It certainly didn't take long for AI's other shoe to drop, what with the emergent technology already being perverted to commit confidence scams and generate spam content. We can now add censorship to that list as the Globe Gazette reports the school board of Mason City, Iowa has begun leveraging AI technology to cultivate lists of potentially bannable books from the district's libraries ahead of the 2023/24 school year. In May, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed, and Governor Kim Reynolds subsequently signed, Senate File 496 (SF 496), which enacted sweeping changes to the state's education curriculum. Specifically it limits what books can be made available in school libraries and classrooms, requiring titles to be "age appropriate” and without “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act,” per Iowa Code 702.17.But ensuring that every book in the district's archives adhere to these new rules is quickly turning into a mammoth undertaking. "Our classroom and school libraries have vast collections, consisting of texts purchased, donated, and found," Bridgette Exman, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Mason City Community School District, said in a statement. "It is simply not feasible to read every book and filter for these new requirements." As such, the Mason City School District is bringing in AI to parse suspect texts for banned ideas and descriptions since there are simply too many titles for human reviewers to cover on their... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2023-08-14 20:25:41 UTC ]
Libraries across Southern California are aiming to serve the immigrant readers of rapidly changing cities by purchasing books in a variety of languages. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-02-17 13:00:04 UTC ]
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Bradford Council has reversed planned £1.05m cuts to its libraries but says some services could still be moved to other buildings in a bid to make them financially viable. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-16 18:54:07 UTC ]
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As we all know, there is only one Valentine and it is every book. Luckily, Harrison Ford talking about how great libraries are is an acceptable human Valentine proxy for all books. Why—besides the fact that you can’t spell”Harrison Ford, you irascible Jedi” without “Library”—is Ford making PSAs... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-14 14:17:02 UTC ]
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Do some good and help these classrooms build inclusive libraries by donating or spreading the word about their projects. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-02-14 11:41:33 UTC ]
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As a girl, the author of “Wild” and “Tiny Beautiful Things” spent hours studying Scholastic book club catalogs. But “my family was too poor to pay for the books,” she says. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-13 10:00:03 UTC ]
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OPINION: Does seeing ad spend and number of advertisements really tell us that much? Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2020-02-07 16:00:00 UTC ]
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From about 1890 to 1940, a half century of ultra-cheap editions of Jane Austen’s novels aimed explicitly at educating the working poor. Because these ill-printed and shabby versions of her stories never made it into the scholarly libraries that safeguard “important” editions, the hardscrabble... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-04 09:49:29 UTC ]
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First published in 1977, Usborne’s The World of the Unknown: Ghosts was among the most treasured books (and anecdotally, the most stolen) in school libraries of the late 70s and 80s. Many of my friends—a disproportionate number of whom are writers and artists—remember poring over the pages of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-29 09:48:13 UTC ]
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ON HALLOWEEN 2016, former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren tweeted, “Colleges should stop building vanity projects like huge libraries and billing students–full libraries are on our smartphones!” At the time, this statement sounded like garden-variety know-nothingism, ideological in the sense... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-01-28 13:30:27 UTC ]
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Ten libraries could be closed across Hampshire with others having their opening hours reduced after the local authority announced plans to slash £1.76m from the service’s budget. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-10 01:00:51 UTC ]
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Rakuten OverDrive, a platform for digital books (used by more than 43,000 libraries and schools worldwide), has released a list of its most-borrowed ebooks and audiobooks in 2019. There are no real surprises on the list, besides maybe the fact that so many people want to listen to a woman tell... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-08 19:19:19 UTC ]
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When libraries help people in cold weather, they become a critical service for teens, the elderly, and unsheltered people. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-01-07 11:35:59 UTC ]
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Darlington Borough Council will pay £2.9m to keep one of its libraries open after abandoning plans to close it. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-05 21:59:32 UTC ]
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Some Linux gamers who are using Wine to play Battlefield V are finding themselves permanently banned from the game. Player using the DXVK package are falling foul of Electronic Arts' anti-cheat system, seemingly because the DXVK Direct3D DLLs -- used to render 3D scenes in Wine -- are detected,... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2020-01-04 10:03:20 UTC ]
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Plans for Essex libraries by the county council have sent “alarm bells ringing” about increased commercialisation of the service, a campaign group has said. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-24 02:02:07 UTC ]
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The head of Essex's libraries has branded the county's current library IT system "clunky and out of date", as she hails the opportunity to invest in the service. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-23 00:45:10 UTC ]
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The best way to end the e-book standoff between publishers and libraries is to use data. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-12-20 05:00:00 UTC ]
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A daily roundup of the most interesting and awesome bookish links from around the web! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-12-18 11:30:11 UTC ]
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Library association CILIP says the library service needs up to £250m investment and has called for action from Boris Johnson’s government to secure its own future. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-18 08:39:06 UTC ]
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Bedbugs in public libraries are becoming routine. Luckily, there are a few things that librarians can do to stop them...starting with preparation. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-12-17 11:32:47 UTC ]
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