San Diego’s dreamy weather and landscape were no match for the sunny disposition of library workers and advocates reuniting under a shared mission at the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2024 Annual Conference and Exhibition. A total of 13,532 people registered for the event, which was held in the city’s convention center June 27–July 2.
Opened by comedian, author, and former Daily Show host Trevor Noah, the conference showcased themes of activism, diversity and inclusivity, and bridgebuilding. Participants celebrated successful programs and initiatives while engaging in important discussions on protecting intellectual freedom, mental and physical well-being, and other critical topics in the profession.
Fighting the good fight
At the United for Libraries President’s Program, Connie Chung (see Newsmaker, p. 16) recalled starting her broadcast news career in the late 1960s, when the medium was almost exclusively white and male. “The men … couldn’t get used to the idea I was their equal,” said Chung, whose reflections on breaking barriers in journalism—as the first woman to coanchor CBS Evening News and the first Asian American to anchor any news program in the US—are at the center of her forthcoming memoir, Connie (Grand Central Publishing, September).
“I know I wasn’t the best and I wasn’t the smartest. I realize that the first one through the door gets the heaviest gunfire,” she said. “[My husband, Maury Povich, says,] ‘You were the Jackie Robinson of television news.’”
Ali Velshi, chief correspondent for MSNBC and host of the TV segment Velshi Across America, spoke about his book Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, 2024), highlighting key moments in his vast family history, sharing his thoughts on book banning, and emphasizing the importance of fostering immigrants in society. Describing his inspiration for the book, Velshi said he turned to a throughline in his family history: the struggle for a better life. His family lived in South Africa, where they faced racism.
“My family has lived this for 125 years,” Velshi said. “They have been in search, like many other people’s families have, of betterment, more fairness, of greater social justice.” He noted that he chose the title of his book to “emphasize that we can save democracy in small ways, with each of us doing it, but they require a little courage.”
“I only exist because other people before me took up small acts of courage that said, ‘My responsibility is not to do my job and earn a paycheck. It is to leave the place better than I found it.’” Velshi continued, “And that should always be your responsibility.” He added that librarians likely didn’t choose to become librarians to fight book banning but became dedicated to advocating for intellectual freedom as a necessity: “The courage is in deciding to do that.”
Kwame Alexander—author of the Newbery Medal–winning title The Crossover (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2014) and Caldecott Medal–winning The Undefeated (Versify, 2019)—discussed the importance of representation. His latest title, Black Star (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, September), features Charley Cuffey, a 12-year-old Black girl in a “quest for freedom to be who she wants to be,” he said, which is the first female pitcher to play professional baseball.
Alexander also emphasized the necessity of fighting censorship and book bans. For public and school librarians looking to “protect the sanctity of the written word,” he pointed to historic figures such as the pioneering Black librarians of the 1920s and the librarians of the Pack Horse Library Project, who delivered books on horseback to remote regions of the Appalachian Mountains between 1935 and 1943.
“They believed words and books could offer hope,” he said. “They believed books could help folks reimagine what’s possible, and that is the kind of freedom books are a portal for.”
Of course, it’s not only celebrities—or adults—who fight for intellectual freedom.
Teen Gianna Goodman-Bhyat, copresident of anti–book ban organization Golden State Readers and a high school student from Manhattan Beach, California, was one of six youth activists at the Young Adult Library Services Association’s President’s Program. Speakers shared their experiences fighting book bans and discussed what librarians can do to support the work of young activists.
Goodman-Bhyat said she realized that if she wanted to get her peers’ attention about book bans in their community, she needed to do something drastic. She recruited a group of classmates to wrap caution tape around their backpacks and wear them to school as a symbol for the censorship that was occurring locally and nationwide.
When people asked about the caution tape, activists had a flier handy with information about their cause. “By the end of the week, there were at least 100 kids at my school who had participated in the caution tape campaign,” she shared. “That’s what allowed us to expand.”
Another young activist, Meghana Nakkanti—cofounder of Nixa Students Against Book Restrictions and now a student at Davidson (N.C.) College—recounted how she and her student group attended public meetings where they witnessed the behavior of book challengers, who were calling them names and displaying aggression. “We knew we couldn’t force these parents to be quieter, so we forced them to be more civil,” she said. Instead of engaging, the students remained polite. “Anybody who took any videos there saw a bunch of [teens] being infinitely more mature.”
“That’s one of the biggest things that you can do,” Nakkanti added, “is delegitimize the power that these movements have.”
At “Multitudes: The Power of Authentic and Diverse Representation in Muslim Stories,” a multiethnic panel of Muslim authors and educators discussed ways in which their works are often underrepresented, misrepresented, censored, or silenced.
“As authors, many of our organizations have not stood up for us the way they have for Ukraine and other topics and other groups in the past,” noted Rhonda Roumani, whose book Tagging Freedom (Union Square Kids, 2023) explains the origins of the current civil war in Syria and centers on protest and revolution. She added that Arab representation in kid lit is scant. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center at University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Education reports that, in 2023, only 1.2% of the books it received were by an Arab author and only .9% included representation of the culture.
To support the Muslim community, librarians can expand their collections and personal knowledge. Don’t limit Muslim stories to diversity units, suggested M. O. Yuksel, author of One Wish (HarperCollins, 2022), a picture book about Fatima Al-Fihri, the woman who founded the world’s oldest university in 859 AD, which is still operating in Fez, Morocco. Including Muslim women in Women’s History Month observations, for example, is particularly important to counter harmful stereotypes.
“As Muslims, we don’t all speak the same language or share the same culture or even eat the same foods,” Yuksel said. “What we don’t understand, we fear, and what we fear turns into online bullying and harassment and other dehumanizing acts.”
As many librarians know, battling book bans, unjust systems, and other forms of oppression can come at a large personal cost. At the ALA President’s Program, panelists discussed proud career moments that have helped them stay motivated on the job even when times are tough.
Christina Gavin, librarian at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, New York, discussed her efforts to organize school librarians in New York City. An elected union delegate for her chapter of the United Federation of Teachers, she helped form a subcommittee of school librarians on the contract negotiations committee.
“A saying I really like is, ‘Solidarity is a verb,’” Gavin said. “In libraries, that extends to your patrons but also your internal supporters.… Whoever your people are, find them, don’t be afraid to ask them for help, and don’t be afraid to help them. We’re all in this work together.”
Talking across the aisle
Several programs focused on connecting people who don’t normally interact with each other, or who hold differing political opinions. During “Bridgebuilding: Fostering Community Engagement, Dialogue, and Interactions in Libraries,” speakers pointed out that the US is enduring a period marked by division, social isolation, and segregation, making it difficult to relate to those who are different from us.
“We have a role, and even a responsibility, to create a space where we can … bring democracy back to our country,” said Jennie Garner, director of North Liberty (Iowa) Community Library (NLCL) and past president of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries.
At NLCL, bridgebuilding has manifested in different ways. The library has hosted Pizza and Politicians, a series in which politicians talk to teens about the importance of their work over a slice; an entrepreneurship program for immigrants; a Good Neighbor Book Club, which selects titles with civic and political themes; and Living Room Conversations that tackle tough topics, such as “Can we get along when we’re voting?”
“We’re hearing that people want more of [these tough conversations],” Garner said.
At “Fostering Conversation and Connection among Community Members with Contrasting Political Views,” Wendy DeGroat, librarian at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, Virginia, told the audience about overhearing students in her library debating topics like gun rights. Their conversations devolved into shouting matches, with no one really hearing the other side.
So, in 2021, when the national storytelling nonprofit StoryCorps launched One Small Step (OSS)—a program that encourages those on opposite sides of political issues to understand each other as people—DeGroat leapt at the chance to adapt it for her students.
“It is so easy to silo and just listen to people who think like us, who have the same viewpoints as us,” DeGroat said. Part of her school’s strategic plan is to foster a sense of belonging, an aim that aligns with OSS. While the original program format includes a facilitator, DeGroat instead decided to lead students in a series of workshops on active listening and mindfulness before pairing them for conversations.
In 2024, more than a quarter of the school’s graduating class had participated in OSS. While some were primarily interested in the community service credit, others came with a sense of curiosity. Among the reasons from the participants: “I don’t really believe that other people exist that have these different opinions that would like to talk to me in a civil way.” To some, the idea “seems like a fairy tale.”
Photo: Sanhita SinhaRoy/American Libraries
At “When to Tap-In and Tap-Out: Nurturing Resilience and Renewing Bonds in Library Teams,” library workers from Brooklyn (N.Y.) Public Library (BPL) discussed Branch Tap-Ins, an initiative that allows frontline staff and administrators to better understand each other’s roles by swapping places for a day.
Nicole T. Bryan, manager at BPL’s Macon branch, said tap-ins are designed to enhance library staffers’ productivity, foster team dynamics, and promote resilience. They’re an opportunity, she said, “to really recharge and connect with each other.” Administrators can also gain a better understanding and appreciation of daily operations.
These tap-ins gave frontline staffers the opportunity to visit a museum or find other ways to connect with colleagues in a nonstressful environment. In exchange, administrators filled in at the circulation desk or provided storytimes, for example. The initiative eventually spread to all 60-plus BPL branches.
“It was our way of saying, ‘We hear you, we see you, we feel you, and we’ve got your back,’” said LaMeane C. Isaac, BPL regional director.
Helping kids with hard emotions
For young ones, managing feelings like anxiety or impulses like perfectionism isn’t always easy. Three different celebrity authors, each with their own new book, spoke about how they hope their works will help children navigate the often tricky world of emotions.
Max Greenfield, best known for his roles in sitcoms New Girl and The Neighborhood, has written Good Night Thoughts (G. P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, September), a children’s book about calming anxiety before bedtime. In it, the main character reflects on the fears preventing him from sleeping (such as robot sharks, a toilet overflowing with tarantulas, and the dentist).
“What I love so much about the book is, it’s not taking those fears, thoughts, and anxieties a child may face before they go to bed and dismissing them, or saying they’re not real, or saying, ‘Oh, don’t worry about this,’” he said. “It’s trying to find a way to surrender to them, accept them, or build a different relationship to them.”
Academy Award–nominated actor, producer, author, and mental health advocate Taraji P. Henson discussed her debut picture book, You Can Be a Good Friend (No Matter What!), published by Zonderkidz in June. Illustrated by Paul Kellam, the book follows Lil TJ on her first day of school as she navigates making friends, handling bullies, and staying true to herself. Henson noted that telling this story and addressing its theme of mental health was part of her healing process as an adult.
“This is little me, this is my little TJ, my little girl inside of me that I’m finally giving a voice to,” she said. “You have to let that little child on the inside of you thrive.”
Conversations around mental health are new to many marginalized and underrepresented groups, particularly Black communities, Henson said: “[The book] is an icebreaker for parents and children to have these different conversations.” She added that she included mental health resources in the book for readers to refer to as needed. “When our children hurt, we hurt, and we go into fix-it mode,” she said. “Well, you can’t fix something if you don’t have the tools.”
Anika Noni Rose wants us all to be nicer to ourselves. The Tony Award–winning actor, singer, and storytime series host—perhaps best known for voicing Princess Tiana in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog—has written Tiana’s Perfect Plan (Disney Hyperion, October), a picture book that teaches kids the importance of self-forgiveness. Illustrated by Olivia Duchess, it follows the adventures of Princess Tiana in preparing a New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration for her royal in-laws.
“Things don’t always go the way you want them to go, and yet they still turn out right, they turn out okay,” Rose told attendees at the conference’s Closing Session July 2. “I want [children] to be able to experiment and experience without shackling them to the word perfection.”
What does Rose hope readers take away from her book? “Give ourselves some grace—we all make mistakes,” she said. “We have to give ourselves some room to be something other than perfect, and just be.”
Sexuality, abuse, harassment
Sexuality education and sex education are not the same. It’s a common misconception among parents, said 1st-grade teacher Sara DeSabato—one that she often debunks in her work cultivating gender and sexuality curricula for elementary-age students.
“When they think sex education, they think of themselves in middle school where all the girls go into one room, all the boys go into another, and then they learn about completely different things and never talk about it again,” she says. “We want to make it really, really clear that is not what we’re doing.”
DeSabato—who teaches at Friends Select School (FSS), a private, Quaker pre-K–12 school in Philadelphia—and Allison Frick, FSS lower school STEAM librarian, talked about their years-long efforts to implement age-appropriate, inclusive lessons on these subjects for kids ages 4–10.
Topics include gender expression, knowledge of the body, sexuality and family forming, personal safety, and—for the oldest students—puberty. Associated classroom activities have included a pre-K class that drew themselves as mermaids after reading Jessica Love’s Julián Is a Mermaid and 3rd-graders making information charts about consent and how it presents itself in various situations. In the library, Frick has helped students make informational posters about the words in the LGBTQIA+ acronym and conducted a Keith Haring–inspired art project with students after they read a book about the famed artist.
Other Annual sessions focused on unwanted sexual contact or abuse. Eight-time NCAA champion gymnast Maggie Nichols talked about her experience reporting sexual abuse in USA Gymnastics (USAG) under physiatrist Larry Nassar. As “Athlete A,” Nichols was the first to report Nassar’s abuse to the organization and the first to join the civil suit against him. (Nassar is currently serving the first of three prison sentences for his crimes.) “Speaking up and using my voice and reporting the abuse when I did was exactly the right thing to do,” she said. “I hope I helped a lot of people along the way doing that [and] made it a safer environment for athletes.”
Nichols’s recent memoir Unstoppable! (Roaring Book Press) provides a look at the world of elite gymnastics—both positive and negative. “We put our bodies through the craziest skills,” she said. “To become an elite gymnast, it took hours and hours in the gym … but the sacrifice is totally worth it.”
As far as the current state of USAG, Nichols said she has “seen so many incredible steps in the right direction. A lot of the girls seem happier and healthier.” She added: “I think it’s important to continue to talk about everything that happened.”
At “‘It’s Not Okay. It’s Not Normal’: Sexual Harassment of Librarians and Implications for the Field,” Candice Benjes-Small, head of research at William & Mary Libraries in Williamsburg, Virginia, said, “We know that our profession has had issues going back to the days of Melvil Dewey.”
Spurred by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, Benjes-Small and Jennifer Resor-Whicker, university librarian at Radford (Va.) University, along with several other researchers, surveyed public and academic librarians in 2018 and again in 2022 to assess the issue of sexual harassment in libraries. Results revealed that 75% of respondents had experienced this type of harassment from coworkers, patrons, or both. Among public librarians, 89.3% reported experiencing sexual harassment in the past five years of their career. For academic librarians, it was 77%. Those who have public-facing roles or are under the age of 40 were more likely to report being harassed.
Many respondents described numerous occasions of being asked out, given unwanted gifts, followed to their cars, asked for their phone numbers, and subjected to sexual innuendo, advances, or aggression, among other things. The following themes emerged from those narratives: administrative response (or lack thereof), persistence, disengagement, power imbalances, patrons being prioritized over staff, fear, bearing witness, and normalization.
Benjes-Small suggested that libraries adopt policies or codes of conduct around the issue if they haven’t already. The psychological and physical safety of employees is critical, she said. “It is the responsibility of an organization to build a climate that is intolerant of sexual harassment.”
