The Scoop

Adults Read Manga, Too!

Curating a manga collection for older audiences
By Diana Panuncial | June 29, 2024
Expanding Gender, Sexuality Education

Educators discuss creating age-appropriate curricula for elementary schoolers
By Megan Bennett | June 29, 2024
Libraries Are Love

Author Kwame Alexander pays tribute to the power of books
By Sanhita SinhaRoy | June 29, 2024
A New Class of Librarians

An internship program teaches high schoolers about library careers
By Diana Panuncial | June 29, 2024
Council I: Elevating Intellectual Freedom

Resolution to support school, academic library chapters also passed
By Megan Bennett | June 29, 2024
Top 10 Posts from Opening Day at Annual

Trevor Noah, Rally for the Right to Read, and other highlights in San Diego
June 29, 2024
Spring into Summer with Crafts

Find project ideas for take-and-makes, makerspaces, and classes from Craft & Hobby
June 20, 2024
Transforming Teen Reading with Audiobooks
By Jill Grunenwald | June 18, 2024
Elect to Protect Democracy

ALA, League of Women Voters team up to help voters
By Jessica Jones Capparell | June 18, 2024
Call Number Podcast: Sunny San Diego

Episode 96 explores “America’s Finest City” ahead of Annual Conference
June 18, 2024
Advocates Rally to Fund Libraries

ALA sees 20,000 messages to Congress during “Dear Appropriator” campaign
By Kevin Maher | June 14, 2024
Pun to Step Away from ALA Presidency
June 14, 2024

Latest Library Links

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Angela Hursh writes: “Libraries have great stories to tell. But getting the media to listen isn’t always easy. Here are the top 10 practical tips that Leslie Marinelli, communications manager at Forsyth County (Ga.) Public Library; Ray Holley, communications manager at Sonoma County (Calif.) Library; and I shared [at a recent online panel] for getting your library into the news.”

Super Library Marketing, June 30
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Pranay Parab writes: “I’ve mostly been really happy with my M1 MacBook Air, which I’ve been using for nearly three years now. However, I regret not going for the variant with 16GB of RAM. The newer laptop still occasionally slows down when I open too many browser tabs. Luckily, I did some troubleshooting and fixed the problem, and I’m here to share what I’ve learned with you. So, if Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari or other browsers are slowing down on your computer, try some of these tips to nip that problem in the bud.”

Lifehacker, June 26
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Victoria Cox writes: “LaRue County (Ky.) Board of Education heard both criticism and praise last week when members were asked to remove 14 books from the high school library. Although the vote was split, the board ultimately refused to ban the books, citing the need to uphold the constitutional rights of students” by a 4–1 vote. Books the board considered include The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood; Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi; Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

LaRue County (Ky.) Herald News, June 25
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Jennifer A. Keach, Jenne M. Klotz, and Galen J. Talis write: “Library leaders at all levels are well-placed to create opportunities for joy in their organizations and to model how to do so with nuance and balance. Toward that end, we explored the multidisciplinary literature and compiled an annotated bibliography for leaders who wish to support joy within groups, organizational change agents who want to create equitable conditions for joy in the workplace, and readers seeking to develop their personal practice of joy. We provide a guide exploring five themes: defining joy, finding individual joy, work and organizational joy, empowering change with joy, and joy-adjacent emotions.”

Library Leadership and Management, June 30
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David Vickers Loertscher and Michelle Young write: “This tutorial introduces school librarians to the use of data visualization tools for documenting and communicating their impact on teaching and learning. By leveraging accessible platforms like Google Forms and Google Sheets, the authors demonstrate how librarians can build dashboards and real-time visual reports to showcase co-teaching, instructional collaboration, and student engagement. The tutorial features real-world examples, highlights common data sources already available to librarians, and argues that dynamic visual storytelling is a powerful alternative to traditional library statistics.”

Learning Hub, June 25
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Robin Camille Davis writes: “It wasn’t until seven years into my career as a user experience librarian that I realized I’d been accidentally excluding a sizable segment of users from my user research. Interviews, surveys, and usability studies favor people who are gifted at oral and written communication. What about people who are more gifted at visual communication? In the context of user research, this participatory design invites participants to design their own response to a given prompt.”

Choice 360 LibTech Insights, June 30
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Stories from communities nationwide come to life on ALA’s new Show Up for Our Libraries interactive site map. The stories illustrate the real-life consequences of potential funding cuts to rural, research, city, state, and university library programs and, in turn, to the hundreds of millions of library users across the country. Services such as summer reading programs, telehealth resources, interlibrary loan, and ebooks have all been affected. ALA collected the stories in conversation with patrons, library professionals, and advocates across the country to better understand the impact of federal funding cuts since the President’s executive order to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, June 25