Murphy, Heidi | American Libraries Magazine

The City of Pleasanton, California, appointed Heidi Murphy as director of library services, effective April 4.

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Eamon O’Connor writes: “Calling on public spaces to be the savior for our crisis of social connection can seem like a tall order. Can we really expect library- and park-goers to become fast friends just because they’re sharing the same space? Maybe with time—but the key is understanding that friendship is not the only goal. Indeed, many studies are showing the value in the weak ties, the casual encounters and loose acquaintances in our orbit that keep us connected to community.”

Reimagining the Civic Commons, Oct. 6
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Evie Cordell, Kate Lambaria, and Piper Martin write: “Springshare’s LibGuides platform is a widely used tool for sharing digital content, allowing librarians to curate resources about specific topics. However, at many libraries, the large number of guides and their inconsistent quality pose educational and practical challenges. Librarians at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library developed a systematic, multi-phase process to assess, update, and standardize LibGuides, balancing the importance of maintaining high-quality instructional content with the need for scalable, sustainable, and accessible LibGuides.”

Portal: Libraries and the Academy, vol. 26, no. 4, Oct.
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Chirag Shah writes: “Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has made production close to free. A report, a thread, a paper, a newsletter: one prompt and 30 seconds. So what changed? Everything on the supply side, and nothing at all on the demand side. Whatever generative AI has done to the supply of text, it’s done nothing to the thing that actually limits knowledge, which is a human being paying attention long enough to understand something. We automated the easy half of the loop and left the hard half exactly where it was.”

Information Matters, Sept. 30
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How many Bluesky posts has the Censorship Cases Bot made providing updates on legal cases related to book censorship? What percentage of 2025’s library censorship attempts were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, or decision makers rather than “concerned parents”? Find these statistics and more in a special edition of American Libraries’ By the Numbers.

American Libraries Online, Oct. 7
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“Book bans are pervasive and insidious threats to creative expression and intellectual freedom. Stories are an unparalleled tool for truth, and in the face of fear of misinformation, it is paramount that truth prevails.” Read quotes like this one from Tony Weaver Jr., Banned Books Week honorary cochair and author of the graphic novel Weirdo, on intellectual freedom and book-banning.

American Libraries Online, Oct. 7
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Phil Morehart writes: “This year’s Banned Books Week coincides with ALA’s official 150th anniversary on October 6. To mark the occasion, ALA has released a list of the 150 most challenged books documented from 1990 through 2025. The list spans contemporary titles such as Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and literary classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.” Also in recognition of ALA’s anniversary, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson officially proclaimed October 6, 2026, as American Library Association Day in Chicago.

I Love Libraries, Oct. 5; ALA150.org, Oct. 6
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The Association for Library Service to Children’s (ALSC) 2026 National Institute took place October 1–3 in Buffalo, New York. Highlights included an update on ALSC’s reunification with the Young Adult Library Services Association and a Teen Services Development Day; visits to Buffalo and Erie County Library, Rochester (N.Y.) Public Library, and the Strong National Museum of Play, and an opening general session featuring The Hate U Give author Angie Thomas. Read more coverage at ALSC Blog.

ALSC Blog, Oct. 1–4

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