Libraries

Salem Library Told to Stop Wiccan Censorship: "We Are Pleased This Matter is Behind Us"

Public library officials in Salem are pleased with a court order against them this week that says they cannot block Wiccan and Native American websites -- after the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri accused them of refusing to allow a patron to conduct online research on certain rel ... More >>

Nation's Most Literate Cities Survey: St. Louisans Less Educated, But Read More

It's time, once again, for Central Connecticut State University to make its annual ranking of the nation's most literate cities. Why bother? Well, according to Dr. Jack Miller, the study's author, literacy is a sign of a city's cultural vitality. St. Louis was slightly less vital in 2012 than it wa ... More >>

Kansas City-Area Library Uses Butchering Demonstration to Lure Patrons

These are exciting times for library users. Not only can you go to the library to check out books for free, you can also go for a live demonstration of hog butchering! Well, uh, you can do that in Overland Park, Kansas, just outside of Kansas City. Not here. Not yet. But isn't it glorious to know ... More >>

[PHOTOS] Daily RFT Finally Gets to See Refurbished Central Library for Ourselves

We've been relying on other people's pictures and videos of the restored Central Branch of the St. Louis Public Library for the past few months, but yesterday we finally got to chance to take our own. You can do the same this Sunday, December 9. The renovation of Cass Gilbert's hundred-year-old bui ... More >>

Daddy of the Dynasty

Till Death...

Extreme Library Makeover: Presenting the New and Improved Central Library

For the past two years, we've been waiting to see the results of the Central Library's full gut renovation. Twice Daily RFT has gotten to put on a hard hat and go inside to check out the construction crew's progress. At first we saw a lot of deconstruction: lots of walls had been knocked down, nine ... More >>

An Under Cover Weekend

8:30 p.m. Friday, September 7, and Saturday, September 8. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.

Our Eyes Are Watching Zora

At the River I Stand

Another Look at the Central Library's Makeover-in-Progress

One hundred years ago last Friday, the Central Library downtown opened its doors for the first time. They closed them again a year and a half ago for a massive $70 million renovation project that would bring the library into the twenty-first century. The project is still only two-thirds done, but s ... More >>

The Salem Witch Trial of 2012 (Right Here in Missour-ah!)

Are good witches banned from the Salem Public Library, too?​It's probably entirely coincidental that the Ozark town that keeps a strict filter on its Internet browsers to ensure that none of its patrons happen to stumble on any websites about Wicca is called Salem. Or that the library director ... More >>

The 10 Stupidest Crimes of 2011

Yesterday's list of the 10 Most Heinous Crimes of 2011 may have made you want to weep for the evil of humanity. Today we bring you the 10 Stupidest Crimes of 2011 in and around St. Louis (listed in order of dumb to dumber), which may also make you want to weep, but this time for stupidity. Or you ma ... More >>

Banned Books Restored to Republic, MO, School Libraries -- Sort Of

image viaGuess who left Hogwarts to go work at the Republic school libraries?​Hey, guess what kids? Banned Books Week starts on Saturday, and the fine, upstanding citizens of Republic, Missourah, are all ready to celebrate. In June, you may recall, Republic's school board banned two books from ... More >>

Pay Your Library Fines with Food in July

Wikimedia CommonsDon't fear the stacks. St. Louis Public Library will accept food for fines in July.​Stop hiding from the library cops. There are still a few days for library delinquents to take advantage of the St. Louis Public Library's Food for Fines program. Through the end of July, all ... More >>

MOBot Part of International Plot to Digitize Darwin's Library

image via​How do you come up with a scientific theory that will totally rock the world and continue to be debated 150 years later? If you were Charles Darwin, you'd take a long boat ride to the Galápagos Islands and spend lots of time examining the beaks of the local finches, a process he des ... More >>

The National Jukebox Offers 10,000 Recordings from 1901-1925 for Free: Clear Some Time

A pre-electric recording session. Courtesy of the Library of Congress​The Library of Congress just launched the National Jukebox, a free service that lets you stream some 10,000 recordings made between 1901 and 1925. Right now, they're all releases on labels now owned by Sony Music, which gave ... More >>

55-Year-Old Man Beats Up 38-Year-Old Over Cell Phone Use at Library

Dave Wrobel was mad as hell over a fellow library patron's cell phone use -- and not gonna take it.​Dave Wrobel came to the library to study. As a non-traditional student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Wrobel has found that he focuses best when he's not tempted by the TV or fridge or ... More >>

Thomas Jefferson Was Here -- Or At Least His Books Are

image viaThomas Jefferson left his mark on his copy of Opera omnia, Graece et Latin by Dionysius of Halicarnassus.​Thanks to some stellar research by the historians at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia estate, Washington University librarians have learned that a cache of 74 books that ha ... More >>

The Central Library: Behind the Scenes of a Transformation

Kholood Eid​On January 6, 1912, 99 years and one day ago, the Central Library downtown opened its doors for the very first time. Designed by the architect Cass Gilbert to look like an Italian Renaissance palace and costing $1.5 million, part of which was a gift from the Pittsburgh steel baron Andr ... More >>

Carondelet Branch of St. Louis Public Library Closes for 2011

image viaThe Carondelet Branch of the St. Louis Public Library.​The St. Louis Public Library is on a self-improvement tear. Just six months after the Central Library downtown closed its doors for more than a year of renovations, the library's Carondelet Branch at 6800 Michigan Avenue will also ... More >>

Mr. Whatever

Cool Treats and Reads

Video Game Tournament ... at the Library? WTF?

​Call us old fashioned, but should the city's library system really be hosting video game tournaments? That's what Daily RFT set out to answer yesterday after receiving an announcement for the St. Louis Library's Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament this coming Saturday at the Carpenter Branch on So ... More >>

Say Farewell to the Central Library, See You in 2012

Image sourceThe Central Library, awaiting its gut rehab.​Have you ever had a burning desire to visit the stacks in the Central Library downtown? Even if you're not usually an aficionado of libraries, you really should. The stacks are seven levels of clouded glass floors and narrow staircases a ... More >>

Will Laura Bush Look Like 1980s Country-Club Debutante During St. Louis Visit Today?

​You know, with the upturned collar that she sports on the cover of her new memoir, Spoken From the Heart? So, who's going to the St. Louis County Library headquarters tonight to hear the former First Lady read from her book? If so, could you report back to us on Laura's attire? Inquiring minds, ... More >>

It's Library Week in Missouri. Book It!

​Daily RFT has learned that April 11-17 is Library Week in Missouri. It's true. Governor Jay Nixon issued a proclamation in March recognizing this week as a time to pay tribute to Missouri's libraries. (And some people accuse him of being a do-nothin' gubnor!)So? Don't just don't sit there -- slac ... More >>

What Was Laura Bush Thinking?: Former First Lady to Speak (Finally) at County Library

Simon & Schuster​Admit it. Even before you read Curtis Sittenfeld's novel American Wife, a fictionalization of the life of Laura Bush, you wanted to know what was going on inside the former first lady's head. Was she really a secret Democrat at heart? What was it that made George so gosh-darn ... More >>

Attn. Child Pornographers: Don't Leave Your Filthy Flash Drive at the Library

www.thetelegraph.comHey, hey, hey! It's Stanton Holliday.​Stanton Holliday learned this lesson the hard way. On Friday morning the 34-year-old man from Alton arrived at the Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey where he described in detail the flash drive he'd left at the school's library t ... More >>

Emerson Gives $4 Million for Downtown Library Facelift

Image ViaA rendering of the atrium proposed for the main library.​The St. Louis Public Library announced yesterday that Emerson has donated $4 million for the construction of an atrium for the library's downtown headquarters. The donation from the St. Louis based electronics firm is the lead gift ... More >>

But Where Will Homeless Philadelphia Men Browse Internet Porn Now?

archlibrary.files.wordpress.comPhiladelphia is about to close its public library. Not just one branch-- the entire system-- including neighborhood, regional and main branches and lay off all of its employees. This is incredibly depressing not just because it's the sixth-largest public libr ... More >>

Wash. U. Closes Biology, Math Libraries, Ponders Future of Books

flickr.com/photos/lola_umSoon to become (even more) obsolete?​Oh, brave new world, with your 24-hour Internet access and ubiquitous empty wallets and red-soaked ledgers! You have encroached even upon the rarified campus of Washington University -- yes, even that country club where students can pre ... More >>

Worldly Wonder

Unreal Investigates Awful Library Books

Awful Library Books​Unreal recently came across an absolutely wonderful blog called Awful Library Books. Founded by two Michigan librarians named Mary and Holly, the site is, in their words, "a collection of public library holdings that we find amusing and maybe questionable for public libraries t ... More >>

Lit Up: Keisha Ervin's gritty tales of the St. Louis streets have made her one of the nation's hottest purveyors of urban fiction

St. Louis Has Two Haunted Libraries

File Under "Jazz"

Put the "you" in "shush"

Jarvis Thurston Commemoration at Olin Library, March 24, 2008: William H. Gass' Remarks

Bless the Rains

How Not to Be Alone

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Week of April 13, 2005

Hey Desi, I'm Home

Indian traditions with a St. Louis twist

African-American Idol

With extra Bass

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Week of January 21, 2004

It's (Still) Alive

A new exhibit reanimates Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the controversy over bioethics

Bring the Folks

For fun in any language

Cream Rises

Activist Dick Gregory helps his hometown celebrate Black History Month

Best Use for a Bookmobile

Gina and Dan Gibbons' Wedding

Caught in the Web

Internet-only radio stations take a beating

French Blessing

The film Men of Bronze: The Black American Heroes of World War I chronicles the warm welcome of American jazzmen by their French hosts