Author Archive: Diana Panuncial

Tina Chenoweth, interim manager of the Charleston County (S.C.) Public Library (CCPL) Bees Ferry West Ashley branch, speaks at “Animal Crossing’s Enduring Success: Building Community Relationships Through Collaborative Online Gaming,” a session held June 26 at the 2022 American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C.

An Island of Community

June 26, 2022

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a collaborative, cozy, social simulation video game for the Nintendo Switch where players create their own characters and design their own island. In addition to the upkeep of owning an island, players can visit each other’s islands, trade in-game items, and help one another complete tasks. The video game was … Continue reading An Island of Community



John Cho

Breaking the Cycle

June 25, 2022

Cho used the 1992 Los Angeles riots as a backdrop for exploring Jordan’s family dynamic. “The boy [Jordan] sees the LA riots and it’s a personal problem,” he said. “It endangers his father … The father sees it as a livelihood issue—they’re threatening my store, perhaps, and the store is our college fund, it’s food, … Continue reading Breaking the Cycle


From left, Lois Lowry, Cynthia Kadohata, Tae Keller, and Jerry Craft.

Winner’s Circle

June 1, 2022

American Libraries interviewed Jerry Craft, Cynthia Kadohata, Tae Keller, and Lois Lowry about their past Newbery Medals in honor of the award’s 100th anniversary. Jerry Craft Recipient of the 2020 Newbery Medal for New Kid How did you react when you learned you had won the Newbery Medal? At 6:42 a.m., the phone rang. I … Continue reading Winner’s Circle


June is Audiobook Appreciation Month

By the Numbers: Audiobook Appreciation Month

June 1, 2022

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month. 1998 Year the Audio Publishers Association—which represents the audiobook industry—established June as Audiobook Appreciation Month. 71,000 Number of audiobooks published in the United States in 2020. 1975 Year that the company Books on Tape was founded by Duvall Hecht, an Olympic gold medalist in rowing and a former Marine Corps … Continue reading By the Numbers: Audiobook Appreciation Month



Photo of young people playing chess

A Winning Move

March 1, 2022

In 2001 it was the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone film, which culminates with its heroes playing a giant, magical game of high-stakes chess, says HPL Librarian Alison Creech. In 2020, during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders, the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit put the spotlight back on the … Continue reading A Winning Move


Tristan Wheeler (right), audio-visual and event planning specialist at Cleveland Public Library, plays Windjammers with streamers from sfxxPLAY on Twitch.

The Twitching Hour

September 1, 2021

The livestreaming platform Twitch is primarily used by gamers who broadcast themselves playing videogames. Anyone can watch from anywhere for free. The platform entered the mainstream in 2020, when the number of active streamers on the platform more than doubled over the year, from just under 4 million to more than 9 million. Twitch is most … Continue reading The Twitching Hour


A wooden kamishibai box, which contains illustrated cards ((Photo: Geo1208)

Think Inside the Box

March 1, 2021

Clack, clack! Siskind hits the sticks together, sets them down, and opens the flaps on the front of the box to create a small stage showing the illustrated cover of that day’s kamishibai storytime. Kamishibai, or “paper theater,” is a form of storytelling that originated in Japan in the late 1920s. Storytellers would ride into … Continue reading Think Inside the Box


The Masterpiece Book Club at Chicago Public Library’s Vodak–East Side branch hosted a Miss Fisher–themed holiday party in 2015. Photo: Nancy Devlin

Tales as Old as Time

January 4, 2021

For every meeting, Czulno would dress up as a character from books the club was reading and shows it was watching. For instance, when the group read the stories of G. K. Chesterton, she wore the black cape, hat, and glasses of Father Brown, the character who lent his name to the Masterpiece show. “It wasn’t just … Continue reading Tales as Old as Time


Teens at San Francisco Public Library created Life in SF: Luck, Loss, Gain, a board game that explores inequity in their city. Photo: Dorcas Wong/San Francisco Public Library

The Missing Piece

November 2, 2020

In turn, each player’s social class determined their stakes in Life in SF: Luck, Loss, Gain, a Monopoly-esque game that simulates poverty and inequity in San Francisco, complete with properties and transit lines familiar to the group. Around the time the teens were developing the board game last year, San Francisco reported a nearly 7% … Continue reading The Missing Piece


Fourth graders at Greensview Elementary in Upper Arlington, Ohio, battle their custom Sphero robots.

Robots: Activate

March 2, 2020

“As soon as you popped a balloon, it got everyone’s attention,” Jill Merkle, library media specialist at Greensview Elementary in Upper Arlington, Ohio, says. “It was fun to see the students rally and root for one another.” Merkle and Kristen Pavlasek, who now teaches 3rd grade at Greensview Elementary, teamed up in 2018 to create … Continue reading Robots: Activate