McKibben minced no words. “We are currently losing the battle for a livable planet,” he said. “We need to use every model we can think of to get back in this fight. We need to understand the vast scale and pace of the problem of climate change in order to get the right scale and … Continue reading Fighting the Battle for a Livable Planet
Iyer said that in the wake of the September 11 attacks, these communities faced three different types of repression: public acts of discrimination, governmental surveillance and intimidation, and a media narrative that demonized them as terrorists. “All of this came together to form a climate of isolation and fear” that did not end a year … Continue reading Living in a Climate of Fear
Annie Pho, inquiry and instruction librarian for peer services and public programs at University of California, Los Angeles, said the session’s name was adapted from a book by activist Howard Zinn, whose point was that, like a train, events are moving in a certain direction and you have to decide whether to stay on or … Continue reading You Can’t Stay Neutral on a Moving Train
Another of the students was Joan Mattison Daniel, a then-18-year-old freshman at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, who recently told American Libraries that “Jesse Jackson was responsible for our getting together to stage the sit-in. He had come home in January and needed a book to write a paper. The book was not at the … Continue reading The Greenville Eight
One secret of NLLD is that talking with office staffers about the state (what section they are from, the best places to ski, theaters and restaurants of the past, alma maters) is an excellent ice breaker and serves to relax everyone, including the librarians. Stapp’s group did this with finesse. Daines’s aide Joshua Sizemore is … Continue reading Montana Goes to Washington
The number of attendees was the highest in 10 years, spurred by the Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget that would eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that distributes federal funding to state library agencies and other grant programs. As ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels said in his opening statement … Continue reading Advocacy in Critical Times
Ghafoori, who has been with AUAF since 2008, said he had visited several public, academic, and government libraries in the past three weeks, among them San Diego (Calif.) Public Library, University of Nebraska Omaha library, the Library of Congress, the State Library of Maine, and Lithgow Public Library in Augusta, Maine. He was impressed with … Continue reading A Visitor from Kabul
So when the ACLU of Illinois held its annual luncheon at the Hilton Chicago on March 17, FTRF and other staffers from the American Library Association (ALA) headquarters joined some 2,000 other like-minded individuals for its program on “Fighting for a More Perfect Union.” Although the topics addressed did not touch on libraries per se, … Continue reading Old Snake, New Skin
Memorials were read for J. McRee “Mac” Elrod; Robert “Bob” Alan; Valerie Bross; Sandra “Sandy” Friedman Dolnick; Nettie B. Taylor; Ruth Gordon; John Shuler; Karen Avenick; Robert White; and Warren “Jim” Haas. A tribute was offered to honor Emily Sheketoff for her service as executive director of the ALA Washington Office. William “Bill” Sudduth, chair, … Continue reading Council III Addresses Gun Violence
Donna McDonald, director of the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System and secretary of United for Libraries, noted that many public library users are “unaware of the library’s funding challenges, and the biggest supporters may not be frequent users.” Elected officials can often be a “hard sell” because they are also looking at funding for … Continue reading Advocate Proactively
The keynote speaker was Daina Ramey Berry, associate professor of history and African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin and author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh (2017), a history of the economic value of slaves from birth to death. “Slavery does not stop people from fighting for … Continue reading “Freedom Ain’t Never Been Free!”
The event was streamed live on the American Libraries Facebook page, where it is available for replay. Cheryl Gorman, senior fellow of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, served as moderator for the 90-minute session, which gave each member a maximum of three minutes to state his or her concerns. A total of 32 individuals … Continue reading ALA’s Town Hall Meeting
