You are browsing archives for
Games—whether of the board, video, or trivia variety—help people connect, escape, and learn. Information professionals see the transformative power of games firsthand in their libraries through programs and events, instruction, patron recommendations, and outreach. In honor of International Games Month, held every November, these stories center games and gaming as community-building, teaching, and self-improvement tools. […]
Danielle Costello explains game jams for creating tabletop roleplaying games at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago. Photo: Rebecca Lomax/American Libraries What do you need for a game jam? “Two tables. Done,” says Danielle Costello, student success librarian at University of Georgia Libraries in Athens. While game jams—accelerated game creation […]
Patrons play the videogame Rocket League at an open-house-style Adaptive Arcade event at Deerfield (Ill.) Public Library. Growing up, Steve Spohn’s primary way to connect with others was through videogames. Diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy as an infant, Spohn spent significant time in the hospital as a child. “The only way to reach out to […]
ALA’s Games and Gaming Round Table (GameRT) announced in April its second cohort of classic titles—games that are more than 10 years old—to be included in the Classics Hall of Fame for its Platinum Play Award (the “Platy”). GameRT’s Awards Committee chose these titles based on their historical and ongoing excellence for library use, whether […]
Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings (left) with contestant Adriana Harmeyer Photo: Disney/Christopher Willard With total earnings of $441,600, Adriana Harmeyer, clinical associate professor and archivist for university history at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, is the winningest library professional ever to have appeared on the legendary game show Jeopardy! Harmeyer—who holds the 12th-longest consecutive winning […]
Traditional professional development plans in libraries may satisfy organizational or certification needs but do not necessarily satisfy employees’ needs, wants, and interests. What if we put employees’ needs and wants center stage by looking at professional development through the lens of an employee well-being program? A well-being program is an investment in the whole person, […]
Sean Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe and founder of the restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, was not widely known in 2017, when he released his first cookbook, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, with Beth Dooley. But since then, he has become perhaps the most recognizable Indigenous chef in the country, racking up […]
Squash and pepita tartlets, one of the recipes in Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America (November, Clarkson Potter), written by Sean Sherman with Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly. Photo: David Alvarado Reprinted with permission from Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America (November, Clarkson […]
Image depicting an early Indy 500 race, held by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway archive. Photo: Indianapolis Motor Speedway 30,000Number of objects—in addition to 40 million pages of documents—held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Ralph Wilson Jr. Pro Football Research and Preservation Center in Canton, Ohio. The archive has more than 100 scrapbooks, game […]
I am very, very excited to announce that Nov 3 I will be joining the Open Science Hardware Foundation as their inaugural Executive Director. The OSHF is a US based non-profit with a global community that works to advance open scientific instrumentation to accelerate science and benefit society. We do this through collaboration, policy, advocacy, and […]
New research coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC has found that AI assistants – already a daily information gateway for millions of people – routinely misrepresent news content no matter which language, territory, or AI platform is tested. The CBC and Radio-Canada were participating organizations. The actual report is […]
In this new online column, American Library Association (ALA) Senior Endowment Trustee Brett Bonfield will update members about the ALA Endowment Fund, its role in ALA finances, and additional topics related to investment decisions and how they are made. ALA’s endowment is a major component of the Association’s finances, contributing millions of dollars each year […]
The pop-up Star Wars Library at Singapore’s Changi Airport. Chile Librarians at the National Library of Chile in Santiago discovered a cache of hidden texts from the government of 1970–1973 President Salvador Allende, the Latin American Post reported. After the September 11, 1973, military coup, dictator Augusto Pinochet sought to destroy “dangerous” texts, including leftist […]
While the drumbeat of news stories of libraries and schools relocating or removing books continues, it’s important to remember that librarians have allies in the fight against book-banning. Here’s how a few notable figures American Libraries spoke to or covered over the past year reflected on advocacy, diverse stories, and censorship-free libraries. “There’s a reason […]
Conversations about censorship and book bans tend to exclude the voices of the very population they claim to protect: young people. Now a rising generation is bristling at these restrictions, seeking a more active role in advocating for their own freedom to read. “A core front in the culture wars is: What does it mean […]
Despite measures to continue operations and preserve pending contracts with libraries, the book distributor Baker & Taylor (B&T), a longtime fixture in the library technology industry, will shutter. B&T is in the process of closing following financial difficulties experienced over the last two years, according to Publishers Weekly; Shaw Local, a media group in northern […]
In 2023—as book challenges, relocations, and removals in the state’s public and school libraries were reaching unprecedented levels—16-year-old Iris Mogul started the all-ages Banned Books Club in Coral Gables, Florida. The club’s largely but not exclusively adult membership includes English teachers and retired professors. They read and discuss titles like James Baldwin’s Go Tell It […]
Banned Books Week takes place October 5–11. This year’s theme is “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” 1982Year that ALA held its first Banned Books Week. 2,452Total number of unique titles challenged in libraries in in 2024 that were documented by ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. While that number is a sharp decline […]
Students explore the tables at the Freedom Walk program at Clark High School. Three years ago, after a difficult state legislative session in Texas that aimed to restrict access to books and disparage the work of librarians, I recognized the urgency of helping my community understand how our libraries operate. I am a school librarian. […]
Dan Montgomery will start his role as the American Library Association’s (ALA) new executive director on November 10. He will become the first nonlibrarian to serve in that position in the Association’s nearly 150-year history, overseeing a membership of 45,000 people and 180 staffers. Montgomery comes to ALA from the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), […]
