#public libraries are cool

[television-overload]

Hi, do you have the PDF or free version?? I can’t find it in my country 😭😭

I borrowed an e-book copy from the app my local public library uses to host their digital copies of books, so I don't know of any PDF versions. Not sure what resources are available in other countries, but if you have a library card, I'd check and see what app your library uses for e-books and see if you can get it that way! It will depend on whether your library has purchased it, however. If they haven't, you can usually suggest a title for them to add to their collection and they might take your interest into account. My old library used Libby, but where I live now, it's called Hoopla.

[yeehawpim]

Hey y'all!🤠

I'm in the 2024 juried art exhibit this year at Coquitlam public library! You'll be able to find my submission "A Secret Third Thing" at the city centre branch (1169 Pinetree Way), go check it out along with all the other cool pieces!

The theme is "openness" and "curiosity," and the art will be up Sept. 26 - Nov. 6😊

[ourflagmeansworms]

The Magnus Archives never has researchers visit

having worked in multiple archives it's really fucking and extra creepy to me that the archive gets like visitors requesting old statements.

it's also a loss of comedic opportunities weird grad students, fiction authors, and genealogy-obsessed old men don't come asking for every statement about:

a. specific phenomena like ghost ships or haunted clocks

b. specific time period questions like if people were giving statements about wolves in the 30's

c. copies of famous historical figures' statements or events

d. anything with his last name on it, which you hope you don't find so you don't have to hear about how is great great grandpa fought in a war and started a company and in the case of tma idk sacrificed children and cows to be eaten by the sky.

[humming-fly]

This 4th of July I’m stealing the patriotism euphoria that’s usually associated with assholes idolizing the worst attributes of this country because fuck ‘em I live here too and remembering the things this country actually got Right is an important exercise when trying to rally anyone to want to defend it in November SO putting my money where my mouth is I’ll start easy and say I really like National Parks!! It’s rad how many of them there are and how they’re actual set up to preserve some of the most beautiful wild areas in our country while still letting people visit to enjoy and experience nature!! (Less important but I love how they put national parks on the quarters I think that’s real fun)

Feel free to add on if something speaks to ya!

[transxfiles]

Falsettos CDs from the 2016 Broadway Revival Cast Recording

[pinkblanc]

An artist sketching L'Inconnue de la Seine, Boston, 1890

Photographed by Augustine H. Folsom

[intothestacks]

Cool idea for if your library has outdated world globes:

Make them into lights!

You could also make them into lights as part of a craft program. :)

[shinesurge]

OH hey denver folks: Mutiny is officially the second comic shop on the planet to carry Kidd Commander books (next to Danny the Comic Shop), I met Jim and The Professor at the show this weekend and they were really into the comic! If you're in the area and want to help support me and a local shop (and also help make me look like a good investment lmaooo) maybe stop in and grab a book! I already got paid for these so don't feel bad about not going through my shop, this would save you shipping costs AND make me look like a good investment to the store. I didn't have a lot of stock so there aren't very many, I think they have volumes 1 and 2 and three copies each of the specials, so if they run out somehow or just haven't put them out yet or something going to the counter and asking about them would probably also help my reputation a little bit hehe

[margaretthotcher]

Queer Book Recommendations

It's pride season in Wellington, New Zealand and my local library has published its second "Teen Staff Picks" zine! In that spirit, I bring you, a collection of lesser-known queer books featured in the two that have been released so far! I've narrowed the lists down to books that have 1000 or fewer reviews on Goodreads as of posting (though I actually use Storygraph personally). I haven't read most of these, they're new to me as well but looking forward to getting into them.

Sapphic

Trouble Girls - Julia Lynn Rubin

Planning Perfect - Haley Neil

Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches - Kate Scelsa

The Meadows - Stephanie Oakes

Never Trust a Gemini - Freja Nicole Woolf

This Is All Your Fault - Aminah Mae Safi

The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet - Jake Maia Arlow

Youngblood - Sasha Laurens

In the Role of Brie Hutchens - Nicole Melleby

Achillean

We Are Totally Normal - Rahul Kanakia

Two Can Play That Game - Leanne Yong

Blaine for the Win - Robbie Couch

I Like Me Better - Robby Weber

The Language of Seabirds - Will Taylor

The Feeling of Falling in Love - Mason Deaver

Charming Young Man - Eliot Schrefer

Emmett - L. C. Rosen

Pages I Never Wrote - Marco Donati

Trans Characters

Across a Field of Starlight - Blue Delliquanti

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure - Lewis Hancox

The Borrow a Boyfriend Club - Page Powars

If I Can Give You That - Michael Gray Bulla

Transmogrify!: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic - G. Haron Davis

Jess, Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity - Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Magical Boy - The Kao

Kisses For Jet: A Coming-of-Gender Story - Joris Bas Backer

Between Perfect and Real - Ray Stoeve

Featuring Queer People of Colour

Ander & Santi Were Here - Jonny Garza Villa

The Loophole - Naz Kutub

Spell Bound - F. T. Lukens

Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues - H. S. Valley

Rise to the Sun - Leah Johnson

Never Kiss Your Roommate - Philline Harms

Rainbow! - Bloom & Sunny

Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales - Melanie Gillman

Anne of Greenville - Mariko Tamaki

[girderednerve]

Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to provide patrons with information they don’t realize is AI-generated.

With Hoopla, librarians have to opt into Hoopla’s entire catalog, then pay for whatever their customers choose to borrow from that catalog. The only way librarians can limit what Hoopla books their customers can borrow is by setting a limit on the price of books. For example, a library can use Hoopla but make it so their customers can only borrow books that cost the library $5 per use.

“Investigating these authors, their book covers, their social media, etc takes A LOT OF TIME, especially with the volume of questionable material increasing month to month (and that's not including the sheer amount of legitimate books published each month in adult fiction that I'm looking at),” one librarian who asked to remain anonymous so she could talk openly about her job, told me. “Is it the best use of my time doing this work on top of my other duties when customers may or may not care? And with the rising multitudes of AI generated content, will there come a point where it just ‘is what it is?’”

This type of low quality, AI generated content, is what we at 404 Media and others have come to call AI slop. Librarians, whose job it is in part to curate what books their community can access, have been dealing with similar problems in the publishing industry for years, and have a different name for it: vendor slurry. While the term now encompasses what seems like AI-generated content as well, it predates the rise of generative AI, and also refers to the glut of low quality, often self-published ebooks or book “summaries” that are common on Hoopla. As some librarians told me, the sheer quantity of books in Hoopla’s service makes it seem more valuable because it offers such a large number of books, but in reality that number is misleadingly inflated by this slurry.

Several of the librarians I talked to said that they are worried about discussing [the problems raised by Hoopla's weak, unclear selection policies, including the 2022 inclusion of explicitly white nationalist texts,] because of the growing hostility towards libraries and groups like Moms for Liberty demanding that books about LGBTQ rights, race, and ethnicity be removed from libraries. One the one hand, librarians want to curate their collections and make sure their patrons are getting access to quality information. On the other hand, they don’t want people to think that they are trying to censor what materials patrons can access in way that’s comparable to what organizations like Moms for Liberty want. None of the librarians I talked to suggested the AI-generated content needed to be banned from Hoopla and libraries only because it is AI-generated. It might have its place, but it needs to be clearly labeled, and more importantly, provide borrowers with quality information.

[wolvertooth]

xmen origins wolverine team x scene building @ night...save me xmen origins wolverine team x scene building @ night......

(shot from the film)

[chiropteracupola]

just a couple of creepy 18th-century innkeepers talking shop!

[featuring @borisyvain's lazarus mcclure and my own james webster]

[felinecorpse]

I think the truest “maturing is realizing that-“ moment is when you realize that being a celebrity would actually really fucking suck

[miodiodavinci]

for the people having trouble getting salvador to work in openutau: aaaa i'm so sorry my lad is giving you trouble ; ; this seems to be a running theme with my libraries kjshljdhlfgjk

there's a couple suggestions in the notes of the original ask which might help, but for the time being i unfortunately do not have the willpower to do much in the way of troubleshooting

i swear once i get around to updating the website and releasing his quality of life update i'll put some actual work into testing him across different platforms ksjfghkdhfgj

until then

[fraudue]

currently trying to explore reading wise - does anyone have comics/graphic novel/manga recommendations! or just books you think are worth reading in general, please send them my way

[iamthepulta]

mission failed, Thriftbooks got me

but I got The Book of Charlatans AND Mercury Mining and Empire with double point rewards, so who's actually the winner here?