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Growing up in Boise, Idaho, my dream was always to be a writer in New York City. Instead, in 2000, I found myself fact-checking at Lucky, a magazine about shopping. I wasn’t penning trenchant essays on the state of the world for an audience of adoring readers. I was confirming the prices of handbags and […]
A rock garden stands tribute outside El Progreso Memorial Library in Uvalde, Texas. Well-wishers from around the world have sent painted rocks to memorialize the 19 children and two teachers who died at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde following a mass shooting on May 24, 2022. Photo: Nora Neus On a recent spring Saturday morning […]
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 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 […]
Uniting against censorship attempts Organized book challenges continued to proliferate. From January through August, 681 attempts to ban or restrict library materials had been made in the US, with 1,651 unique titles targeted. In response to mounting censorship threats, ALA announced in May its Unite Against Book Bans campaign, a coalition with more than 60 […]
The Army National Guard distributes water at Hinds Community College’s Academic and Technical Center on the Jackson, Mississippi, campus. Water distribution sites have been set up to respond to the city’s recent water crisis. The capital city of Jackson, Mississippi—the “City with Soul”—is the state’s second-largest metropolitan area, home to many colleges, museums, and libraries, […]
Patrons display their new enhanced library cards at an April 6 sign-up event at the Fairbanks branch of Harris County (Tex.) Public Library. The cards offer another form of ID. Photo: Nancy Hu/Harris County (Tex.) Public Library Photo identification is an essential part of American life. But for large swaths of the populace, photo IDs can […]
Special Report: The Legacy of 9/11 It’s been 20 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, flashed on our TV screens and left an imprint on our memories. Nearly 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center in New York City, at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and aboard four hijacked airplanes. For […]
The Sphere, a sculpture by Fritz Koenig, survived the collapse of the Twin Towers partially intact. The unrestored sculpture now sits in New York City’s Liberty Park near the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Photo: Michael Rieger/FEMA Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, many archivists […]
How you and your staff react to a threat is paramount to the success of your response. The inability to react effectively may damage your facility or collections and could contribute to injury or death. This is an excerpt from Library as Safe Haven: Disaster Planning, Response, and Recovery: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians (ALA […]
