Latest Library Links, February 2, 2015

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February 2, 2015

Ferguson (Mo.) Public Library Director Scott Bonner, after his packed Midwinter talk

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Amy Wyckoff and Marie Harris write: “If you tell teens you are hosting a career workshop where they can meet a professional and learn about a specific job, you may see some eye-rolling. The workshop is not an automatic sell, but it can be turned into a huge success as a series with a little effort. It thrives when teens are given partial ownership by helping to choose the professions featured. Library staffers can use this feedback to sculpt the series and market it.”

American Libraries feature, Nov./Dec.
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Liu Cixin, author of the Three-Body trilogy, has won the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society from the Clarke Foundation. An international bestseller, the trilogy has sold in excess of a million copies in China, and 400,000 copies into the UK and Commonwealth. Referring to “new challenges” faced by human society in the 21st century, the director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, Sheldon Brown, said Cixin’s triology “helps us to see our problems.” The lifetime award is given each year for “imagination in service.”

The Bookseller (UK), Nov. 16
11h

Harvard professor Maya Jasanoff has won the 2018 Cundill History Prize for her “genre-bending” and “immaculately researched” account of the life of Polish-born British writer Joseph Conrad. Jasanoff accepted the $75,000 prize, the richest in nonfiction for a single work in English, for The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World (published by William Collins in the UK) at a gala event held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on November 15.

The Bookseller (UK), Nov. 16
12h

Melissa Lindberg writes: “Library of Congress staff members compile subject guides to help researchers find the contents of the collections on a particular subject. LC recently launched the first batch of guides in a new format, utilizing the LibGuides platform, which we hope will make learning about the collections a bit easier. The Prints and Photographs Division’s first guide is in American Indian history and culture. Links to selected collections, searching for images, major reference works, and related resources are given in a sidebar.”

Libray of Congress: Picture This, Nov. 15
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County officials have hired Costa Mesa law firm Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart to investigate allegations of cultural censorship at the La Quinta branch of the Riverside County (Calif.) Library System in September. County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said he hopes a thorough investigation will help the public understand what happened at the library during a September 16 presentation by students from Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Coachella. The children were ordered to remove the Mexican flag and not present an essay about Mexican history during their performance.

Pam Springs (Calif.) Desert Sun, Nov. 15
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A white school media specialist in Maryland was caught on camera November 12 admitting to using a racial slur. The video, posted on Facebook by Dawn Tolson-Hightower under the name Dawn Nichelle Lennon, was taken in a Walmart parking lot in La Plata, Maryland. She can be heard: “Did you call my husband the n-word?” The woman, said to be Darlene Sale, an employee of Potomac Landing Elementary School in Prince George’s County, said: “Yes I did.” Tolson-Hightower said she apparently used the slur “because he didn’t move out the parking spot the way she wanted him to.” Sale has reportedly been reassigned by the school district.

The Independent (UK), Nov. 14
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Mitchell Kuga writes: “Author Michelle Tea started Drag Queen Story Hour in 2015, shortly after giving birth to her son Atticus. As a new mother, she suddenly found herself at events like storytimes at her local San Francisco library branch, which felt welcoming but ‘really straight,’ she said. The writer, who identifies as queer, imagined a storytime that promoted diversity and inclusion, with a pinch of camp. Today, Drag Queen Story Hour has 27 official chapters, and it has inspired countless unofficial offshoots. Readings have mostly found a home at public libraries, often into the crosshairs of the culture wars.”

BuzzFeed News, Nov. 15