Archives

Duran, Margaret

April 24, 2012

Margaret Duran retired as librarian at Sierra (Calif.) Public Library.

Brown, Karen

April 24, 2012

Karen Brown becomes professor at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science in River Forest, Illinois, this fall.

Butterfield, Kevin

April 24, 2012

Kevin Butterfield is university librarian at University of Richmond, Virginia.

Bork, Jan

April 24, 2012

Jan Bork retires as school librarian at Brandon (S.D.) Valley Middle School this summer.

Alexander, Otis

April 24, 2012

Otis Alexander leaves as director of the Gary (Ind.) Public Library System May 1.

Crouse, Lyn

April 12, 2012

Lyn Crouse began as director of Elyria (Ohio) Public Library System January 26.

Casserley, Sean

April 12, 2012

May 7 Sean Casserley begins as county librarian for Johnson County (Kans.) Library.

Holland, Dorothy Anne

April 11, 2012

Dorothy Anne Holland, 77, youth and adult services librarian at Elmwood Park (Ill.) Public Library, died April 4 from a stroke caused by a brain hemorrhage after falling ill at work. Unbeknownst to her family, Holland has signed the back of her driver’s license allowing her organs to be donated upon her death. Her body was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago where … Continue reading Holland, Dorothy Anne →

Baker, Shirley

April 11, 2012

In June Shirley Baker retires as vice chancellor for scholarly resources and dean of university libraries at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Bookmobiles: A Proud History, a Promising Future

By John Amundsen | April 11, 2012

Bookmobiles have a proud history of service dating back to the late 1850s, when a horse-drawn collection of books began making the rounds in Cumbria, England. Here in the United States, the first bookmobile is widely attributed to Mary Lemist Titcomb, a librarian in Washington County, Maryland, who in 1905 posited “Would not a Library … Continue reading Bookmobiles: A Proud History, a Promising Future →

Fogarty, Nick

April 10, 2012

Nick Fogarty, deputy director of Northwest Georgia Regional Library in Dalton, retired in April.

Horrocks, Jane

April 9, 2012

Jane Horrocks retired as president and CEO of Richmond Hill Public Library in Ontario, Canada.

Latest Library Links

13h

Librarians joined the world in mourning Dolly Parton and remembering both her artistic achievements and her philanthropy. Parton’s award-winning Imagination Library initiative, inspired by her father’s inability to read or write, has put hundreds of millions of books into the hands of children, and she considered it one of her greatest achievements. ALA conferred Parton with honorary lifetime membership, its highest honor, in 2023. American Libraries interviewed Parton in 2018 as the Imagination Library was delivering its 100 millionth book. Libraries, including Knox County (Tenn.) Public Library and Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Public Library, created commemorative displays and book lists, while the University of Louisville (Ky.) Archives and Special Collections and the University of North Carolina Libraries shared rare photos and recordings.

I Love Libraries, Aug. 27; American Libraries Trend, Jan./Feb. 2018; Knox County (Tenn.) Public Library, Aug. 26; Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Public Library, Aug. 26; University of Louisville (Ky.) Archives and Special Collections, Aug. 27; Chapelboro.com, Aug. 27
15h

Yasir Mahmood writes: “I’ve been gradually building up my Excel shortcut knowledge over time, and it has genuinely helped me work with spreadsheets more efficiently. Once you start incorporating shortcuts into your daily workflow, there’s honestly no going back to the old way.” Shortcuts can speed navigation, data selection, formatting, formula-building, data management, and simply working with worksheets.

MakeUseOf, Aug. 27
17h

Dan Johnson writes: “Viktoria Haidai surveys the mangled remains of the printing press, which should have been busy churning out textbooks ready for the new school year. The plant, on the edge of Kyiv, was hit during the night by a Russian missile, just as production was ramping up to deliver 1.3 million books—10% of Ukraine’s schoolbooks. Russia has hit printing presses and publishing houses across Ukraine in a series of recent attacks, destroying 12 million books and damaging other icons of Ukrainian history and culture.”

BBC, Aug. 30
19h

“Public libraries nationwide are reaching a breaking point as a result of mounting pressures to censor collections, increased intimidation against library staff, and disruptions to library operations, according to a September 1 report by PEN America. Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries examines the fallout from book bans, canceled story hours, harassment of librarians, funding cuts, and the undoing of libraries’ independent governance. Taken together, the report argues, these actions threaten ‘the very existence of public libraries’ as a cornerstone of democracy.”

PEN America, Sept. 1
1d

Hana Lee Goldin writes: “More than half a billion people around the world now listen to podcasts, across more than 4 million shows. Buried in that catalog is a kind of source material that barely existed a generation ago: experts talking about their own work, at length and in their own words. The clearest proof that podcasts already work as sources is how often we quote them. Each repetition runs on memory alone. So the archive is already in use as a source, just without a way back to the moment.”

Card Catalog, Sept. 1
2d

Leah Weinryb-Grohsgal writes: “As the steward of over 200 petabytes of data, the Library of Congress (LC) has spent decades building infrastructure and services to preserve and provide access to digital materials. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offer enticing possibilities for maintaining, delivering, and analyzing some of the nation’s most influential research and treasured cultural and historical artifacts. Yet the use of these technologies requires extensive evaluation and monitoring before implementation. In 2025, LC introduced its AI Sandbox for Staff to do just that. The most recent cohort of the Library’s AI Sandbox for Staff supported over a dozen small-scale experiments.”

Library of Congress: The Signal, Aug. 31
2d

Tess Vrbin writes: “Saline County, Arkansas, agreed this week to pay $275,000 to Patty Hector, the former library director who was fired in October 2023 after speaking against local conservatives’ push to limit children’s access to books. County Judge Matt Brumley’s firing power came from an ordinance approved by the all-Republican quorum court, which previously urged Hector to move books with ‘sexual content or imagery’ out of children’s reach. The books in question pertained to LGBTQ+ topics, sex education, and systemic racism, which Saline County conservatives called ‘indoctrination’ and inappropriate for children.”

Arkansas Advocate, Aug. 27; Oct. 9, 2023; Aug. 21, 2023; Apr. 17, 2023

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