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Kelly Yang Photo: Jessica Sample As a kid, the library was the first place Kelly Yang felt invited to “dream bigger.” Yang, now a bestselling and award-winning middle-grade and YA author, spent her childhood moving from city to city, making it difficult to find her footing. But everywhere she went, she could find familiar stories […]
Thanks to Mita Williams for pointing to this Washington Post article that makes it trivial to search and see whether any sites you’re affiliated with have been used to train “Google’s C4 data set, a massive snapshot of the contents of 15 million websites that have been used to instruct some high-profile English-language AIs, called […]
Ed Summers reports on the GitHub repository for Hydrator that, Twitter’s changes to their API which greatly reduce the amount of read-only access means that the Hydrator is no longer a useful application. The application keys, which functioned for the last 7 years, have been rescinded by Twitter. Today sucks 🙁 Source of Article
One of my alerts just tripped over a new blog called ChatGPTLibrarian. The site was launched in March 2023 by librarian Victor Santiago, and I think he’s still trying to decide if he’s going to write as him, or as an AI-assisted author. The header of each page reads, Welcome to ChatGPTLibrarian, a blog dedicated […]
Warning: enormous amount of theater nerd opinion below I had the great privilege to see the current Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Lunt-Fontanne theater the evening of March 15th, and we got lucky that none of the “star” principles were out (Gaten Matarazzo was out the 14th, […]
The Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-1946 (IMT) is now available as the result of a partnership between the Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice. This online archive makes available to the global audience digitized versions of the original, unpublished, and complete official record of […]
Ani DiFranco Photo credit: GMD Three When the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt on live music, Grammy Award–winning musician and activist Ani DiFranco found another outlet for her artistry: children’s literature. DiFranco, who released a bestselling memoir in 2019, published her debut children’s book, The Knowing (Penguin Random House), in March. She describes the book […]
Join me in congratulating Dinah Handel on her promotion to Digital Library Services Manager! Dinah has served as Digitization Services Manager on the Product and Service Management (PSM) team in Digital Library Systems and Services (DLSS) since January 2018. Over the past five years, Dinah has steadily developed into a high-performing member of the team […]
Illustration: Gaby FeBland This March marks three years since COVID- 19 brought the country to a standstill. While the pandemic is still ongoing—tens of thousands of cases continue to be recorded daily in the US—the effects it has had on our everyday lives, and our libraries, have abated and become somewhat normalized. In those early […]
Illustration: Gaby FeBland When COVID-19 shuttered businesses, schools, and public spaces in March 2020, we knew little about the virus and how long it would last. But even in the absence of answers, library workers did what they do best: shared information, pivoted programs and services, and tried to plug noticeable equity gaps. Three years […]
Illustration: Gaby FeBland At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ari Brooks wasn’t sure how to move forward with her library’s fundraising efforts. In a milieu of uncertainty caused by worldwide shutdowns, Brooks, executive director of Friends of the Library, Montgomery County (FOLMC) in Maryland, didn’t know if it was insensitive to ask the community […]
Illustration: Gaby FeBland In September 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated the Puerto Rican coastal city of Humacao. Much of The Palmas Academy (TPA), a K–12 school serving kids from across the island, was left damaged or destroyed—including its library. The library served as a hub for the school’s approximately 400 students and faculty. It had separate […]
Photo: ©kite_rin/Adobe Stock The work of medical librarians is essential and varied. Housed within academic medical libraries, hospitals, corporate libraries, and insurance companies, medical librarians provide information and resources to improve patient care, promote public health, and support medical education and research. Responsibilities are constantly evolving with technology and new programming. American Libraries spoke with […]
Photo: ©Rawpixel/Adobe Stock The world needs learners who can think for themselves and solve problems in creative ways, not blindly accept and reproduce facts. A good school librarian can use learning centers to help young people develop these attributes.Learning centers, or stations, aren’t a new concept in education. Many classroom educators already use them, often […]
Patrons of Thomas County (Ga.) Public Library System use litter cleanup kits they checked out. The initiative, launched in 2020, has been popular with groups of all sizes.Photo: Keep Thomas County Beautiful Nearly 50 billion pieces of litter are scattered along US roadways and waterways, according to a 2020 study by the nonprofit Keep America […]
With a grant from the National Library of Medicine, Pickens County (S.C.) Library System created medical wellness kits, including blood pressure kits, for checkout. Photo: Pickens County (S.C.) Library System Julie Lepore noticed that many of her patrons were feeling isolated following COVID-19 exposures, positive tests, or caring for sick family members. “We’re a fairly […]
Each phone in Las Vegas–Clark County (Nev.) Library District’s Cellphone Lending Program was loaded with more than 50 social service provider contacts. Photos: ©carballo/Adobe Stock (person); Las Vegas-Clark County (Nev.) Library District (phone) When Las Vegas–Clark County (Nev.) Library District (LVCCLD) closed its doors at the start of the pandemic, the technological barriers that existed […]
Photo: Calvin Gavion Few details go unnoticed by Clint Smith: His child’s first hiccup. The way his grandfather’s house still smells like his late grandmother’s hair. The eroding coastline in his home state of Louisiana. His poetry collection Counting Descent won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the […]
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in drag (Franklin High yearbook 1977, page 165) Tennessee legislators in the State Senate have voted to move forward SB 0003, a bill which will criminalize performance in drag. The bill is not particularly long nor difficult to understand, so I’m going to include the relevant bits here: SECTION 1. Tennessee […]
Since the release of his 2019 bestseller How to Be an Antiracist, author and scholar Ibram X. Kendi has adapted his guide for specific audiences, including young children and parents. Now Kendi, working with middle-grade and YA fiction author Nic Stone, is bringing his concepts and research to teens in an effort to help them […]
