looking on horrified as people’s rights are trampled in airports and at borders. We should have a plan for what to do and how to respond if the same sort of thing happens in our libraries or elsewhere in our communities. Forewarned is forearmed.
3. Wikipedia category: defunct libraries — speaks for itself. Let’s all keep this list from getting any longer.
Today in Librarian Tabs is written irregularly by Jessamyn West who also maintains librarian.net. It’s also available in your inbox via TinyLetter. Thanks for reading.
