During their talk at the 2017 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, the four authors on the panel—Joseph Cassara, Sophie Yanow, Rakesh Satyal, and Eileen Myles—talked about protest, AIDS during the 1980s, and culture. In discussing family novels and his exploration of the topic in his new novel, The House of Impossible Beauties, Cassara said … Continue reading Out and Proud
![Meredith Evans holds a copy of the 1977 letter she mailed to President Carter when she was 4 years old. She wrote, “I would like to come to your house for my [birthday] party.” Photo: Pete Winkel](https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1116bookend.jpg)
As director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, Evans is the first African-American woman to be appointed as a presidential library director. The Carter Library receives almost 100,000 visitors per year, catering strongly to K–12 students. In fact, the former president requested that admission be free to those 16 or under … Continue reading Bookend: Hail to the Librarian
Edmunson-Morton had been at OSU Libraries for seven years and had the itch to do something different. So in 2013, she pitched the idea of collecting and telling the intertwined story of hops and beer—the first such archive in the US—and within a couple of months it became reality. The first hops were planted on … Continue reading Hoppy Days
Since her days at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Berry has been a prominent activist on issues related to civil rights, gender equality, and social justice. She began her talk recalling how both King’s life and death has influenced her activism. She was studying law at the University of Michigan at the time King was … Continue reading Practicing Activism Every Day
Zittrain addressed those gathered for “Creativity, Innovation, and Change: Libraries Transform in the Digital Age,” asking them what libraries’ core purpose is. “Why do we have the books to begin with?” he asked. He noted four goals that he said were nothing new, radical, or subversive: Freeing the world’s knowledge. This includes digitizing records. For … Continue reading Creativity, Innovation, and Change
A demographic revolution has disrupted the way we age, she said. In fact, the nation’s fastest growing age segment is made up of people over the age of 85. The second fastest is those over the age of 100. Jenkins said she wants to encourage people to look at aging as something to look forward … Continue reading Aging, Disrupted
Theisen’s online video series, Staxpedition, tries to break down these barriers. “We have a will and an enthusiasm, but none of us knows anything about video, and we just really wanted to make them,” she said. Joining Theisen on the panel were Susie Kirk of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and Richert Schnorr of … Continue reading How Do You YouTube?
So Hofschire and her colleagues created a one-page legal-size infographic that summed up more than two decades of data. While it was only a general snapshot, she says, “This was the piece that our users needed to start that conversation with their stakeholders.” And it had a tremendously positive impact. That was three years ago. … Continue reading Data Visualization for the
Rest of Us
A native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Williams credits his mother, who is a librarian and teacher, for being the biggest influence in his life. Williams is featured in a new READ poster, available at the ALA Store. He responded via email to questions from American Libraries while on tour in Europe. American Libraries: In 30 … Continue reading Newsmaker: Pharrell Williams
At Monday’s “Diverse Books Need Us” program, four panelists—an author, a small publisher, a librarian, and a nonprofit advocate—talked about this topic and ways in which librarians can support the call for more diverse books. Joy Triche, founder of Tiger Stripe Publishing, started the company because she “felt the absence of diverse books for many … Continue reading Diverse Books Need Us
Whenever she’s with librarians, she said she thinks of a Richard Wright essay titled “The Library Card,” in which Wright gets a white coworker to lend him a library card and then forges notes to borrow a book. The notes say things like, “Will you let this boy borrow some books by H. L. Mencken?” … Continue reading Edwidge Danticat: The Power of Books and Librarians
In the first video, he discusses the picture books he grew up with and their evocative powers, as well as his own writing process and how he engages young readers’ imaginations. In the second video, Klassen talks about visiting schools, encouraging students to draw and write, and the roles that librarians can play in connecting … Continue reading An Interview with Caldecott Winner Jon Klassen
