Over 11 years, Hylton built relationships with and interviewed former Crownsville patients and staff members and examined records at the Maryland State Archives. Her new book, Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum (Legacy Lit), to be released January 23, traces Crownsville’s nearly 100-year history. Milton Kent, journalism professor at Morgan State University … Continue reading Breaking the Stigma
Jasmine Shumaker, reference and instruction librarian, and Joe Lee, interlibrary loan specialist, both at University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, shared their experiences at “Steering the ‘Ship: Navigating a Cross-Departmental, Cross-Status Mentorship in an Academic Library,” a January 20 ShopTalk program at the American Library Association’s 2024 LibLearnX conference in … Continue reading Breaking Down Silos
She started the Race Card Project with 200 postcards—printed at Kinko’s on her way to taking her kids to soccer practice—inviting whoever picked them up to share their thoughts on race, in exactly six words. She dropped them at a variety of venues while on a book tour. More than 500,000 personal narratives later, the … Continue reading Six Words, Countless Conversations
Libraries and schools nationwide are working overtime to repel an unprecedented level of attacks on the freedom to read. Vigorous debate, advocacy, and coalition-building remain the backbone of the fight against book banning. But some libraries, groups, and individuals have recently taken innovative approaches to ensure information access for all. Books Unbanned is one of … Continue reading Unbanned
The 2023 Banned Books Week youth honorary chair spoke with American Libraries about the power of young activists, the importance of expressing identity authentically, and what gives him hope in challenging times. What does it mean to you to be chosen as the youth honorary chair of Banned Books Week, especially as the US is … Continue reading Newsmaker: Da’Taeveyon Daniels
At the “Cloud Watching for NASA” session at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, Jessica Taylor, atmospheric scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center demonstrated GLOBE Observer, a citizen science mobile app created by NASA’s Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program. She was one of three … Continue reading Watching Clouds for NASA
Iowa City Public Library is now purchasing books on CD by request only, and by FY25 it plans to phase out its CD formats. Librarian Melody Dworak and Web Specialist Alyssa Hanson shared what they have learned about providing app-based audiobook service in the session “Accessible Digital Libraries: Navigating Audiobook Apps with Low-Vision Patrons” at … Continue reading Accessible Audiobooks in a Post-CD World
Patterson’s upcoming book, The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading (Little, Brown, 2024), shares stories from dozens of librarians and booksellers. But he attended American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago largely in support of Amina Luqman-Dawson, whose Freewater won both the Newbery Medal and … Continue reading James Patterson on Libraries, Librarians, and Book Bans
“I think that to have a collection that is high-quality and has the layers of complexity you would expect from a collection, you need both OER and traditionally published materials,” said Robertson, assistant professor and outreach librarian at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, in the “It’s Not Either/Or!: How to Include Open Access Materials to Transform Curriculum … Continue reading Blending Open Access and Traditionally Published Materials
“The presidency that is the main thrust of this particular story is also the story of the first digital president,” said Obama Presidential Center museum director Dr. Louise Bernard. Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden interviewed Bernard and Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown about the Center at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference and … Continue reading A Presidential Center Preview
Librarians hoping to avoid last-minute scrambling to prepare for the upcoming annular (on October 14, 2023) and total solar (on April 8, 2024) eclipses visible in the continental United States attended the session “A Procrastinator’s Guide to the 2023/2024 Solar Eclipses” at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago on June … Continue reading Preparing for the Next Great American Eclipse
USU’s efforts are one example of the benefits that can be gained when different types of libraries collaborate. Librarians from USU and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, shared success stories in the session “Connecting Library Experiences: Collaboration Across Library Types to Better Support our Patrons” at the American Library Association’s 2023 Annual Conference and … Continue reading Library Collaboration to Improve Information Literacy
