Author Archive: Mark Lawton

Speaking at Trexler Library, Chrysan Cronin, assistant professor and director of public health at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, discusses the dangers of vaping. Photo: Photo: Paul Pearson/Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

By Mark Lawton | March 2, 2020

“A friend of mine is a [high school] teacher,” says NHML Library Technical Assistant Melinda Landino. “One of her students vaped in the bathroom, [then] flatlined in class. They had to bring in EMTs.” NHML is one of many libraries across the US addressing the vaping scare that gained momentum in summer 2019. As of … Continue reading Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire →

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Jennifer LaGarde writes: “I was over the moon excited when Jeff Zentner announced that he was going to be reading his The Serpent King, in its entirety, on Instagram Live over the next several weeks. It was during one of those readings that Jeff came to a scene in which the three main characters are shushed by a librarian. Almost immediately, all the librarians listening lost their minds—filling the screen with comments declaring that ‘librarians don’t shush anymore!’ But even before their chorus of friendly outrage began, Jeff predicted the reaction, offering a caveat about how his understanding of librarianship has grown since the book was published.”
The Adventures of Library Girl, Apr. 6
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The Tennessee Association of School Librarians has received the 2020 AASL Chapter of the Year Award. The $1,000 award recognizes the AASL chapter most active and dynamic in achieving the goals of AASL at the state and local level. The group was cited for its work on Tennessee Library Legislative Day, developing school librarian leadership capacity through professional development, webinars, TASL Talks, Twitter Media Minutes, and promoting AASL events and elections.
AASL, Apr. 6
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Bruce Schneier writes: “Over the past few weeks, Zoom’s use has exploded since it became the video conferencing platform of choice in today’s COVID-19 world. (My own university, Harvard, uses it for all of its classes.) Over that same period, the company has been exposed for having both lousy privacy and lousy security. My goal here is to summarize all of the problems and talk about solutions and workarounds. In general, Zoom’s problems fall into three broad buckets: (1) bad privacy practices, (2) bad security practices, and (3) bad user configurations.”
Schneier on Security, Apr. 3
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Tina Jordan, Elisabeth Egan, and Joumana Khatib write: “If you’ve finished tearing through all seven episodes of the hit show ‘Tiger King’ and you’re looking for more, we’ve got some reading suggestions.”
New York Times, Apr. 2
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Veronica Roth writes: “I am a pessimist. It has served me well in life—and in writing. Science fiction, my preferred genre in reading as in writing, is therefore a predictable match for me. Science fiction warns us. 1984 cautions us against government surveillance, propaganda, and totalitarianism. The Handmaid’s Tale shows us the horrors of systemic misogyny. Science fiction is also a mirror: It reveals us to ourselves, shows us both our complicity in harmful systems and our individual frailties. The Power by Naomi Alderman is an example of the former—what would women do with extraordinary power? The same things as men, it turns out; the system is the problem. People are always people, science fiction says. Even in the future.”
Literary Hub, Apr. 6
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Sarah S. Davis writes: “Natural Poetry Month is the perfect time to start introducing poetry into children’s lives. Thanks to generous online resources, it’s never been easier to find free, quality educational lessons on poetry for kids. In this article, we’ll review six great resource hubs to find children’s poetry for free online. Whether you’re looking for free, printable short poems for kids, rhyming poems for kids, or funny children’s poems, these dynamite websites offer what you need.”
Book Riot, Apr. 6
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Ruth Gilligan writes: “In his 1919 paper on the uncanny, Freud reckoned ‘the frightening element is something that has been repressed and now returns.’ As a nation whose traumatic past is still coming to light, it is safe to say Ireland remains a haunted place. There is also our unique relationship with the supernatural—not just the churchy stuff, but all the myth and superstition. We can be fierce believers in the sinister. Four years ago, I started writing The Butchers, a novel set in the borderlands during the 1996 crisis over mad cow disease. Here are 10 Irish Gothic offerings from which I drew eerie inspiration.”
The Guardian (UK), Apr. 1

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