In Brief:This article discusses Aaron Swartz’s life and legacy, especially his contributions to libraries. Via video, narrative, and archived email discussions, it conveys a sense of Swartz’s values and conversational style. It concludes with a detailed timeline of his life. This is a living article about someone who died. This version is complete, but it’s [...]

In Brief: The library world is deeply entrenched in the open ethos, yet there are few examples of library publications that engage in open editorial and peer review processes. In this article we discuss the challenges and opportunities posed by the open editorial processes used at In the Library with the Lead Pipe and Code4Lib [...]

Gina Trapani and Paul Ford are programmers, interface designers, authors, editors, and broadcasters. They are consistently involved in the kinds of projects that we as librarians undertake when we’re at our best: finding imaginative, meaningful ways to make as much information as possible widely available, easily accessible, and interesting. Gina Trapani was the founding editor [...]

This week, In the Library with Lead Pipe fields professional development and career questions from library school students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The questions they asked ranged from committee work to composing cover letters to conference attendance. Here is the complete list (so you can jump around if you like): [...]

In the Library with the Lead Pipe welcomes guest author Hugh McGuire, the founder of LibriVox.org, the world’s most prolific publisher of audiobooks (all read by volunteers); Iambik Audio, a commercial audiobook publisher built on a model similar to LibriVox; and PressBooks, a simple digital book-production tool. Hugh served on the Board (2002-2010) of the [...]

Looking at print books from a writer’s first-person perspective I wrote a book in 2009 and 2010. It’s getting published this year (2011) sometime. Let me tell you about what it’s like writing a print book for a large trade publisher during the long leisurely sunset of print. It was different from what I thought [...]

A few weeks ago John Dupuis, of Confessions of a Science Librarian fame, posted his Stealth Librarianship Manifesto. He begins: This particular edition of the manifesto applies to academic libraries. The principles of stealth librarianship apply to all branches of the profession, each in particular ways. Other manifestos could exist for, say, public or corporate [...]

In the Library with the Lead Pipe welcomes David B. Morris. In between twenty years as a self-employed writer, Morris held professorships at the University of Iowa, at the University of Virginia, and at Stanford University. His wider understanding of books and lives owes much to his wife, Ruth, a technical services librarian and library [...]

Thanks to Heather B. of [!!!]Sweet Peas Photography[!!!] on Flickr for this image A Little Background Here at In the Library with the Lead Pipe we’ve had several potential guest authors ask us if we would publish their work under pseudonyms or anonymously. Usually the requests we receive to post anonymously are those that are [...]

Brooke Shields is a descendant of Louis XIV; Emmett Smith is seven percent Native American; and Matthew Broderick’s ancestor fought at Gettysburg. We learn these things courtesy of a new television show called “Who Do you think You Are?,” which follows the rich and famous as they trace their family trees. For me, one of [...]