awards-barr-robert

August 27, 2021 300 × 300 2021 ALA Award Winners

Robert Barr

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Sarah Hunter writes: “This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. But the Declaration of Independence wasn’t an isolated event. As young readers confront the meaning of America’s 250th birthday, it’s important to allow them to see the wider picture beyond the keystone document and the familiar roster of ‘founding fathers’ that fill the pages of history textbooks. The following titles together offer a rich variety of perspectives on the decades leading up to and following the American Revolution.”

I Love Libraries, May 6
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Nicole A. Cooke writes: “Imagine a 14-year-old sitting on the floor of a library, flipping through a book they found almost by accident. The main character shares something deeply personal with them. For the first time, their life is not treated as unusual or controversial. It is simply there. Then the book is removed. No announcement. No explanation. Just absence. The message lands anyway. Your story is a problem. This moment captures what is often missing from public conversations about censorship. When books disappear, the impact is not abstract. It shapes how young people understand themselves, how they understand others, and how they learn to think.”

Information Matters, May 3
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Gary Brannan writes: “Special collections and heritage services in higher education institutions face a familiar accumulation of problems. We are seen as appealing only to an undefined body of ‘elite’ researchers [with declining usage]. This is the position we found ourselves in at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, England. Our experiences suggest that, in addition to financial control, staffing resilience, and adaptability, special collections and heritage services should also consider their capacity for visibility, cultural repositioning, and pedagogical integration.”

Katina, May 6
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Sam Stuart writes: “If you have ever worked with a middle schooler, you know they love graphic novels. Now more than ever, they are also demanding manga, or Japanese graphic novels, as well as manhwa (South Korea), manhua (China), and other works from around the world. I have never been able to dedicate as much money as I would have liked to this section of the library. A Vision to Reality Grant from the Association of Independent School Librarians gave me the flexibility to explore new releases, expand on popular authors, and even work on expanding lengthy manga series.”

AISL Independent Ideas, May 11
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Amy Qin writes: “André spent 2025 trying to stay one step ahead of the Trump administration. He is part of a group of people, now known as the Data Rescue Project, who have banded together during Trump’s second term. They have been quietly racing to save hundreds of critical government datasets before they are no longer available.” The Guardian also identified five ways Americans are affected by deleted data, while a paper in the International Journal of Digital Curation provided an analysis of the Data Rescue movement from Trump’s first term.

The Guardian (US), May 7; International Journal of Digital Curation, vol. 20, no. 1, May 6
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Anita Sundaram Coleman writes: “The ALA Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy Working Group has released a draft guidance document for libraries. This is a good document. It says, in one quiet clause buried in its appendix, that AI should enable ‘human flourishing—including mental and social wellness.’ But neither it nor we may know what that means yet. That’s what this section is for. Before we delve into flourishing, we need the rule: ‘Question the chatbot back on everything. Verify anything that carries your name. Triangulate, with other AI tools and with non-AI sources.’”

Infophilia: A Positive Psychology of Information, May 9
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A new report from PEN America found that 3,743 unique titles were removed from at least one school library or classroom during the 2024–2025 school year. “In the last school year, we found a surge in the banning of nonfiction titles. We documented bans on over 1,100 unique titles that are educational or informational books for young people—textbooks or reference texts on a wide range of subjects, history books, biographies, and autobiographies.” The most common topics in banned titles included violence, death and grief, and empowerment and self-esteem.

PEN America, May 7

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