4h
ALA has partnered with NonProfit Vote as a partner for National Voter Registration Day, which will take place on September 15. ALA and the League of Women Voters will host a webinar July 15 at 3 p.m. Eastern that will highlight how the voter engagement landscape has changed in recent years, how local Leagues and libraries are evolving their collaborations in response, and how to contribute to increasing voter participation in 2026.
ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, May 29
23h
Phenix S. Halley writes: “Just days after Alex Haley’s Roots was swept into Tennessee’s growing book ban, his historic work has been restored to school library shelves in Knox County following ongoing public backlash. The district reversed course after lawmakers put Roots on a restricted list under Tennessee’s book review policies, which allow parents and community members to challenge school materials they believe are inappropriate for students. The banned book list already included over 115 titles.” The Knox County Board of Education is scheduled to vote June 4 on two resolutions urging the Tennessee General Assembly to change treatment of challenged books.
The Root, May 27; Tennessee Lookout, May 26; WATE-TV (Knoxville), June 1
1d
Celeste Leeds-Laliberte writes: “In my first full-time librarian job, I was often scared I didn’t belong or that I wouldn’t live up to my co-worker’s expectations. With over a year in my current position, I still sometimes feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m now able to piece together what I’m doing, what my job demands, and how best to accomplish it. As you settle into your jobs, I’d like to share some things that have been the most helpful on my journey as a librarian.”
New Members Round Table Notes, May 31
2d
Pride Month is celebrated annually in June. Our collection of statistics offers fascinating facts about the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the Digital Transgender Archive, the founding of Drag Story Hour, and San Diego Public Library’s Pride library card design contest, which was won by Annie Alwine with a design resembling a vintage date-due slip filled with LGBTQ+ icons, including Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, and Edie Windsor.
2d
Sam Helmick writes: “A unique electricity fills the air when the ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition returns to Chicago, the city that holds our history and anchors our future. As we gather this June, we aren’t just attending a professional meeting, we are stepping into a historical slipstream 150 years in the making. This is the moment we have been building toward: the sesquicentennial celebration of our collective impact. This milestone is about more than looking back; it is about the momentum we carry into the next era.”
American Libraries column, Summer 2026
2d
ALA was founded in Philadelphia in 1876 amid the patriotic spectacle of our nation’s centennial celebrations. But it’s Chicago, the Association’s home for more than a century, that will welcome the library community for a milestone 150th anniversary celebration at the 2026 Annual Conference and Exhibition, to be held June 25–29 at the McCormick Place Convention Center. This year’s speakers, programs, and gatherings strike a balance between the retrospective and the speculative, as library workers and advocates stake out a brighter, stronger, and more inclusive and accessible future for libraries of all types.
American Libraries feature, Summer 2026
5d
“Digital preservation exists to safeguard knowledge for the future. But as the volume of digital content continues to grow, so too does the need to better understand the environmental impact of the systems, storage, infrastructure, and workflows that support long-term preservation. That is why the release of the new Carbon Footprint Toolkit by the Digital Preservation Coalition marks an important moment for the digital preservation community. The toolkit has been designed to help organizations undertaking digital preservation understand, measure, and reduce the carbon footprint of their activities in a practical and proportionate way.”
CLOCKSS, May 20
