Author Archive: Carrie Smith

Authors Khadijah VanBrakle, Huda Al-Marashi, Natasha Khan Kazi, and Diana Ma at a table.

Muslim Voices in Children’s Literature

By Carrie Smith | July 1, 2024

“My daughter was told that you can’t be Black and Muslim at the same time,” said author Khadijah VanBrakle. “I come from an Iraqi Shia background,” said author Huda Al-Marashi. “Even in a nonfiction textbook, the only definition of us was as the radical group of Muslims.” Muslims are one of the most racially diverse … Continue reading Muslim Voices in Children’s Literature →

Justine Withers, Kim Hill, and Adam Chandler at ALA Annual 2024

Patron Privacy and Enhanced Research

By Carrie Smith | June 30, 2024

Panelists at “Identity and Authentication: Enhancing the Research Experience with Responsible Use of Patron Data,” moderated by Justine Withers, electronic resources librarian at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, addressed these and other questions around privacy policies in the academic library. The panel took place on Saturday, June 30, at the American Library Association’s … Continue reading Patron Privacy and Enhanced Research →

Jennifer Pate at a podium gesturing while speaking

Going Hard on Trivial Pursuits

By Carrie Smith | June 30, 2024

In 2021, Jennifer Pate and Margaret McGuire teamed up to host team trivia nights at University of North Alabama’s Collier Library, where they both worked at the time. While the library “gamified” a number of activities, they wanted a program that wasn’t directly related to academics and would build community. They shared their experience developing … Continue reading Going Hard on Trivial Pursuits →

Wendy DeGroat stands with a microphone in front of a slide at ALA Annual 2024 in San Diego

Seeing the Inner Light of Humanity

By Carrie Smith | June 30, 2024

That’s why, 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. On Saturday, June 29, DeGroat shared her experience with OSS in “Fostering Conversation and … Continue reading Seeing the Inner Light of Humanity →

Kathleen Donahoe, robot archive processing archivist at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), poses with a selection of robots in CMU's archive.

Bookend: Completing the Circuit

By Carrie Smith | March 1, 2024

How do you archive a robot? This is the question that Kathleen Donahoe, robot archive processing archivist at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Libraries in Pittsburgh, and a team of archivists, roboticists, and preservation experts seek to answer through the Robotics Project, which launched in 2019. “There are just so many layers to how a robotics … Continue reading Bookend: Completing the Circuit →

Philip Espe stands in a room with filing cabinets in the background. He is in a red US Marine Band uniform holding a stack of sheet music. Various pieces of music, memorability, and children's books are arranged on the table in front of him.

Bookend: Marching Full Circle

By Carrie Smith | November 1, 2023

All signs pointed to Philip Espe joining the Marines. The 34-year-old comes from a long line of military family members. But he also had a calling in music. Espe studied clarinet performance, earned a master’s of music in orchestral conducting, and directed community and youth orchestras. He used those skills when serving as a youth … Continue reading Bookend: Marching Full Circle →

Tracy Seneca, head of digital program services at UIC talks about bringing historical Chicago building permits online at ALA's 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.

Scrappy Mapping

By Carrie Smith | June 28, 2023

“We’d find shards of microfilm on the floor,” said Tracy Seneca, UIC’s head of digital program services. The collection was scanned in 2018, but the scans were no easier to search than the microfilm—you still needed to know the exact address, she said. Seneca is now helping UIC make searchable, online digital records of its … Continue reading Scrappy Mapping →

Christy Lau, senior children's librarian at New York Public Library shares stories from the library's Teen Reading Ambassadors program at ALA's 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.

Connecting Near-Peers

By Carrie Smith | June 27, 2023

“And then chaos ensued,” said Christy Lau, senior children’s librarian at Chatham Square. “But not really.” Lau, along with Olisha James, the Teen Reading Ambassador Program manager and Rachel Roseberry, NYPL’s associate director of young adult programs and services, shared how the program has supported and connected youth and library staff. “Near-Peer Leadership at the … Continue reading Connecting Near-Peers →

Robbie Barber, teacher-librarian at Tucker (Ga.) High School shared some of the ways she engages students in digital image literacy at the 2023 American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.

That Light Looks Weird

By Carrie Smith | June 26, 2023

Robbie Barber, teacher-librarian at Tucker (Ga.) High School, shared some of the ways she engages students in digital image literacy in her session “Picture This! The Literacy of Digital Images” at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on June 26. “The more knowledge and experience people have, the better they … Continue reading That Light Looks Weird →

Andiswa Mfengu, lecturer in the Department of Knowledge and Information Stewardship at the University of Cape Town talks about how the OCLC New Model Library Framework applies to libraries in Africa at the American Library Association's 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.

A Global New Normal

By Carrie Smith | June 26, 2023

The session “From Pandemic to Endemic: Global Experiences and Perspectives on an OCLC New Model Library Framework” brought together library workers from three continents alongside members of the research team who created the model to explore commonalities and key differences in how international libraries experienced the pandemic. Clara M. Chu, director of the Mortenson Center … Continue reading A Global New Normal →

Danielle Costello, librarian at Louisiana State University, explains game jams for creating tabletop roleplaying games at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.

Jam Forever

By Carrie Smith | June 25, 2023

While game jams—or accelerated game creation events—started as a way to develop video games, they’re also useful for creating tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). The best-known TTRPG systems, like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, and Call of Cthulhu, include rulebooks that can run to hundreds of pages and have steep price tags, but there are a host … Continue reading Jam Forever →

(Left to right) Trevor Watkins, , Hannah Byrd Little, director of library and archives at the Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, Jonathan McMichael, undergraduate success librarian at Arizona State University, Fernando A, and Kate Delaney, public services librarian at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine discuss ChatGPT and other generative AI tools at ALA Annual 2023 in Chicago.

Information Literacy for the ChatGPT Age

By Carrie Smith | June 25, 2023

Delaney moderated the “Core Top Ten Technology Trends: Libraries Take On ChatGPT” panel Saturday, June 24, at American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago. Four panelists from public, academic, and school libraries shared thoughts on what library workers should know about the technology, how it’s being used, and the potential risks and … Continue reading Information Literacy for the ChatGPT Age →

Latest Library Links

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Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
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Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
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Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
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Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

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