A library situated between rival gangs' territory in South Africa is built from shipping containers joined with plywood and sheet metal. Despite a leaky roof, "it offers a safe space to escape the harsh realities of daily life and to explore different worlds in the pages of thousands of donated second-hand books," and its membership has grown from 30 to more than 700, with "more than 2,000 books, ranging from Afrikaans romantic novels to popular crime thrillers, modern classics and reference guides to local flora and fauna."

Students ages 4 to 12 along with parents and educators recently attended workshops, led by Wee the People, about racism and building racial literacy. Held at a library on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the events follow a strong community interest in anti-racism books, says Alexandra Pratt, the library director.

A free program at the Oklahoma Library for the Blind is helping students with disabilities access books and other learning tools. The Accessible Instructional Materials Center mails the materials to students who reside in the state and collects them again after the student graduates.

Officials in Thunder Bay, Ontario, have worked with Indigenous public library patrons and design school students to create new furniture for the city's public library that reflects native cultural values. "I've learned that this has been one of the most impactful experiences that they've had to be able to meet other people, you know, with different cultural backgrounds," says community hub librarian and Indigenous relationships supervisor Robyn Medicine.

Multiconsult used extensive 3D modeling to accommodate the sightline requirements of the five-story Deichman Library in Oslo. Building information modeling also helped designers meet sustainability goals for the building's facade and rooftop.

This article takes a look outside and inside the new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library in Manhattan, which sits across from New York City's main public library and Bryant Park. Tishman Construction handled the project, with work starting in 2017 and concluding before it was opened to the public June 1.

The Library of Congress has picked three data science experts to evaluate models for their capacity to sort the library's materials, and plans to have prototypes by early 2022. One project will use neural networks to recognize synonyms as well as exact search terms, another will train algorithms to recognize historical objects and a third will detect biblical quotations automatically.

Innovative is pleased to welcome Orion Township Public Library to the Early Access partner program for Vega Discover. Read the press release.

BCCLS joins with other program partners to help in the planning and development process for Vega. Find out more.

Innovative is happy to announce PrairieCat Consortium has joined the partner program to help shape the Vega Library Experience (LX) suite. Read more.