Brennan, Patricia | American Libraries Magazine

Patricia Flatley Brennan retired as director of the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, September 30.

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Violet Fox writes: “In March 2025, I wrote about anticipatory obedience at the Library of Congress (LC), describing how LC fast tracked changes to the Library of Congress Subject Headings relating to the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. When Trump issued an executive order on August 27 directing federal agencies to change Lake Ontario to Lake America, catalogers around the world waited to see how LC would handle the changes. On September 3, LC scheduled a proposal to change the subject heading, and on September 11, the change was approved. The speed with which this happened is astounding.”

ACRLog, Sept. 12; Mar. 28, 2025
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In the 15 years since Fayetteville (N.Y.) Free Library opened the first recognized public library makerspace, similar creative hubs have spread to libraries throughout the country. In our By the Numbers feature, learn more makerspace facts, including details about DC Public Library’s Dance Studio, how University of Utah’s Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library used its makerspace to contribute to pandemic relief, and how Paul Smith Elementary School in Franklin, New Hampshire, taught students to make pillows perfect to lounge on while reading.

American Libraries Trend, Fall
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Ann Medaille writes: “With the advent of new technologies and rapid social and economic shifts, library workers’ jobs are being transformed. Compared with a decade ago, library workers now spend more time consulting on complex research tools, teaching digital literacy classes, supporting virtual learning environments, helping users troubleshoot devices, and codesigning projects with community partners. The pace at which library staffers are called upon to learn new skills is accelerating, and workers may struggle to keep up. While corporations may embrace upskilling to stay competitive, libraries will have to support upskilling to remain relevant.”

American Libraries feature, Fall
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Nicky Martin and Tracee Haupt Fugate write: “Preserving a website is complicated. Even a simple webpage can depend on dozens of images, videos, scripts, style sheets, and other resources scattered across the web. If some of those pieces are missed, the archived version may look or behave differently than the original. That is why quality assurance (QA) is an important part of web archiving.” They report on a project to evaluate an automated QA tool for website archiving.

Library of Congress: The Signal, Sept. 8
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Daly Barnett writes: “Doxxing is the deliberate disclosure of personal information to bully, harass, intimidate, or instigate a chain of harms against someone. The responsibility is on each of us to protect ourselves, but the good news is that there’s a lot you can do to reduce your digital footprint and take control of your data. In this two-part series, the first part focuses on prevention and ways to reduce your overall footprint, while the second focuses on incident response.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation, Aug. 31
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Kari Kivinen writes: “Finland’s Faktabaari EDU digital information literacy project has published a draft English version of a total of 286 task cards for teaching artificial intelligence (AI) literacy, covering early education through higher education. The cards are organized by level of education and, within each level, by subject. Each card is based on the principle of AI as supporting tool in which AI can be used to support human thinking, learning, and action, not as a source of information or a substitute for decision making.”

Kivinen, Sept. 2
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Samantha Bischof writes: “I am approaching the end of my second year as children’s librarian, and I am so proud of the work that my coworkers and I have put in over the past few years. The library is warm, colorful, and inviting, and our circulation and program numbers reflect that work. But most importantly (in my opinion), the feedback from our community has been positive and encouraging. I am fulfilled and proud, but, boy, am I tired.”

ALSC Blog, Sept. 8

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