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Three news releases in quick succession made my antennae stand up, though they’ve actually been trickling out over the past month. In the order I saw them: Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential. A new privacy-focussed LLM Chatbot from Proton. I’ve only poked at it a bit, but it seems solid, aside […]
Libraries are having a Hollywood moment, as several documentarians have recently turned their lenses towards libraries, librarians, and intellectual freedom issues. Some of these films made their mark at the recent American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia, on PBS, at the Sundance Film Festival, and even at the Oscars, where The […]
Today’s guest post is from Sabrina Templeton, a 2025 Junior Fellow at the Library of Congress. Sabrina is pursuing her MS in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to starting her degree, she worked as a software engineer and she is passionate about the intersection of library and technology spaces. As this […]
Geena Davis at the American Library Association’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia on June 30.Photo: EPNAC Hollywood has no shortage of polymaths, but Geena Davis might be in a category of her own. She has won Academy Awards for both acting and advocacy, founded the groundbreaking nonprofit Geena Davis Institute, written the memoir […]
Photos: EPNAC Attendees expressed their views on a range of topics—and each in their unique way—at the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition, held June 26–30 in Philadelphia. Clockwise from top left: Tiwanna Nevels, assistant state librarian at State Library of North Carolina in Raleigh, sits with some of her favorite challenged […]
As the United States prepares for its 250th anniversary and the American Library Association nears its 150th next year, more than 14,000 library workers, advocates, and allies gathered in Philadelphia this summer—the birthplace of the First Amendment—to affirm that our values are not negotiable. As library professionals, we often traffic in the timeless—in books, archives, […]
I just spent some time exploring the site at Systemic Misalignment: Exposing Key Failures of Surface-Level AI Alignment Methods, and it’s a thought-provoking place. In the context of AI, “alignment is the process of encoding human values and goals into large language models to make them as helpful, safe, and reliable as possible.[1]” Researchers at […]
This blog post is co-authored by Isabel Brador and Sahar Kazmi. Vivian Li, the Library’s 2025 Innovator in Residence, spent several days learning from Library staff and exploring the collections during a visit to the Library in May. Her trip followed the selection of Seattle, Southeastern Wyoming, and Chicago as the three locations for “Anywhere […]
In this interview, Tim St. Onge and Meagan Snow explain how web archiving is preserving documentation essential to understanding the evolution of modern cartography. They outline the motivations behind the Geospatial Software and File Formats Documentation Web Archive, describe their curatorial approach, and highlight the collection’s value for both current and future researchers. This is […]
Since founding the Internet Archive in 1996, Brewster Kahle has helped preserve nearly three decades of digital history—along with millions of books, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs. But in 2023, four major publishers successfully sued the Archive, forcing it to remove their copyrighted books from its digital lending library. Now the Archive is […]
Photo: John Sterling Ruth/Visit Philadelphia The City of Brotherly Love is also a city of firsts: The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, is considered the country’s first public library. Philadelphia was the original capital of the United States. And the American Library Association (ALA) held its inaugural Convention of Librarians […]
Steak with onions at Pat’s King of Steaks Photo: Pat’s King of Steaks No one was more surprised than Philadelphians when our restaurants and chefs started raking in James Beard Awards over the past half a dozen years. We knew we had good food, but we figured the rest of the country had long since […]
Martha Hickson, a recently retired media specialist who fought censorship at North Hunterdon High School in Annandale, New Jersey, shakes hands with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (seated) after he signed into law last winter a measure to limit book bans and protect librarians from liability in the state. Photo: Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor Last December, librarian Martha […]
Author Leanne Su holds up her sci-fi novel, Peri Peri Paprika, published in 2024 by Fifth Avenue Press, the imprint of Ann Arbor (Mich.) District Library. Photo: Lia Giannotti Libraries typically provide books—not publish them. But eight years ago, Ann Arbor (Mich.) District Library (AADL) had some voices it wanted the world to hear. “We’ve […]
A young presenter shares slides about the history of basketball at Vestavia Hills (Ala.) Library’s summer 2024 PowerPoint Party. Photo: Derek Anderson/Vestavia Hills (Ala.) Library At Hewitt (Tex.) Public Library (HPL), teens enthusiastically shared slideshows on the history of roads and the comparative merits of doors and wheels. None of this was schoolwork. PowerPoint is […]
Des Moines (Iowa) University students play The Euphorigen Investigation, an escape room designed to help people better understand misinformation, as part of MisinfoDay in October 2024. Photo: Des Moines (Iowa) University Misinformation: It seems to be everywhere, is getting increasingly sophisticated, and can have dangerous consequences. So how do librarians adapt their instruction to keep […]
Photo: Danielle Tait In early May, bestselling author-illustrator Grace Lin published her first novel in nearly nine years. Based on Chinese folklore, The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) tells the story of an irrepressible stone lion cub and a girl who must open a portal for the spirits. […]
99%Percentage of public libraries that offer a summer reading program for kids, teens, or adults, according to the Public Library Association’s 2022 Public Library Services for Strong Communities Report. 61%Percentage of school-age kids who enjoy summer reading, according to the 2024 Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report. 20%Percentage of school-year gains in reading that students […]
Edible Alphabet at Free Library of Philadelphia’s Culinary Literacy Center. Photos: Kriston Jae Bethel It’s Thursday morning, and the fourth floor of Parkway Central Library is alive with bubbling jollof rice, crisping empanadas, and stir-frying japchae. Welcome to Edible Alphabet, the flagship series of Free Library of Philadelphia’s (FLP) Culinary Literacy Center. Since 2015, the […]
Wopida Tanka! (Many thanks!) As I reflect on my story wheel coming full circle, I am blessed to be surrounded by humble leaders who are the true helpers of society. In my final column as ALA president, I am taking this opportunity to recognize them, as it is always right to celebrate the human spirit […]
