ACRL has established a discussion group to provide a forum for discussing the impact of AI on libraries.
But I do think that part of why books and librarians in particular were targeted is that, unlike teachers groups, we didn’t have this massive political infrastructure to create consequences, so to speak, for those targeting us. So we are a relatively easy punching bag. We do see so much movement happening in the last few years, everyone moving in a million different directions trying to fight back against this. But I think this was a group, an industry, that was not used to being the target of this kind of coordinated attack.
Since launching Books Unbanned in April 2022, the Brooklyn Public Library has given 8,200 teens and young adults aged 13 to 21, from all 50 U.S. states, full access to its extensive catalog of ebooks, e-audiobooks, and online learning database collections. These cardholders, all of whom have written personal emails explaining their need for access to the library’s collection, have checked out over 270,000 books.
The first half of 2024 has been full of astronomical events—the eclipse, the northern lights, and sublime images of space. Here on Earth, LJ reviewers have discovered 490+ stars of their own, with books that have earned the magazine’s highest accolade, a starred review. To celebrate these dazzling reads, we have gathered their constellation of reviews, with an accompanying downloadable spreadsheet, sortable by subject/genre and BISAC heading (bit.ly/4eED0RS).
For three long-tenured, nationally recognized directors—Pat Losinski of Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), OH; Vailey Oehlke of Multnomah County Library (MCL), OR; and Ramiro Salazar of San Antonio Public Library (SAPL), TX—this year marks their retirements from a combined 56 years in their most recent roles. From weathering the Great Recession to the launch of Kindle ebook borrowing via OverDrive, their time leading three major public library systems overlapped with advancements in the profession and change in American culture. The jobs they exit are different from the jobs they entered in the early ’00s.
The estimate does not include expenses for replacing and repairing any damaged technology or furniture, and PSU President Ann Cudd said on Wednesday that she expected the full cost to surpass $1 million. Administrators don't expect the library to reopen until the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.
End of an era. ALA Midwinter, rebranded as LibLearnX, will be discontinued after 2025. Will the book award ceremonies be moved to the summer conference? The press release says:
As ALA looks ahead, efforts are underway to determine how best to present some of the most beloved celebratory events traditionally held at the January conference: the I Love My Librarian Awards; the RUSA Book & Media Awards, which features the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunrise Celebration; and the Youth Media Awards.
“I can’t emphasize enough how everyone's COVID-19 experience is valuable,” AFC Director Nicole Saylor said. “It’s worth preserving. It doesn’t matter your zip code, your community, whether you contracted it. Everyone has a story.”
Hard to believe it has been almost four years since the pandemic shutdown.
Attn. Book Lovers: Are you angry about #bookbans? Join us on Mon. July 17th at noon ET to learn what you can do about it! Register ASAP, and please help spread the word!
Willa Cather will be the first Pulitzer Prize winner and the 12th woman represented in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Cather once said in an interview, “I had searched for books telling about the beauty of the country I loved, its romance, and heroism and strength and courage of its people that had been plowed into the very furrows of its soil, and I did not find them. And so I wrote ‘O Pioneers!.’
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Michael Caine is becoming a debut novelist at age 90. "The actor...has long harboured the desire to write a thriller, and was inspired to do so by a news item, says his UK publisher, Hodder’s Rowena Webb, about 'the discovery of uranium by workers on a dump in London’s East End'."
#itsnevertoolate
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A tribute to a century of filmmaking. Take a tour of the Warner Bros. prop archive.
What a cool librarian job!
libraryjournal reblogged
After the judge dismissed Wallace, she turned to Heckel, who sat flanked by JCPS attorneys.
“I just want to say I’m so sorry you have to deal with this,” Leibson told Heckel. “I admire your courage. … I wish you had been my librarian when I was a kid.”
Heckel, a 22-year employee of JCPS, declined to be interviewed for this story. She did, however, offer a brief statement before the hearing.
“Books are mirrors and windows,” she told LPM News. “And any reader deserves the right to choose to see themself in what they read.”