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Bob the Drag Queen Photo: Rowan Daly Bob the Drag Queen—who won RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2016 and has since starred in other reality shows such as HBO’s We’re Here and Peacock’s Traitors, as well as several comedy specials—released his debut novel this month. Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert (Gallery Books) imagines the iconic abolitionist […]
The Library will retire the Newspaper Navigator application on April 21st, 2025. Created by Benjamin Charles Germain Lee while he was in service as a Library of Congress Innovator in Residence, the application has received over 174,000 visitors representing tens of thousands of research experiences. Ben’s project was the first in-house machine learning application developed […]
Since President Trump retook office on January 20, libraries and librarianship have been assaulted via executive orders and other actions. While the legality of many of these actions is still being decided by the courts, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals have been working through the confusion to preserve access to information. Below are several examples […]
The title for this post came from Stephen Downes as a comment to my Mastodon post last year on the first article in this series: ChatGPT’s search results for news are ‘unpredictable’ and frequently inaccurate. “Building on our previous research, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism conducted tests on eight generative search tools with live […]
Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’s digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights. Click here for […]
Today’s blog post is an interview with the Signal’s own Pedro Gonzalez-Fernandez, here at the Library of Congress. You can read other interviews with digital collections staff here. Carlyn: Hi Pedro, could you tell us a bit about what you do in the Digital Services Directorate? How would you explain your job to someone outside the Library […]
Illustration: David Alvarado When it comes to sustainability, “little things add up.” That’s what science librarian René Tanner—one of the dozens of librarians and experts whose actions American Libraries highlights in our Sustainability Issue—tells us. At a time when climate change seems impervious to the realities of workplace budgets and staff bandwidth, Tanner’s words ring […]
In 1979, Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library became one of the first libraries to start a tool lending program. Today, library patrons can choose from dozens of household options, from lawn mowers to miter saws, cold-press juicers to knife sharpeners. Public libraries continue to adopt this model, with Brooklyn (N.Y.) Public Library launching its first tool […]
1989ALA creates the Task Force on the Environment, timed with Earth Day’s 20th anniversary in 1990. The task force is now part of the Sustainability Round Table (SustainRT). 1990ALA introduces Environmental Issues to its Policy Manual, urging librarians and library governing boards to “collect and provide information [to patrons] on the condition of our Earth, its […]
At nearly every talk I’ve given on climate change and libraries over roughly a decade, someone in the audience asks how I remain hopeful in the face of climate scientists’ predictions. I am not, I clarify, hopeful that we will turn the tide on the impacts of climate change—at least not in my lifetime. But […]
Greening your library with limited resources and lukewarm buy-in might seem overwhelming. But sustainability is also about committing to small changes. Here’s a list of low-lift ideas that libraries of any type or size can start incorporating. Organize a swap. Sul Ross State University Library in Alpine, Texas, hosted a clothing exchange for students, while […]
Optimism is a discipline—a practice rooted in critical hope that empowers us to confront challenges and find or forge paths forward. Libraries exemplify this commitment to progress, and the American Library Association (ALA) is uniquely positioned to amplify our impact by supporting the expertise and creativity of library workers. I seek the office of president […]
The current climate of censorship threatens to unravel the very fabric of librarianship. Librarians are under attack, facing threats to their safety and professional integrity, while at the same time library services are being stripped of their inclusivity. Misinformation has damaged librarians’ reputation, labeling us anti-American and labeling libraries as spaces that attempt to indoctrinate […]
Our libraries are the hearts, hubs, and learning places of our communities. They are the places where ideas are hatched, knowledge is created, and dreams are realized. Through literature, storytimes, and special collections, libraries offer patrons opportunities to increase their understanding and open portals to other worlds and new knowledge landscapes. We are living in […]
It is both an exciting and challenging time for the American Library Association (ALA). The Association is preparing to celebrate its sesquicentennial and seeks to ensure ALA is well-positioned to sustainably serve current and future generations of librarians and library workers. The talent and hard work of our member leaders and the ALA staff of […]
James W. Lewis The American Library Association (ALA) recently received the largest gift in its 150-year history: a $25 million bequest from Washington, D.C.–based financial advisor James W. Lewis. The bequest from Lewis, whose love for libraries dates back to his childhood in North Carolina, will provide needs-based scholarships for those training to be librarians. […]
Today’s guest post is from Lauren Algee, a Senior Digital Collections Specialist & By the People community manager at the Library of Congress. On February 14, the Library of Congress transcription program By the People will celebrate the legacy of Frederick Douglass with a virtual transcribe-a-thon of rare books and manuscripts related to African American history. […]
I’ve been poking at VOSviewer while helping a student figure out whether it’ll be helpful for a bibliographic analysis project, and I was stymied by running out of memory when attempting to work with a large dataset. The manual (PDF) unhelpfully addresses this issue with a whole section: But there is no VOSviewer.jar file to […]
The following is a guest post by 2025 Innovator in Residence Vivian Li, an illustrator, comics artist and web developer from Macomb, Illinois who currently lives in Seattle. As someone who has lived in both rural Illinois and bustling Seattle, I was shocked that I could find really cool items about both locations on the […]
Another incredible year made possible by volunteers Happy New Year to all our Signal blog readers and to all our By the People crowdsourced transcription program volunteers! Every year, the By the People team publishes a “happy birthday to us” blog post right here on the Signal (you can check out previous years’ editions here […]
