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We are living in extraordinary times. A time when a pandemic has required that we distance ourselves from one another, and a time when the stand against racism and racial violence requires we come together. Just as there was an outcry across the field to keep our staff and communities safe and protected from COVID-19, […]
I was born in 1968, a year many describe as the most tumultuous of the second half of the 20th century. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered April 4, 1968, as he was protesting the conditions of Memphis sanitation workers whose rallying call was “I Am a Man.” Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was murdered while […]
Our online column Letters of the Law explores a wide range of legal issues that arise in libraries, with the help of a pair of leading authorities: Mary Minow, a librarian who became a lawyer, and Tomas A. Lipinski, a lawyer who became a librarian. Together they have authored four books on the subject, including […]
The American Library Association (ALA) made a historic decision to cancel its 2020 Annual Conference in Chicago, as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But in these unprecedented times, it’s more important than ever for librarians and library workers to seek and embrace community and keep up with professional development opportunities. ALA Virtual (June […]
Illustration: Tom Deja On March 20, American Libraries Live hosted the webinar “Libraries and COVID-19: Managing Strategies and Stress.” Moderator Dan Freeman, director of ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions, led a discussion with librarians and health professionals on the front lines of the crisis about the library response to the pandemic and methods to reduce stress […]
The ALA Gay and Lesbian Task Force marching in the 1992 San Francisco Pride parade. Photo: ALA Archives Fifty years ago, under the auspices of the American Library Association’s Social Responsibilities Round Table, a small group of activists, librarians, and activist-librarians formed what was then known as the Task Force on Gay Liberation—the very first gay […]
Libby the Librarian greets students at University of Pretoria Libraries in South Africa. Photo: Mariki Uitenweerde/University of Pretoria in South Africa The world is changing rapidly: socially, technologically, and ecologically. Even while the “tech backlash” phenomenon is making headlines, libraries must still anticipate and adapt to digital advances and larger societal developments. How will these […]
Illustration: © Atstock Productions/Adobe Stock If your library were offered two chances to save a life, would it take them? The response might seem like an obvious “yes.” But for many public libraries the answer is more nuanced. In October 2018, Emergent BioSolutions, the company that manufactures the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan (generic name: […]
Photos: © Adobe Stock All of us who teach copyright have been confronted with a person who says sheepishly, “I know I should know about copyright. I’m probably doing everything wrong and could go to jail!” This rueful self-declaration is really a way of saying, “Copyright has never been important to me, and I don’t […]
Cruise: The Guide to Gay Entertainment in the Southeast. Photo: Queer Music Heritage 1970Year the Rainbow Round Table (RRT) of the American Library Association (ALA)—the nation’s first LGBT professional organization—was founded as the Task Force on Gay Liberation. (For more on the RRT and its 50th anniversary, see our story “The Rainbow’s Arc.”) 49Number of years […]
Staffers at Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library, which closed its doors March 16 because of COVID-19, advertise the library’s remote-reference services in a group Zoom call. Photo: Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library Much has changed since Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library (CRPL) closed its doors March 16—but not the assistance the library strives to provide […]
Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham, Michigan, donated 100 3D-printed protective face shields to Beaumont Hospital in nearby Troy. Photo: Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham, Michigan. Personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers, including face shields, surgical masks, and N95 respirator masks, is in critically short supply. To mitigate the ongoing crisis, some public and […]
Salt Lake County (Utah) Library’s story sacks contain a blank book, a pencil, and other materials that serve as prompts to inspire storytelling. Photo: Melodie Kraft Ashley On March 12, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coeur d’Alene (Idaho) Public Library (CDAPL) canceled its in-house programming. By March 13, Young Adult Coordinator Angela Flock and […]
Illustration: Tom Deja Keeping libraries safe is important for both workers and guests. But during the current COVID-19 pandemic, questions about how to do that—particularly when it comes to materials and surfaces—have complicated answers. It’s an unprecedented situation. Conservators, who are experienced in diagnosing and repairing collection damage, say that historical information on sanitizing library […]
Abstract Over recent years, Louisiana State University (LSU) Libraries, like many others, has targeted collections spending to invest in e-books. We designed this study to better understand barriers to use and frustrations students encounter using e-books and to explore gaps in the field. While numerous studies have reported on usage analysis or survey results, few […]
Abstract Knowledge workers such as healthcare information professionals, legal researchers, and librarians need to create and execute search strategies that are comprehensive, transparent, and reproducible. The traditional solution is to use command-line query builders offered by proprietary database vendors. However, these are based on a paradigm that dates from the days when users could access […]
The following guest column is a reprint from the rereleased May 1 issue of Booklist. Last week, it came to the attention of the editors at Booklist that there were issues around the magazine’s May 1 cover. After discussing the matter internally and with me, they decided to change the cover to the one you […]
American soldiers in Paris just after the armistice of World War I. The American Library in Paris was a continuation of the work of the Library War Service, which ALA created in 1917 to supply reading materials to US servicemembers stationed in Europe during the war. Photo: American Library in Paris In the 7th arrondissement […]
Photo illustration: © Dariusz Jarzabek/Adobe Stock (library); © nongkran_ch/Adobe Stock (circles) The library technology industry took some significant turns in 2019. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, acquired Innovative Interfaces and shifted the balance of power, strengthening Ex Libris’s position in technology for academic libraries and propelling it as a major player in public libraries. This move narrows […]
Librarianship is ever changing, and some of the people leading that change are newer members of the profession. They’re the fresh faces greeting patrons at reference desks, helping students with research, and experimenting with new ideas behind the scenes. These are the American Library Association’s (ALA) Emerging Leaders. Launched in 1997 as a one-year program […]
