Meraz, Gloria | American Libraries Magazine

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission appointed Gloria Meraz director and librarian, effective September 1.

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Elisabeth Egan and John Maher write: “We spoke with dozens of librarians at the ALA Annual Conference this summer in Chicago. They want you to know about book bans and budget cuts, but also about career counseling and crafting groups and pop-up medical clinics. They want you to worry, the way they worry, about artificial intelligence, looming legislation, and harassment of their staff. But most of all, they want you to know what the library really is: a safe place for people to gather around books, ideas, and one another. Here’s what librarians had to say, in their own words.”

New York Times, Oct. 1
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ALA and the American Association of School Librarians endorsed the bicameral Quality Educator Partnership Act (QEPA). QEPA would address nationwide educator shortages by building federal infrastructure, removing barriers to the profession, expanding preparation pathways, and strengthening data and accountability. Notably, the bill also promotes efforts to make working in education a more attractive, affordable, and sustainable career options for today’s workforce. The bill’s provisions either directly specify the inclusion of school library media specialists or use the term “educator,” which, as defined, includes school library media specialists.

ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, Sept. 30
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Emily Long writes: “Canva is one of the most popular design tools for creating everything from fliers and business cards to interactive presentations. It’s pretty user-friendly even for those who don’t have any design experience, but if you want to level up your Canva experience, consider these tips and tricks.”

Lifehacker, Sept. 29
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Roger C. Schonfeld writes: “We are moving away from a model that is primarily organized around digital asset management. Instead, we may wish to think in terms of the activation infrastructure for distinctive collections. Rather than comparatively passive institutional digital custody, an activation infrastructure has as its purpose to maximize the impact of distinctive collections. This activation infrastructure incorporates library and archival professionals, technicians and student workers, distinctive collections, processing workflows, digital systems, and consortial and other cross-institutional tooling, among other elements. Foundationally, it is a kind of fly-wheel, benefiting from, and in turn generating, cross-institutional scale.”

The Scholarly Kitchen, Sept. 29
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Olina Banerji writes: “School boards have been mired in fractious political debates in recent years. Fights with parents and community members have branched out to topics like transgender students’ rights and whether to remove certain books from school libraries. But beyond school board meetings, communities don’t have easy access to information on how their school board members vote on these topics. A new national dashboard will present data on how school boards in 161 districts vote on book bans, LGBTQ-student policies, limits on what teachers can teach, private school choice, and the presence of immigration enforcement agents in schools.”

Education Week, Sept. 25
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Abigail Goben writes: “About a year ago I was invited to give a lecture designed to spark critical thinking in graduate students when considering using generative artificial intelligence and other tools. I wanted something to hang the presentation on, and an acronym emerged. The ACToRS framework is a lens in which to consider the products and vaporware that is being marketed to us, to consider what problem we are trying to solve, and to take a step back from the exclamation points and assertions of Faster! Better! Now! It stands for: accountability, credit, trust, risk, and surveillance.”

Hedgehog Librarian, Sept. 22
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“Library censorship surged in 2025. Small and rural libraries face these challenges with a fraction of the staff and budget of their urban counterparts, which is exactly why the Association for Rural and Small Libraries wanted to ask our members what building a diverse collection actually looks like in their communities. The strategies librarians described were practical, not theoretical. Most rely on patron requests, review journals, and vendor lists to guide their purchasing, and interlibrary loan programs to fill gaps they can’t afford to buy outright.”

Book Riot/Association for Rural and Small Libraries, Sept. 25

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