San Diego arts leaders blast proposed massive funding cuts as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘devastating’ – San Diego Union-Tribune

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April 15, 2026

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San Diego arts leaders blast proposed massive funding cuts as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘devastating’ – San Diego Union-Tribune

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San Diego arts leaders blast proposed massive funding cuts as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘devastating’

In a newly unveiled budget proposal, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria is looking to help close a projected $146 million deficit by cutting $11.8 million of funds that go to local arts groups

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria responds to questions after briefing the media on his proposed city budget at City Hall on Wednesday morning. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

By Michael James Rocha | michael.rocha@sduniontribune.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune

PUBLISHED: April 15, 2026 at 9:47 AM PDT | UPDATED: April 15, 2026 at 10:56 AM PDT

A budget proposal for the new fiscal year unveiled Wednesday morning by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria looks to help close a projected $146 million deficit by eliminating all arts funding that directly aid local arts and culture organizations, dealing what some are calling a “catastrophic” blow to a sector that has yet to fully recover from the pandemic.

The mayor, who will release his fiscal year 2027 budget plan in its entirety at noon Wednesday, said the proposed cuts “are not going to be easy” and “every department made reductions. No area of city government was exempt, including my office.”

The plan, which will be reviewed and debated by the City Council between now and June 9, prioritizes public safety, homelessness and transportation but proposes deep cuts in some areas, such as libraries and recreation. The proposed budget sharply cuts funding for the arts, taking it from $13.8 million to just about $2 million, eliminating all funds under the city’s two grant-making arms: the Organizational Support Program and Creative Communities San Diego. Monies received from those two programs go directly to arts groups, which use the funds to drive matching grants they apply for from the private philanthropic sector.

The remaining $2 million will essentially keep open the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, whose staff oversee the public art program and grant-making process. The department is expected to continue working with individual artists and incubator programs “because those come from state funding,” said Alessandra Moctezuma, the chair of the city’s mayor-appointed Commission for Arts & Culture.

“But the bulk of the budget — $11.8 million — is what supports most of our arts nonprofits,” she said Tuesday ahead of the mayor’s announcement. “That’s a devastating loss to the community.”

The proposed cuts threaten groups and arts programs across a large swath of the region, everything from Dia de los Muertos celebrations and powwows to specific events like the Asian American Dance Festival and Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off, which this fiscal year received $15,052 from the city. Under the proposed cuts, San Diego Pride would lose $376,564, the amount it received for fiscal year 2026. Some of the city’s largest arts organizations would not escape unscathed: Using figures they received for fiscal year 2026, the Old Globe Theatre would lose $382,057 in city funding and the San Diego Opera $270,293.

Bob Lehman, San Diego County Arts and Culture Commission, responded to a briefing by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria for news reporters on his proposed city budget at City Hall. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune) — Bob Lehman, executive director of the advocacy group San Diego ART Matters, talks to the media after San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria unveiled his proposed budget at City Hall on Wednesday morning. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

After the mayor’s briefing Wednesday morning, Bob Lehman, executive director of San Diego ART Matters, the region’s largest arts advocacy organization, said he was dismayed by what he heard.

“My biggest takeaway from it was two statements, one from the CFO (Rolando Charvel), who said we can no longer afford to fund arts and culture grants. That sounds permanent. … There were no qualifiers in there. In the mayor’s statement, he said it’s hopefully temporary, which means it’s open to discussion, but the cuts are there in the proposed budget. The only other place in this country where this type of arts cuts are happening is in the Trump budget.”

Word of the cuts spread through San Diego’s creative community Monday, and by Tuesday afternoon, a hastily organized Zoom virtual meeting — with the subject line “URGENT: Arts & Culture Emergency Virtual Town Hall” — had attracted 100 arts leaders from across San Diego, from the San Diego Symphony’s Martha Gilmer to Space 4 Art’s Jennifer de Poyen. Many could not join the call, organized by San Diego ART Matters, because the virtual room had reached capacity.

Continue/Read Original Article: San Diego arts leaders blast proposed massive funding cuts as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘devastating’ – San Diego Union-Tribune

Tags: City of San Diego Budget, Culture, Fiscal Management, Funding Cuts, Holidays, Libraries, San DIego Central Library, San Diego Union-Tribune, Special Events

Progressive Era Reforms: A New Primary Source Set for Educators – Teaching with the Library

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April 15, 2026

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Progressive Era Reforms: A New Primary Source Set for Educators – Teaching with the Library

Teaching with the Library Primary Sources & Ideas for Educators

ISSN 2691-6916

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Progressive Era Reforms: A New Primary Source Set for Educators

Political cartoon shows angry citizens throwing boxes of toxic foods off of a ship. — “The American Dope Party”

Progressive Era Reforms: A New Primary Source Set for Educators

April 14, 2026, Posted by: Michael Apfeldorf

The Progressive Era in the United States – roughly the period of time from the 1890s to the 1920s – was characterized by a number of social, economic, and political reforms. On the heels of the American Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age, Progressive Era reformers sought to establish government programs to address a variety of issues, many brought on by what they saw as rapid industrialization, urbanization, political corruption, and the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few.

A new primary source set from the Library of Congress offers students the opportunity to examine various aspects of these reforms. The set includes 18 primary sources – photographs, cartoons, newspapers, manuscripts, and maps – that highlight many of the issues reformers hoped to address during this period, as well as the work of these reformers as they strove for change and the results of their efforts. Featured topics include:

Anti-trust reforms
Consumer protections
Worker protections – including the rise of labor unions and fight against child labor
Urban reform – including tenement reform
Election reforms – including women’s suffrage
Prohibition, and Environmental conservation and the expansion of national parks and monuments

Photograph of two men pouring a barrel of liquid down a manhole, while a policeman looks on. — Agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of prohibition

The Progressive Era Primary Source Set also includes a background essay with historical context, a list of teaching suggestions, and links to additional resources. We hope that you and your students will find it to be a useful resource!

5 free streaming services you should be using

Tubi

With more than 50,000 movies and shows, the single-largest streaming library by far belongs to Tubi, the free, ad-supported television (FAST) streaming service owned by FOX.

A lot of the movies and shows on Tubi are low-budget trash, which can be entertaining in its own right. But if you’re searching for quality, Tubi’s algorithm learns quickly and feeds you Oscar-nominated movies like “A Few Good Men” and classic TV shows like “Columbo.”

Check out Tubi here.

Pluto TV

The Paramount-owned Pluto TV has an impressive library of movies and shows, and is about on par with Tubi when it comes to ease of navigation. I appreciate that its On Demand section lets you know what movies are new this month and which are leaving soon, so I can prioritize catching “Catch Me If You Can,” for example, before it departs at the end of April.

As Paramount completes its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, it will be interesting to see if older WBD-owned shows from TBS, TNT, Food Network, and more end up on Pluto TV in the future.

Check out Pluto TV here.

Continue/Read Original Source: 5 free streaming services you should be using

Tags: Ad-Supported Services, Boston.com, Free Steaming, Kanopy, Netflix, Pluto, Streaming Services, The Queue, TV Viewing

Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action for the Libraries, Archives and Museums Community – The Signal

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April 15, 2026

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Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action for the Libraries, Archives and Museums Community – The Signal

The Signal Digital Happenings at the Library of Congress

ISSN 2691-672X

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Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action for the Libraries, Archives and Museums Community

A film roll showing a man in a suit seated at his desk and scanning documents. — Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., demonstrates a scanner he uses in his office to input into his computer newspaper articles and other hard copy. https://www.loc.gov/item/2019640374/

Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action for the Libraries, Archives and Museums Community

April 14, 2026

Posted by: Isabel Brador

Today’s guest post is from Kate Murray of the Digital Collections Management & Services Division and co-founder of the C2PA for G+LAM Community of Practice.

Released in February 2026 as a product of the C2PA for G+LAM Community of Practice, the white paper “Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call-to-Action for the LAMs Community” (download PDF) advocates for libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) to take proactive and pragmatic steps to ensure that digital collections content, especially content impacted by AI at any point in its lifecycle, remains authentic, transparent, and verifiable from creation through access in order to meet the LAMs community’s mission of public trust.

Editor’s Note: PDF of the white paper embedded below. –DrWeb

Call-to-Action-CAP-for-LAMs Download

While content authenticity and provenance (CAP) have long been archival principles, existing processes are increasingly impacted, or have the potential to be impacted, by AI-mediated workflows. There are growing expectations from researchers, donors, the public and heritage practitioners to document these impacts comprehensively and consistently by expanding/extending traditional content authenticity and provenance data to address/respond to/consider AI impacts.

This is a critical and decisive moment. The impact of AI on collections imposes risks that demand thoughtful collective attention. Even with the best intentions of maintaining transparency with CAP data, AI technologies introduce novel ethical, legal, and privacy threats. At the same time, AI is transforming, in real-time, the creation, organization and analysis of data at a pace that defies the LAMs community’s traditionally deliberative response to change.

A woman with a camera photographs a man as he looks through manuscripts. They are outside in what looks like a courtyard with stone walls. — Caption: An example of images from photojournalist collections from the Library of Congress collections. Huddleston, Alexandra, photographer. An international photojournalist photographs Abdel Kader Haïdara with some of the thousands of manuscripts in his family’s private collection. Mali Tombouctou, 2007. April 5. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010648392/.

The white paper is not a “how-to” manual nor does it advocate for or against the use of AI. Rather, it examines the central question: Why should LAMs institutions and users care about content authenticity and provenance (CAP), especially for collections material impacted by AI? And more directly, what should my organization do? A few examples to ground the discussion are laid out in the introduction:

For example, if you are an archivist receiving a set of photographs from a photojournalist documenting a newsworthy event, how can you verify that the images were not altered by AI in such a way as to distort what occurred? If you’re a researcher studying a digital capture of an ancient artifact, how can you confirm that the capture device and settings are accurately documented? If you’re a special collections librarian receiving a set of chatbot transcripts illustrating an author’s creative process, how should you document its provenance? If you are indexing and transcribing a recorded interview, what measures should be taken to guarantee that the voices are authentic and words or whole passages not synthetically inserted or deleted? If you’re a documentary filmmaker, what steps should you take to distinguish historical from AI-generated content?

The first section of the white paper provides a brief primer on trust as LAMs’ most essential currency followed by a history of CAP principles as applied to digital preservation. After this scene-setting overview is a selection of recent and ongoing research projects experimenting with how to secure CAP either using, or in response to, emerging AI technologies. The next section covers some of the overarching risks that AI poses for the LAMs community, culminating with a set of four “pillars” that serve as the foundation for a collective call to action.

In summary, the four pillars are:

Research and Development: The LAMs community must invest in sustained R&D that extends established content authenticity and provenance principles to the new AI realities while ensuring that humans remain meaningfully in the loop across workflows and institutional contexts of all sizes.

Partnerships and Collaboration: LAMs must deepen cross-institutional and cross-sector collaborations to avoid duplication, accelerate learning and co-develop shared frameworks, tools and standards that reflect diverse digital preservation needs.

Advocacy with Industry, Vendors and User Communities: LAMs should actively shape standards, specifications, practice models and technologies by asserting their requirements for open, vendor-agnostic and trustworthy CAP data, leveraging their unique authority as long-standing stewards of public trust.

Open Distribution of Results and Lessons Learned: The rapid pace of AI innovation demands more transparent and collaborative modes of sharing experimental approaches and outcomes to complement traditional scholarly channels.

It’s important to acknowledge that the research and perspectives represented within the report are a snapshot of the state of these issues as of early 2026. Like the development of AI itself, this is a fast-moving field subject to change. To date, the white paper has generated significant community interest in knowledge sharing about these issues and inspired further commitment to collective discussion. Comments are welcome via this blog post or to c2pa@loc.gov.

“Content Authenticity and Provenance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call-to-Action for the LAMs Community” is co-authored by Kate Murray (Library of Congress) and independent scholar Joshua Sternfeld (see also Josh’s take in his Substack article on Encoding the Past). Additional contributors included David Cirella, Head of Digital Preservation at Yale University; Ann Hanlon, Head of Digital Collections & Initiatives at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries; Nick Krabbenhoeft, Assistant Director of Digital Preservation at the New York Public Library; and Eric Lopatin, Product Manager for Digital Preservation at the California Digital Library.

UNC has never been safe from political interference, but now it’s worse than ever

UNC has long faced conservative political attacks, from Jeffersonian slaveholders to Jesse Helms. Now a far-right legislature and a partisan chancellor pick pose its gravest threat in decades.

By Alexander H. Jones

The Old Well is shown on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus. Corey Friedman | Restoration NewsMedia

The University of North Carolina is a magnet for conservative abuse. One generation after another, Chapel Hill attracts the ire of the state’s right-wing political elite. These critics tend to have sprouted in the reactionary garden of North Carolina traditionalism, and they reflect a strain of hostility to UNC that has persisted since the founding of the university.

The first notable scribblers to crusade against UNC wrote for the Southern Textile Bulletin. A trade journal with a surprisingly broad readership, the Bulletin gave voice to a hardline conservative worldview. The news sheet’s main editorialist identified UNC President Frank Porter Graham as an ally of left-wing labor unions, the bete noire of a textile industry that was obsessed with subjugating its labor force. Thirty years later, the prematurely balding TV celebrity Jesse Helms would grasp the Textile Bulletin’s baton and take its abuse to a vituperative new level.

Helms delighted in giving UNC the vulgar nickname “University of Negroes and Communists.” And today, without the hateful flair of Helms but every bit as ardently, the house journal of a certain conservative think tank runs churlish pieces with titles like “Oh! The Humanities!”

UNC’s lengthy roster of right-wing critics represents more than the virulence that has traditionally suffused right-wing political rhetoric in the state. They are, in addition to that, the mouthpiece of a reactionary elite that has always seen the university as a traitor to the Southern way of life. As a UCLA law professor observed in the journal Democracy, the Southern elite has never tolerated political competition. Because Southern politics are racialized and white supremacy is foundational to the region, the white people’s party must be allowed to rule unchallenged. Any institution that contradicts white solidarity must be dismantled or suppressed.

UNC critics began their campaign to stifle the university only a few years after the school’s founding. At the time, Chapel Hill’s ethos reflected the Federalist politics of the university’s founder William Davie. The Federalists were the more progressive (or at least less reactionary) party of the 1790s; the few-thousand Black men who were allowed to vote in the country voted uniformly for Federalists and against Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans. But the men who ruled North Carolina were uniformly Jeffersonian, and they regarded UNC’s Federalist faculty as a threat to their project of protecting aristocracy with a minimal state. Thus, they shut UNC down — completely.

Later Carolinians would reopen the university, keep it operating through the Civil War and eventually build it into one of the greatest public universities in the country. But this record of resilience and growth would always be dogged by conservative harassment.

In the 1930s, Frank Porter Graham drew intense opprobrium for the transgression of having dinner with an African American at a Durham hotel. The old bulls in the legislature famously passed the Speaker Ban Bill in the 1960s, flagrantly violating the First Amendment by banning communists from giving speeches on campus, and even the country-populist Democrat Bob Scott cracked down on campus protests with an iron fist. Just as most North Carolinians have cherished their state’s educational crown jewel, many others have resented it, distrusted it and feared its allegedly subversive liberalism.

The fact that UNC is still open and thriving despite two centuries of attacks should comfort most North Carolinians. But today, the university faces challenges more existential than at any time since Jeffersonian slaveholders shut the university down during the early republic.

Continue/Read Original Article: UNC has never been safe from political interference, but now it’s worse

Tags: Conservatism, Education, Far-Right Legislature, Frank Porter Graham, Jesse Helms, Parisan Chancellor, Politics, Right Wing, The Enterprise, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Two Centuries Free, UNC, UNC System

The Internet’s Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril – WIRED

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April 15, 2026

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By Kate Knibbs, Apr 13, 2026 7:00 AM

Business

The Internet’s Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril

As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages.

A staff member wears a Universal Access to All Knowledge shirt during a 20th anniversary celebration of the Internet...

Photograph: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/Getty Images

This month, USA Today published an excellent report that revealed how US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement delayed disclosing key information about the impacts of its detainment policies. The authors used the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to compile and analyze detention statistics from ICE and track how the agency had changed under the Trump administration. The story is one of countless examples of how the Wayback Machine, which crawls and preserves web pages, has helped preserve information for the public good. It was also, Wayback Machine director Mark Graham says, “a little ironic.”

USA Today Co., the publishing conglomerate formerly known as Gannett that runs both its namesake paper and over 200 additional media outlets, bars the Wayback Machine from archiving its work. “They’re able to pull together their story research because the Wayback Machine exists. At the same time, they’re blocking access,” Graham says.

A number of other major journalism organizations have also recently moved to restrict the Wayback Machine from archiving their stories, including The New York Times, Nieman Lab reported earlier this year. According to analysis by the artificial-intelligence-detection startup Originality AI, 23 major news sites are currently blocking ia_archiverbot, the web crawler commonly used by the Internet Archive for the Wayback project. The social platform Reddit is too.

Other outlets are limiting the project in different ways: The Guardian does not block the crawler, but it excludes its content from the Internet Archive API and filters out articles from the Wayback Machine interface, which makes it harder for regular people to access archived versions of its articles.

USA Today Co. spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton emphasized that “this effort is not about specifically blocking the Internet Archive” but instead part of the company’s broader efforts to block all scraping bots. Robert Hahn, the Guardian’s director of business affairs and licensing, says that it has been in conversation with the Archive over “concerns over potential misuse by AI companies of content sets crawled for preservation purposes.”

Now, individual reporters are pushing back on this trend. This week, advocacy organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future rallied journalists around the Wayback Machine’s cause. The coalition collected more than 100 signatures from working journalists who recognize the tool’s value and presented a letter of support to the Internet Archive.

Signatories range from television mainstay Rachel Maddow to independent reporters like Spitfire News’ Kat Tenbarge and User Mag’s Taylor Lorenz. “In previous generations, journalists would turn to the physical archives of a local newspaper or of a local public library to access historical reporting and follow the threads of the present back into history,” the letter reads. “With many newspapers closed, and no clear path for local public libraries to preserve digital-only reporting, the work of safeguarding journalism’s record increasingly falls to the Internet Archive.”

THANKS to Library Link of the Day for the link and article.
http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/ (archive, rss, subscribe options)

Continue/Read Original Article: The Internet’s Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril | WIRED

Tags: Archive Tools, Blocked by Sites, Brewster Kahle, Gannett, In Peril, Internet Archive, Saved Web Content, Wired

Saving local news also means saving the archives – Poynter

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April 14, 2026

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Saving local news also means saving the archives – Poynter

Local News, Reporting & Editing

Saving local news also means saving the archives

Yes, the physical ones, but the digital ones, too. Because losing them means losing the only record many communities have of themselves.

The Tacoma-News Tribune at the Western Washington Fiar in 1964 (Courtesy Tacoma News Tribune, Image TNT0122N, Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room)

By: Kristen Hare, April 9, 2026

Stephanie Pedersen had already been through two newspaper building moves by the time she got to Tacoma, Washington. In both those other cities, when the newspapers moved to new spaces, the physical archives moved to warehouses.

“It was very rare that we ever even went back,” she said. If it wasn’t a digital archive, “basically the archives went somewhere else to die.”

If news is the first draft of history, the loss of local news archives means a loss of memory, culture, identity and, sometimes, reality.

So in Tacoma, when it was time for the News Tribune to move out of its building during the pandemic, Pedersen knew what she did not want to happen again. Because a few journalists in the newsroom had good relationships with local librarians, they checked in to see what could be done. And, no surprise, the librarians wanted to protect those archives, which included photos, clips and research.

That first draft has been digitized and preserved and now is accessible to anyone through the Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Reading Room. It’s beyond what Pedersen, the senior vice president of local news for McClatchy and executive editor of the Tacoma News Tribune and The Olympian, ever imagined more than a century of local news might become. And it’s exactly what more than a century of local news should offer to its community.

“The public should be able to access these archives in a way that helps them and helps us document history,” she said.

In most places, though, that’s not the case. Whether it’s decades of newspapers, photographs, VHS tapes, cassettes or digital coverage, most newsrooms are so focused on the present that they’re neglecting the past and how vital it is to understanding the future.

404

We lose archives in a few ways. A newsroom moves and file cabinets full of photos, clippings, recordings and news get lost or forgotten. A newsroom closes and its work gets trashed. A newsroom merges with another and the archives become inaccessible “assets.” Or a newsroom makes changes to its technology and the digital work just disappears.

“It’s a slow-motion disaster,” said Neil Mara, whose career includes working as the technology director at the McClatchy newspaper group and a 2019–2020 Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship aimed at stopping the loss of born-digital archives, which was part of an RJI initiative called Dodging The Memory Hole.

While it’s easier to imagine the loss of physical archives, particularly irreplaceable photojournalism, born-digital work is also at risk. The internet, it turns out, might not be forever.

In RJI’s 2021 report, “Endangered But Not Too Late: The State of Digital News Preservation,” the report’s authors write: “What if, because of the mind-boggling complexity of modern digital publishing systems, our first draft of history is dissolving? That’s the unfortunate fact of what’s happening right now in newsrooms across the country. Quietly, in the background of the news industry’s public struggles is a nearly invisible but dramatic decline in efforts to preserve our daily news. In the rush to get the news out, with shrinking resources in the face of expanding competition, today’s newsrooms are finding it difficult to devote money or staff time to what seems like an insurmountably daunting effort to save its growing array of digital news content.”

It’s been more than a decade since Edward McCain, who worked as the digital curator of journalism at RJI and the University of Missouri Libraries, started sounding the alarm about the issue.

“I still think we have a long way to go,” he said. “There continues to be a decent amount of support for digitizing. There’s still not nearly enough funding and support for born-digital news content and the preservation of that content. I just don’t think it has really sunk in that, in my mind, the digital work is more fragile, it’s more ephemeral, than the printed pages.”

Continue/Read Original Article: Saving local news also means saving the archives – Poynter

Tags: Archives, City News, Community News, Digital Preservation, Digital Projects, Local News, Moving Archives, News Archives, Newspapers, Poynter, Save to Digital

5 Perfect Double Features To Watch With ‘Project Hail Mary’ – Collider

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April 14, 2026

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5 Perfect Double Features To Watch With ‘Project Hail Mary’ – Collider

By Daniela Gama, Published Apr 3, 2026, 8:41 AM EDT

Daniela is a freelance writer with two years of experience covering entertainment. She is a senior writer on the Collider freelance team and has also been published in other platforms, such as Elite Daily. When she’s not writing, she’s diving into thought-provoking, existentialist films and classic literature.

Double features are a double wonder — two films exploring similar ideas and giving you twice the insight and something to ponder long after they end. With the release and success of Project Hail Mary, the fun, tender, and thrillingly existential journey based on Andy Weir‘s 2021 bestselling sci-fi novel of the same name, it’s no surprise that viewers who loved it might be itching for companions that hit the same emotional and intellectual sweet spot. Depending on the vibe you’re looking for— humor, connection, or the high-stakes mission — there are a handful of pairings that just make sense.

Think of Interstellar, with its meditation on time and love as a transcendental force, or Arrival, which fascinates with a quiet exploration of language and the power of empathy. In many ways, these films are soulmates to the most recent science fiction hit, whether because they explore similar themes or because they approach them with the same blend of heart and mind. If you loved Project Hail Mary and are ready to turn a simple double feature into a philosophical space adventure, there is a real possibility that you’d like these films, each one pairing seamlessly and completing the story’s captivating message.

5 ‘Gravity’ (2013)

Directed by Alfonso Cuáron in his second foray into science fiction after Children of Men, Gravity follows a brilliant medical engineer (Sandra Bullock) on her first Shuttle mission with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. What do you know, disaster strikes: their shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone in space, tethered to nothing but each other.

If you enjoyed Project Hail Mary‘s tension and that “lone hero against the void” feel, Gravity is a perfect next stop — especially if you’re looking for the edge-of-your-seat thrills. The film is all about the struggle to keep everything together when it all (quite literally) keeps falling apart. It’s nearly impossible not to be affected by its sense of danger and isolation. And although Gravity is more about physical survival and panic than clever science hacking — and a tad more serious overall — it’s an unforgettable pick for anyone craving high-stress journeys rather than the more laid-back buddy vibe that the 2026 film presents. Put simply, it’s a more claustrophobic experience, with its incredible sound design that perfectly illustrates the space’s eerie silence, while the drama amplifies the profound isolation of being untethered in the cosmos.

4 ‘Sunshine’ (2007)

Cillian Murphy holds his right hand up in Sunshine

Built around the sun itself, Sunshine‘s narrative is a wonderfully engaging and richly philosophical depiction of humanity’s smallness against the immensity of the cosmos. The 2007 film by Danny Boyle follows a team of astronauts — humanity’s last hope — sent to restart the dying sun.

At its heart, Sunshine holds more emotional weight than Project Hail Mary, with characters who are exhausted, scared, and burdened by the enormity of their task. The biggest difference here is in mood. Whereas Project Hail Mary is tinged with hope, Sunshine feels like a slow-motion breakdown under a burning star. That being said, the dynamics are familiar: a single lone ship heading to save a dying star, with the fate of Earth literally depending on that mission. Anchored by all-around standout performances by a talented cast, including Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne, and Chris Evans, along with Boyle’s impeccable direction, Sunshine reads as the horror-tinged sibling of Project Hail Mary, heightening its tension and deepening the stakes.

Continue/Read Original Article: 5 Perfect Double Features To Watch With ‘Project Hail Mary’

Tags: Andy Weir, Collider, Double Features, Gravity, Movies, Project Hail Mary, Science Fiction, Space, Sunshine

A Pittsburgher trained the first French women as librarians during World War I – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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April 14, 2026

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**A French girl reads a children’s book in a Library Jessie Carson created in northern France during World War I. (American Library Association Arc)**

A Pittsburgher trained the first French women as librarians during World War I

Jessie “Kit” Carson also read to French children whose fathers were fighting or had been killed in war-torn Europe.

By Janet Skeslien Charles, For the Post-Gazette, Apr 9, 2026, 1:00 AM

During World War I, Pittsburgh native Jessie “Kit” Carson sailed to France to create something that did not yet exist there – children’s libraries.

Long before television and radio programming for children, books were their only source of entertainment. Carson brought solace and story hour to a people in a heavily bombarded area, where one could drive for 15 hours and see nothing but ruins. After the war, she transformed dilapidated ambulances into bookmobiles, and trained French women as librarians.

This year, the 150th anniversary of Carson’s birth, we remember this fearless Pittsburgher who helped bring literacy and gender equality to France.

Carson was born in Bellevue on March 29, 1876. Her father, Thomas, worked as an executive at the Carnegie Steel Co. as her mother, Sadie, raised four daughters. At the turn of the century, Carson trained at the Carnegie Public Library. After earning her diploma, she worked in the children’s section of the Hazelwood Branch.

When her father died suddenly from pneumonia, the family fell on hard times. Yet the sisters continued to write ditties to each other and enjoy reading. Some favorite books included “The Story of a Bad Boy,” “The Boy’s King Arthur” and “The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.”

In 1907, Carson moved to Tacoma, Wash., where she continued her library career while taking on other challenges, including becoming one of the first women to summit Mount Rainier, just a year after she arrived.

Soon, while she was the head of the children’s library, Carson’s section was declared “the most advanced in the library.”

Newspapers raved that “Miss Carson is considered the most capable children’s librarian on the Pacific coast.” According to the Tacoma Times, “Miss Carson’s fervent eloquence has won her a warm corner in the hearts of her little devotees.”

The next headline read: “Jessie Carson Goes to N.Y.”

In 1914, Carson took the position of assistant director of the children’s section of the New York Public Library, working under Anne Caroll Moore, the first librarian in America to allow children to sign for their own books.

Carson’s time in New York was deeply formative. When she wasn’t at the library, she volunteered for the National League for Woman’s Service, whose treasurer was Anne Morgan, the daughter of J.P. Morgan. Morgan handpicked Carson to head the library program of the American Committee for Devastated France, or le Comité Américain pour les Régions Dévastées (CARD).

This all-women aid organization helped French women who’d lost their homes, livelihoods and husbands. CARD volunteers had to speak French and possess a driver’s license. Many were wealthy women who’d been educated by private tutors and had taken yearly trips to France. Carson became one of CARD’s few salaried employees.

To prepare for her new role, she studied French and purchased French translations of children’s books. Though the job was in war-torn France, she jumped at the chance to lead again.

In a letter to her mother, her excitement at meeting Morgan is palpable.

“I have heard her give the most thrilling talk on France before the National Civic Association and it makes my blood hum to realize what a task I am undertaking to do,” she wrote. “I didn’t realize that Miss Morgan would be such a fairy godmother.”

In 1918, when Carson left New York for France, she was 42 years old and single, with no safety net and no savings. She didn’t even have the money to buy a steamer trunk for her clothes and books, or the $30 she needed for a train ticket to Pittsburgh to say goodbye to her family. Yet she left a secure job to cross an ocean and help French victims of war.

CARD volunteer Mary Needham later described the atmosphere in France when they arrived, during the intense fighting of the final months of World War I:

“Offensives were taking place everywhere. Events happened so quickly, activity became so feverish, that from one day to the next we had no opportunity to recover from fatigue.… More than 100 miles we traveled that day over shell-torn roads – I riding a rumble seat without any springs. When I arrived in Paris, I almost fell into my bed from utter exhaustion.

“I was awakened by Kit’s voice but I was too tired to answer. It came again, mixed with the sounds of the sirens. ‘Get up. There’s an air raid. Get up! The Germans are coming.’ ‘Let them come,’ I mumbled.

“By that time, Kit was upon me like a Boston policeman! ‘You will get up,’ she said between her teeth as she flung the bedclothes off me, leaving me shivering. I did get up.”

CARD headquarters was located 75 miles to the north of Paris and just 40 miles from the front. On the grounds of a destroyed castle, “the Cards” – the informal name for the organization’s members – lived in prefabricated wooden barracks, among the population they served.

Their uniforms – a blue military jacket and matching skirt – helped erase social differences between wealthy volunteers and less affluent employees. Upon arrival, Carson wrote, “It is hard to express what it meant to find ourselves in the center of destruction on all sides … where the church, the school house, the town hall were in ruins; where no one had a complete roof over his head.”

As the head of CARD’s library section, Carson focused on kids, many of whose fathers were either fighting at the front or dead. During the brutal German occupation of northern France, mothers and children were enslaved, starved and forced to do back-breaking work in the fields. As a result, children were undernourished and their spines were permanently curved.

Committee members noted that these kids had never learned to smile. But during her story hour, Carson read French translations of books, introducing the children to characters such as Tom Sawyer and Anne of Green Gables. She created cozy reading nooks with child-sized tables, chairs and bookshelves. Elements we take for granted today were brand new back then.

At CARD headquarters, Carson befriended French villagers as well as her fellow international workers. Mary Breckinridge, a nurse from Kentucky, noted that Cards worked “almost around the clock in that land of stark tragedy.” Breckinridge praised Carson’s reading room, noting it “was as frequented as my clinic by a literate and book-starved people.”

Back home in Pittsburgh, tragedy struck. Carson’s mother, Sadie, died in 1920. A CARD report notes, “I don’t know what the death of Miss Carson’s mother will make in her plans, but it would be a distinct loss if she should leave us at this moment.”

Carson remained in France, where her impact – and legacy – truly began to take hold.

Continue

Tags: CARD, France, French Women, Jessie Carson, Jessie Kit Carson, Libraries, New York Public Library, Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Pittsburgher, Tacp, Trained Librarians, Washington, West Coast, World War I

Psychology says people who constantly research self-improvement but never start aren’t lazy – they’ve confused the feeling of learning with the feeling of changing – Silicon Canals

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April 14, 2026

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Psychology says people who constantly research self-improvement but never start aren’t lazy – they’ve confused the feeling of learning with the feeling of changing

By Lachlan Brown. April 5, 2026 |Last update: April 5, 2026, News

I have a confession. There was a stretch of about six months where I read a self-improvement book almost every week. Books on habits, productivity, mindset, morning routines, deep work. I was consuming this stuff like it was oxygen.

And at the end of those six months, almost nothing in my life had actually changed.

I was still waking up at the same time. Still procrastinating on the same projects. Still carrying the same patterns I’d been carrying for years. But I felt like I was making progress, which is the really insidious part. Because I wasn’t making progress. I was just learning about making progress, and my brain couldn’t tell the difference.

If this sounds like you, here’s what I want you to know: you’re not lazy. Something far more interesting is happening inside your head.

Your brain rewards you for learning, not for doing

When you read an article about waking up earlier and think “yes, that’s exactly what I need to do,” your brain gives you a little hit of satisfaction. You’ve identified a problem. You’ve found a solution. It feels productive.

But here’s what the research tells us: that feeling of satisfaction can actually replace the motivation to follow through.

The Association for Psychological Science highlights the work of Dr. Timothy Pychyl, one of the leading researchers on procrastination, who argues that the real driver behind procrastination isn’t poor time management. It’s emotional regulation. We avoid tasks not because we’re lazy, but because those tasks trigger uncomfortable feelings like fear, self-doubt, or anxiety. And consuming information about the task gives us just enough emotional relief to feel like we’ve addressed it.

In other words, learning about change feels so similar to actually changing that your brain gets confused. The discomfort that would normally push you to act gets soothed by the act of researching. And so you stay right where you are, but now with a bookshelf full of self-help books and a false sense of momentum.

The “premature sense of completeness”

This gets even more fascinating when you look at the work of NYU psychologist Peter Gollwitzer.

In a 2009 study published in Psychological Science, Gollwitzer and his colleagues found that when people publicly announced their identity-related goals, they were less likely to follow through on them. Law students who told a psychologist about their commitment to working harder actually quit studying earlier than students who kept their intentions private.

The reason? When someone else acknowledges your goal, your brain experiences what Gollwitzer calls a “premature sense of completeness.” You get the emotional reward of being the kind of person who wants to improve, without actually doing the work of improving. The identity feels settled before any behavior has changed.

Now apply that to self-improvement content consumption. Every time you read an article about building better habits and think “this is me, I’m the kind of person who cares about growth,” your brain registers a small sense of completion. As one Psychology Today analysis of Gollwitzer’s work explains, this premature reward effectively signals the brain to move on. The motivation to actually execute drains away because, emotionally, it feels like the job is already done.

Information as a comfort zone

I think about this a lot in my own life. I practice Buddhist meditation daily, and one of the things meditation has taught me is how skilled the mind is at avoiding discomfort. It will do almost anything to stay in a zone that feels productive but doesn’t actually require vulnerability or risk.

And that’s exactly what constant self-improvement research is. It’s a comfort zone dressed up as ambition.

Reading about how to start a business feels like progress toward starting a business. Watching videos about fitness routines feels like progress toward getting fit. Listening to a podcast about difficult conversations feels like preparation for having one. But none of these activities involve the actual discomfort of doing the thing.

Princeton University’s research on procrastination puts it plainly: for most people, procrastination is not about being lazy. It’s about protecting yourself from the possibility of failure. If you never start, your abilities are never truly tested. And consuming content about starting is the perfect way to feel engaged without being exposed.

That’s not laziness. That’s a deeply human defense mechanism.

The gap between knowing and doing is not an information problem

Here’s the thing that took me way too long to understand: the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be was never an information gap. I didn’t need more books. I didn’t need a better productivity system. I didn’t need another framework or another podcast or another article telling me the five things successful people do before breakfast.

I needed to do one thing. Badly, imperfectly, and without any certainty that it would work.

Tags: Brain Rewards, Feeling of Changing, Feeling of Learning, Growth, Human Behavior, Human Emotions, Lazy, Never Start Improvement, Psychology, Self-Improvement, Silicon Canals

Handbook of Latin American Studies Launches New Digital Collection

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April 13, 2026

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Handbook of Latin American Studies Launches New Digital Collection

4 Corners of the World, International Collections at the Library of Congress

ISSN 2692-2088, Share & Subscribe to this blog

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Handbook of Latin American Studies Launches New Digital Collection

Collage featuring four black and white images, including an animal skeleton, a group of musicians, a mountainous landscape, and a large stela, with the text: Handbook of Latin American Studies — Collage with Library of Congress images representing HLAS topics. 2021. Library of Congress Hispanic Reading Room, Latin American, Caribbean, and European Division.

Handbook of Latin American Studies Launches New Digital Collection

April 13, 2026, Posted by: Alyson Williams

On April 10, 2026, the Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) launched a new digital collection. The HLAS Collection provides access to descriptions, or annotations, written by external experts called Contributing Editors and the complete bibliographic information for nearly 300,000 publications about Latin America. The collection encompasses Handbook Volume 35 (1960s) to the present. Access to older annotations (volumes 1-34, 1936-1960s) and all the accompanying bibliographic essays is under development.

Screenshot of the Handbook of Latin American Studies about this collection page. — Screenshot of the About the Collection page for the new Handbook of Latin American Studies digital collection

HLAS provides descriptions of thousands of books, articles, and other materials. Scholars add 2,000-3,000 new annotations per year. Because the books and articles are selected by professors (the Contributing Editors), they are the “scholarly,” “reliable,” and “academic” sources that instructors usually require for assignments like research papers. In the HLAS Collection, search by keyword, and filter the results using the HLAS Topics or Contributing Editor or country of publication.

Screenshot of results page with the list of facets on the left and two collection items listed on the right — Screenshot of the new HLAS Collection results page

There are many uses for this go-to resource in Latin American Studies. Students can make use of this collection to identify key, scholarly resources for research papers. Professors and librarians can use the HLAS Collection in teaching the history of Latin American studies or to help develop their library’s collections. Researchers can explore the annotations at the beginning of a new project while working on a literature review.

Let us know what you think of this new presentation! Share your thoughts or suggestions via Ask-a-Librarian or in the comments.

The Handbook of Latin American Studies also now has a web archive that includes both HLAS Online and HLAS Web as well as many of the individual sites annotated in HLAS. The essays from Volumes 50-65 are available in the HLAS Online web archive. We are also preparing datasets of all HLAS records and essays that will be available soon as part of the Library of Congress Selected Datasets collection. There’s more to come, so check back again soon!

Additional resources

Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS): A Resource Guide: The Handbook of Latin American Studies is a bibliography on Latin America consisting of works selected and annotated by scholars.
Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) Story Map: Learn more about the history of the Handbook of Latin American Studies in their Story Map.
Hispanic Reading Room: Open Monday to Friday from 8:30am to 5pm.
Library of Congress Research Guides: Library’s guides organized by research topic and collections – these include both online materials, and materials only available on site. The guides related to the Caribbean, Iberian, and Latin American Studies can be found here.

See the Collection Online: https://www.loc.gov/collections/handbook-of-latin-american-studies/about-this-collection/

Continue/Read Original Article: https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2026/04/hlas-digital-collection/

Tags: Bibliography, Blogs, Datasets, Handbook of Latin American Studies, Library of Congress, LOC, Research guides, Scholarly, South America, Web Archive

LinkedIn secretly scans 6,000+ browser extensions and fingerprints your device – The Next Web (TNW)

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April 10, 2026

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LinkedIn secretly scans 6,000+ browser extensions and fingerprints your device – The Next Web (TNW)

insights

LinkedIn is secretly scanning your browser for 6,000 extensions, and you weren’t told

April 5, 2026 – 11:35 am

In short: Every time you visit LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, a hidden JavaScript routine silently probes your browser for more than 6,000 installed extensions, collects 48 hardware and software characteristics about your device, encrypts the resulting fingerprint, and attaches it to every API request you make during your session. The practice, labelled “BrowserGate” by researchers, is not disclosed in LinkedIn’s privacy policy. LinkedIn says it is a security measure; critics say it is covert surveillance of a billion users’ browsing behavior at industrial scale.

There is a routine that runs on your computer every time you open LinkedIn. You cannot see it, you were not told about it, and it is not described in the company’s privacy policy.

According to an investigation published in early April 2026 by Fairlinked e.V., a European association of commercial LinkedIn users, the platform injects a 2.7-megabyte JavaScript bundle into its website that silently scans visitors’ browsers for the presence of more than 6,000 specific Chrome extensions, assembles a detailed fingerprint of their hardware, encrypts it, and transmits the result to LinkedIn’s servers, where it is attached to every subsequent action taken during the session.

The investigation, independently confirmed by BleepingComputer, which verified the scanning behavior through its own testing, has been dubbed “BrowserGate.” LinkedIn disputes many of the report’s characterizations. The technical facts are not in dispute.

What the script does

LinkedIn calls its scanning system “Spectroscopy.” When a user loads the LinkedIn website, the script fires off up to 6,222 simultaneous requests, each one probing for a specific browser extension by attempting to access files associated with that extension’s ID. The presence or absence of a file in the response indicates whether the extension is installed. The entire operation runs silently in the background, without a visible prompt or notification of any kind.

Continue/Read Original Article: LinkedIn secretly scans 6,000+ browser extensions and fingerprints your device

Tags: Behavior, Browsergate, Browsers, Chrome, Extensions, investigation, LinkedIn, Scanning, Spectroscopy, Unauthorized

2026 U.S. Midterms Report: March 2026 Update

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April 9, 2026

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2026 U.S. Midterms Report: March 2026 Update

MAGA's War Over the War with Iran (w/ Curt Mills) [Teaser] — MAGA’s War Over the War with Iran (w/ Curt Mills) [Teaser]

Editor’s Note: Prepared for DrWeb’s Domain by Claude. Next report will be end of April. -–DrWeb. Note the Time window: Mid-February 2026 through end of March 2026. Data current as of April 9, 2026.

The Numbers

The approval data in Chart 1 below tells a stark story. As of the end of March, no major pollster had Trump above 44 percent, and most placed him between 35 and 37 percent approval — with disapproval running as high as 62 percent (CNN/SSRS, March 26–30).

The CNN Poll of Polls average landed at 37 approve / 61 disapprove, a net of -24. That is not a blip. It reflects a sustained slide that began at the start of his second term, when Trump entered office at roughly 47 percent approval, and has moved consistently downward since.

The economy is the engine driving those numbers. CNN/SSRS found Trump’s approval on the economy at a career low of 31 percent, and his approval on inflation at just 27 percent — down from 44 percent a year ago. Roughly two-thirds of Americans now say his policies have made economic conditions worse, a 10-point increase since January. With the Iran war pushing gas above $4 a gallon nationally and the CBO projecting higher inflation through 2029 partly due to tariffs, voters are connecting their kitchen-table frustrations directly to presidential decisions.

Critically, the erosion is not confined to Democrats and independents. The Economist/YouGov found that among 2024 Trump voters, strong approval dropped 15 points in just three weeks — from 84 percent approving in early March to 76 percent by month’s end. Republicans who strongly approve fell from 52 percent in January to 43 percent by the CNN/SSRS poll. When a president starts losing altitude with his own base, it creates a very different kind of political environment heading into a midterm year.

What the Prediction Markets Are Saying

Chart 2 shows the Polymarket prediction market odds as of April 9, 2026 — and they are the most lopsided readings of this midterm cycle so far.

Traders are pricing Democrats as 87 percent favorites to flip the House, with Republicans at just 13 percent. The Senate is considerably tighter, with Democrats at 53 percent and Republicans at 47 percent — reflecting the difficult map Democrats face defending seats in Georgia, Michigan, and other competitive states even as the political environment tilts their way.

These are sentiment indicators, not polls — real money is behind them, but they move with the news cycle and should be read alongside traditional surveys rather than in place of them. That said, the scale of the House number is notable. The generic congressional ballot — where Democrats currently lead by roughly 6 points in most aggregates — combined with redistricting changes in California, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, gives that 87 percent figure more grounding than it might otherwise have.

The Bigger Picture Heading into Spring

Historical patterns are worth keeping in mind here. In 2006, George W. Bush sat at roughly 38 percent approval as the Iraq war dragged on — and Republicans lost 30 House seats and 6 Senate seats, flipping both chambers. In 2018, Trump was at about 41 percent approval and lost 40 House seats. New district-level estimates now show Trump’s approval below 50 percent among registered voters in 135 Republican-held congressional seats — 104 in the House, 31 in the Senate. That is the structural danger Republicans are sitting in right now.

Democrats are not without their own challenges. Party approval is still low in absolute terms — CNN found the Democratic Party itself at just 28 percent approval. The generic ballot lead of D+6, while meaningful, is not yet wave territory on its own. The out-party typically gains another 5 points between spring and Election Day in midterm cycles; if that pattern holds, November could look very different from today. But the conditions have to hold — and a lot can change between now and then.

What is clear right now: the 2026 midterms are shaping up as a direct referendum on a second-term president whose approval has fallen nearly 8 points since January 2025, whose base is showing unusual cracks, and whose signature issues — prices, the economy, foreign policy — are all running negative in the polls. The charts above capture that moment in the data. We will update them monthly as the cycle develops.

Updated monthly until midterms in November, 2026.

Tags: 25th Amendment, 2nd Term, Approval Rating, Failed Policies, Iran War, Major Disapproval, March 2026, Midterms, Polls, Possible Impeachment, Prediction Markets, Trump, Trump Administration

Elena Zolotariov on The Torrents of Spring – One True Podcast – The Hemingway Society

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April 9, 2026

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55 min 24 sec

Episode Description

In the midst of our centenary festivities around The Sun Also Rises, One True Podcast takes an opportunity to celebrate another Hemingway work published in 1926: The Torrents of Spring.

Elena Zolotariov, author of “‘Black and Red Laughter’: Subverting Whiteness in Hemingway’s The Torrents of Spring” (from the Fall 2023 issue of the Hemingway Review), joins us to offer an exploration and even defense of Hemingway’s neglected satire.

In this episode, we talk about how and why Hemingway satirizes Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter, examine the plot of Hemingway’s novella and the characters we meet along the way, and finally discuss its legacy.

At the end of the episode, enjoy Garnet Ungar’s rendition of Chopin’s Étude Op. 10, No. 4 (Torrent). For even more on The Torrents of Spring and its publication history, also check out our episode with Ross K. Tangedal on Hemingway in 1926. See at: https://www.hemingwaysociety.org/ross-k-tangedal-hemingway-1926

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.hemingwaysociety.org/elena-zolotariov-torrents-spring

Tags: 1926, Dark Laughter, Elena Zolotariov, legacy, Novella, One True Podcast, Podcast, Ross K. Tangedal, Sherwood Anderson, The Hemingway Society, The Sun Also Rises, The Torrents of Spring

Trump administration withdraws appeal, securing historic victory for libraries and IMLS – ALA

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April 7, 2026

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For immediate release | April 7, 2026

Trump administration withdraws appeal, securing historic victory for libraries and IMLS

ALA’s separate court challenge continues

Washington – On April 6, a federal court granted the Trump Administration’s request to withdraw its appeal of a federal judge’s earlier ruling that struck down the Administration’s dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—the only federal agency dedicated to providing funding for the nation’s libraries.

The dismissal brings to an end a lawsuit filed by the Attorneys General of 21 states in April 2025. In a decision issued on November 21, 2025, the federal District Court for the District of Rhode Island nullified the administration’s actions to dismantle IMLS and permanently barred the administration from taking further steps to eliminate the agency.

ALA President Sam Helmick said, “Today’s action finally lays to rest President Trump’s executive order that threatened countless library services available to anyone who walks into one of our nation’s 115,000 public, school, academic and other libraries.

“This is a triumph for everyone who values access to information, education and opportunity. Libraries can move forward with confidence that IMLS funding will be available to sustain the vital services communities rely on. However, we cannot forget that President Trump is still asking Congress to end funding for IMLS. That decision is partly in the hands of constituents. Library supporters must call on Congress to protect the future of IMLS.”

ALA is grateful for the leadership of the 21 state Attorneys General who filed the case, Rhode Island v. Trump.

Separately, ALA filed its own lawsuit challenging the Administration’s actions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In May 2025, ALA’s lawsuit won a temporary restraining order, which prevented the mass layoff of nearly all IMLS employees, days before it was scheduled to take effect. That case is pending.

ALA also has led efforts in Congress to preserve IMLS, mobilizing thousands of library supporters to urge Congress to protect IMLS. As Congress moves forward with FY 2027 appropriations, ALA is calling on advocates to urge their congressmembers to sustain funding for the agency’s vital work. Having won a slight increase in library funding in FY 2026, advocates are urging their Senators to sign “Dear Appropriator” letters supporting funding for the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by IMLS.

About the American Library Association
The American Library Association is the largest non-partisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to America’s libraries. The ALA mission is to empower and advocate for all libraries and library workers to ensure equitable access to information for all. For 150 years, ALA has provided resources for information professionals to transform their communities through essential programs and services. For more information, visit www.ala.org.

Read Original Article: https://www.ala.org/news/2026/04/trump-administration-withdraws-appeal-securing-historic-victory-libraries-and-imls

Tags: ALA, ALA President, American Library Association, Appeal, Courts, Funding, IMLS, Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Trump, Trump Administration, Victory, Win

The Mission of Public Libraries – National Affairs

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April 7, 2026

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The Mission of Public Libraries

By Stephen Eide, Current Issue

Evidence has been steadily mounting of Americans’ declining interest in reading. A 2025 study from researchers at the University of Florida and University College London reported that daily reading for pleasure in the United States dropped by more than 40% in the last two decades, with pronounced declines among black, low-income, and rural Americans.

This trend has led some to say that America is becoming a “post-literate society,” which could lead to the “death of democracy.” The question is what to do about it.

Despite being one of the few public institutions in a position to promote reading culture, public libraries have largely gone unmentioned in this debate. No one would blame libraries exclusively for Americans’ giving up on reading; our society is saturated with smartphones and other potent distractions. But when the reading crisis became evident, libraries had one job — and thus far, they’ve let us down.

Although libraries have shied away from the decline-of-reading debate, they’ve staked out a more prominent role in culture-war controversies, including the fracas over “banned books,” the meaning of free speech, and the types of reading material appropriate for children. Librarians, one of the most progressive professional groups in America, picked those fights. Their politicization of libraries in the 21st century has been lamentable. A depoliticized public library would be an improvement on the current model, but that alone would not be enough to revive America’s reading culture.

Today’s libraries have embraced an agenda of redundancy, taking on functions — technology center, daytime homeless shelter, blank-canvas community center, bulwark of democracy — that are either unnecessary or already performed by other public agencies or private groups. These identities have gained too much influence in recent years, all at the expense of libraries’ traditional role as a modest cultural institution dedicated to serious books and quiet study. By undermining any sense of institutional integrity, librarians have done far more than the conservative cultural warriors they denounce to erode public libraries’ justification for existence.

Libraries have taken for granted their traditional patrons — book readers. We know now that this cohort cannot be neglected.

WHAT IS A “PUBLIC” LIBRARY?

Thanks to his famous philanthropic program, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie is the most important figure in the history of the public library in America. Before Carnegie, local library services were often makeshift affairs, as historian George Bobinski explains:

Few public libraries had buildings of their own. Many had undesirable or cramped quarters in the local city hall or in former residences converted for library use. Some contemporary libraries were located in rather unusual places. A millinery shop in Clay Centre, Nebraska; a decrepit wooden shack in Dillon, Montana; the hospital in Dunkirk, New York; a printing shop at Grandview, Indiana; the balcony office of a drugstore in Malta, Montana; a building housing the horses of the fire department at Marysville, Ohio; a physician’s reception room in Olathe, Kansas; an old, abandoned church at Onawa, Iowa; a room in the opera house of Sanborn, Iowa; three small rooms over a meat market at Vienna, Illinois…. There was also the case of Chatfield, Minnesota, where the matron of a rest room doubled as librarian.

From the 1880s through roughly 1920, Carnegie funded close to 1,700 public libraries across the nation. These libraries were housed in stand-alone buildings, usually in communities’ most prominent civic locations. After Carnegie’s investment, no city or town, no matter how small, seemed complete if it lacked its own library.

Carnegie’s vision for the public library was organized around five principles, the first of which was open access. Libraries operated by public universities and subscription-based libraries requiring user fees are not “public” libraries: The collections at truly public libraries are accessible to anyone at no cost. Carnegie-era libraries’ embrace of the open-stacks model symbolized this novel commitment to access.

Continue/Read Original Article: The Mission of Public Libraries | National Affairs

Tags: America, American Democracy, civics, Community Resources, Freedom to Read, Mission, National Affairs, No Cost, Open Access, Open Stacks, Public Institutions, Public Libraries, Public Library

Myth & Modern Life: Finding the Still Point in the 2026 Maelstrom

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April 1, 2026

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Myth & Modern Life: Finding the Still Point in the 2026 Maelstrom

By DrWeb | DWD Editorial

Editor’s Note: I was aided in this essay, and editorial work, by Gemini. I find this AI has the tools and memory for my blog work, and a primary partner. –DrWeb

I. The Threshold: Why Campbell Matters in the Age of Noise

In the frantic architecture of 2026, where the “news cycle” has been replaced by a persistent, algorithmic scream, the concept of a “knowledge foundation” is under siege. We are constantly pressured into a state of anticipatory obedience —reacting to events before they happen, molding our identities to fit the digital zeitgeist. To resist this, we must look backward to see forward. As a recent example, the President decides one day that the next day they will speak to the nation. People notice these, and react, and it’s part of their world –in motion.

The 1988 dialogue between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, was recorded at Skywalker Ranch, a site of modern myth-making. Yet, the wisdom shared wasn’t about special effects; it was about the perennial philosophy. Campbell’s work reminds us that while our technology has evolved from fire to silicon, the human psyche remains anchored in archetypes that are thousands of years old.

To understand modern life is to understand that we are not living through “unprecedented times” in a biological sense; we are simply the latest iteration — think evolution– of the Hero’s Journey.

What is this “Hero’s Journey”? – The Hero’s Journey, or Monomyth, is the universal architectural blueprint of human transformation found in every culture’s storytelling. As defined by Joseph Campbell, it is a three-act psychological cycle—Departure, Initiation, and Return—where an individual breaks away from the “Ordinary World,” survives a “Road of Trials” to confront their deepest fears, and ultimately returns with the “Ultimate Boon” of wisdom to share with society.

In 2026, this journey is less about physical conquest and more about the internal courage to decouple from algorithmic noise, find one’s “still point,” and integrate that historical perspective into a grounded, modern existence.

II. The First Gate: The Hero’s Adventure

The first episode of the series serves as our touchstone. Campbell defines the “Hero” not as a muscle-bound conqueror, but as anyone who has found or achieved such a chart of the psychological realm that they can lead others through it.

In 2026, the “Call to Adventure” often looks like the courage to decouple.

Featured Episode: The Hero’s Adventure

Editor’s Note: I had intended to include the first video episode one, but there seem to be issues with any of the series. I have having issues at Internet Archive, YouTube, and any other sites at this time. I wil continue investigating the copyright issue that seems in place. For now, the links are in place, but they will fail. Update: April 2, 2026 – I reported the issue to Internet Archive. Today, I was able to download and post the Episode 1 video. –DrWeb

The journey begins with the departure from the “normal” world—the world of corporate silence and political compliance—into the abyss of the unknown. Some episodes are in the Internet Archive, and also on YouTube. There maybe some copyright issues, depending on your selection and country and configuration.

To “decouple” is to recognize that the “world news” is a storm occurring outside your window. It is real, it has consequences, but it is not you. By viewing our current political and social upheaval through the lens of myth, we move from being victims of history to being observers of a grand, repeating cycle. This is the observation platform for your knowledge foundation.

III. Multimedia Evidence: The Compendium of Deep Time

The following episodes provide the structural integrity for a life lived with intention. These links to the Internet Archive serve as primary source materials for your personal “Doorway” to high-integrity information.

Editor’s Note: Today, there are some access errors for the below and other items at IA. Site down some off and on. I will leave these as they will work when IA is fully operational again. –DrWeb

Episode 2: The Message of the Myth
Focuses on how myths explain the mystery of life and death. Essential for dealing with the “changes of time” and personal grief.
Link to Archive
Episode 3: The First Storytellers
An exploration of our relationship with the natural world and the animal kingdom. A critique of how we have lost our “sacred space” in the modern city.
Link to Archive
Episode 4: Sacrifice and Bliss
Discusses the role of sacrifice in myth. In 2026, what are we sacrificing for our “convenience”?
Link to Archive
Episode 5: Love and the Goddess
The shift from the “warrior” mythFollos to the mythos of love and the feminine. A necessary counter-narrative to the “right-wing creep” of aggressive hyper-masculinity.
Link to Archive
Episode 6: Masks of Eternity
The conclusion. Campbell discusses how we must see the “face of glory” behind the masks of different religions and ideologies.
Link to Archive

IV. The Modern Lens: Critiquing the Silence

The adversarial role of the citizen journalist is to point out where the “modern myth” is being manufactured to sell silence. Today, “anticipatory obedience” is the greatest threat to the individual. We see it in newsrooms that fear to call out corruption and in individuals who self-censor for fear of the “algorithm.”

Campbell’s answer was to “Follow your bliss.” This is often misunderstood as a hedonistic pursuit. In reality, it is a radical act of defiance. To follow your bliss is to refuse to participate in a system that demands you prioritize its survival over your own soul. It is the ultimate disconnect from the corporate machine.

V. The Return: Mindfulness and the Calm

How do we cope in 2026? We integrate. Mythology gives us the Map; meditation gives us the Stillness to read it. Here are three ways to incorporate these “lifelong ways” into your modern existence:

Build a Sacred Space: As Campbell suggested, have a room—or even just a chair—where you do not know who your debtors are, what your news feed says, or what you owe anyone.
The Mythic Observation: When a world event occurs, ask: “Which old story is this?” By categorizing the event as an archetype (The Tyrant, The Chaos Monster, The Trickster), you strip it of its power to cause you panic.
Daily Meditation: Use the calm to find the “still point of the turning world.” If the world swirls around you, meditation is the anchor that proves you are the foundation, not the debris.

Bibliography & Deep Dives

Primary Sources:

Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books.
Moyers, B. (1988). The Power of Myth (Video Series). Apostle Group/Public Affairs Television.
Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. Doubleday, 1988.

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