In honor of National Library Week (April 14–20), 25 new US citizens swore their Oath of Allegiance at the Library of Congress in a special naturalization ceremony on the morning of April 15. Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), administered the oaths.

As of January 14, elementary-school students in the Davis (Utah) School District were once again free to borrow the Patricia Polacco picture book In Our Mothers’ House, which district officials had ordered in May 2012 to be placed behind the circulation counter and made available only to youngsters who presented written parental permission for them to read it.

Author Jonathan Franzen, an opening speaker at the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (FIL) held November 24–December 2 in Guadalajara, Mexico, captured the event’s mainstream impact when he exclaimed, “How marvelous that the cultural calendar of Guadalajara is determined by books.”

News coverage and reports from state libraries offered little information about damage to public and academic libraries in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Atlantic Coast five miles southwest of Atlantic City, New Jersey, on the evening of October 29. Many public libraries, including the New York Public Library, remained closed on October 31.

It all changed with the ghosts.

Most libraries often have difficulty promoting events and receiving local media attention. That was the case for us, too, at Deep River (Conn.) Public Library—until people heard we were haunted.

As icons of civic engagement in America, libraries are perfectly positioned to host voter registration drives and, as local statutes permit, be venues for early voting and Election Day polls. In this particularly spirited election year, libraries may be playing their largest role yet in such efforts.