Still hanging around… We have it to thank for our intimate knowledge of celebrities’ lunches, Capital Metro’s train delays and the president’s spontaneous thoughts, so why not also give Twitter pre-emptive credit for helping to establish a working urban cable transit system in Austin? That would at least be the will of Travis County Commissioner […]
Austin Public Library
This is Austin’s public library system, run by the city.
Posted inAustin
Austin’s new Central Library opens Saturday. Will people use it?
Taylor Barnett, 24, hasn’t had a public library card since the 1990s, when she was a kid growing up in Victoria, Texas. She would frequent the local library with her grandparents, especially after they bought a computer with little idea of how to use it. “The library had computer classes,” said Barnett. “My grandmother really […]
Posted inCity Hall
Arts panel faces procedural misstep
On Monday, the Art in Public Places panel felt caught in the middle of a procedural misstep taken by the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation, which wanted donated art installed at the new Central Library. John Gillum, the library facilities planning manager, said the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation has raised money for a 20-by-20-foot […]
Posted inAustin
Austin public libraries to expand videoconferencing
The Austin Public Library Friends Foundation received a $120,000 grant from Google.org last Friday for Austin Public Library to expand videoconferencing to the rest of its branches. The foundation applied for the grant that will fund needed technology, and it will award the money to the libraries in a public announcement soon. Google already funded […]
Posted inCity Council
Construction of new Central Library overdue, again
City Council members learned last week that the completion of the new downtown public library has been hit with delays, again. “I do think that it is getting very close, but I don’t have a specific date that I can give you quite yet,” Toni Lambert, interim director of Libraries, told Council members at a […]
Posted inCity Council
New library cost could climb to $126 million with Council’s OK
City Council will consider what is hoped to be the final spending increase for the long-in-the-works Austin Central Library on Thursday, with the total price tag for the project set to fall somewhere just under $126.6 million. The agenda item asks Council to authorize spending $5.5 million that was included from three different sources in […]
Posted inCity Council
Austin libraries not giving up on CDs
Even in the Live Music Capital of the World, there are undoubtedly plenty of people who haven’t bought a physical music album in years. All Austinites, however, continue to buy compact discs through their taxes. On Thursday, City Council approved a contract with a vendor to provide thousands more music albums to the city’s 22 […]
Posted inAustin
‘Library for the future’ soon will be a reality
A decade ago, Austin voters approved a $90 million bond to build a new central library that would better fit the growing city’s needs. Another $30 million later, the “library for the future” is nearly complete. The 200,000-square-foot facility – with a rooftop garden, 300-seat outdoor amphitheater, art gallery, restaurant, cooking demonstration area and a […]
Posted inTravis County
County boots city’s request for parking discount
Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday shot down a request from the city of Austin for a slightly more generous pricing agreement on scores of downtown parking spaces. The rare failure to reach interlocal accord underscored that the increasing popularity of downtown Austin as a destination is affecting not just residential and commercial real estate but […]
Posted inAustin
OSHA fines Central Library contractors $88K for excavation hazards
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has cited construction contractors working on the new Central Library with fines totaling $88,000. According to the citations (here and here), on March 4, four employees were installing rebar in the rain in a trench that was 12.5 feet deep and 150 feet long. That trench, according to the […]
Posted inBudget
Library budget talks reveal Council divide
Last week, City Council dug into the Library Department’s budget, and it became clear that there are some deep ideological divides on the dais. As part of their budget work session, Council members grilled Austin Public Library Director Brenda Branch about the city’s public libraries. Last year, construction costs for the Central Library went over […]
Posted inAustin, Budget, City Council, Local Politics
Audit calls Public Library’s equity into question
Despite not having a formal definition of “equity” available to the public, the Austin Public Library insists that it uses equity as a guiding principle in all decisions. The city’s public library system challenged a report presented last week at City Council’s Audit and Finance Committee meeting claiming that its performance-measure data, particularly in the […]