On My Mind Archives | Page 7 of 10 | American Libraries Magazine

Changes and Connections

By Ingrid Parent | February 4, 2014

In 2011, I was elected as president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the global voice of the library and information profession. With my term having ended at the World Information and Library Congress this past August, I wanted to share some thoughts on why libraries remain as relevant as ever … Continue reading Changes and Connections →

Start-Up Librarian

By Cen Campbell | November 11, 2013

Remember all those library jobs that were going to open up once the boomers retired? Pundits prophesied librarians being in demand everywhere, with libraries scrambling to fill empty positions. There weren’t going to be enough librarians to go around! Things haven’t turned out quite as we expected, and now the rhetoric has shifted to the … Continue reading Start-Up Librarian →

Guide to Reading Levels

By Regina Powers | September 24, 2013

By now, we’ve gotten used to the idea that many children’s books identify a Reading Level (RL) somewhere on the jacket or back cover. This number is handy for parents and children’s librarians trying to find books of an appropriate comprehension level for young readers. But where did the number come from? It was generated … Continue reading Guide to Reading Levels →

Under Sequester

By Kathleen Hanselmann | August 20, 2013

More than 260 librarians and almost 800 library technicians who work for the Department of Defense (DOD) are being furloughed 11 days, one day per week from July 8 to September 27, due to sequestration. While this is a personal financial hardship, we are also concerned about having to cut library services for our patrons: … Continue reading Under Sequester →

Analog Ideas, Digital Activism

By Andy Woodworth | July 30, 2013

Standing outside the ice cream freezers at the local grocery store, a notion struck me from out of the blue. “There ought to be a library-themed Ben & Jerry’s flavor.” Alas, to this day, this has not come to pass. But this single serendipitous thought on an otherwise uneventful evening shopping trip is a testament … Continue reading Analog Ideas, Digital Activism →

Retired, but Embedded

By Evie Wilson-Lingbloom | June 13, 2013

As librarians, our skills are as embedded in our personal lives as in our work, and they do not desert us when we leave our positions. After retiring in 2009, I began volunteering at Hedgebrook, a writing residency program for women on Whidbey Island in northwest Washington State. Inspired by its founder, Nancy Skinner Nordhoff, … Continue reading Retired, but Embedded →

There Are No Free Libraries

By D. J. Hoek | March 13, 2013

Over the past few months, an image has been making its way around social media to underscore the value of libraries. It’s a checkout receipt from “your local library” that lists various borrowed items—three DVDs, five books, one ebook, six CDs—and the cost to the borrower for each, all of which are $0. Below the … Continue reading There Are No Free Libraries →

Libraries as Safe Spaces

By Shawn Vaillancourt | December 11, 2012

Without a doubt, the past decade has experienced a sea change in favor of LGBTQ rights. During the 2012 election, voters decided on a series of landmark ballot initiatives at the state level that championed marriage equality; a sitting president (and vice president) has for the first time voiced support for same-sex marriage; and the … Continue reading Libraries as Safe Spaces →

Creating a New Tradition

By Daria D’Arienzo | November 20, 2012

Half a dozen tweens are crowded around several large tables stacked with odds and ends in the windows of the Meekins Library in the center of the small town of Williamsburg, Massachusetts (population 2,500). Two girls kneeling on the floor are pulling things out from under an old oak table that has been part of … Continue reading Creating a New Tradition →

An Old Friend in the Library

By Jennifer Burek Pierce | August 22, 2012

As summer days grew longer and the heat increased, so did my trips to the public library. This summer, I had a companion: a longtime friend’s 84-year-old mother—now another good friend. While I cruised the children’s section, Doris would head to the shelves with large-print books. Her library use heightened my sensibilities about how we … Continue reading An Old Friend in the Library →

My Year of RDA

By Patricia Frade | April 18, 2012

I’ve been a librarian for 30 years and have seen a lot of changes during that time. I’ve welcomed them as new challenges, even as I’ve seen many of my older colleagues become very negative—whining, complaining, and vowing to retire before they have to alter their ways. But in the past couple of years, the … Continue reading My Year of RDA →

Let’s Put an End to Socialized Intellectual Property

By Donald A. Barclay | April 1, 2012

Ed. note: The following is the text of a speech given April 1 by retired United States Rep S. Douglas Maynard before the 4th Annual Restore Intellectual Property Protection for Economic Recovery Summit and Retreat. First of all, to the members of Restore Intellectual Property Protection for Economic Recovery, I wish to extend my sincere … Continue reading Let’s Put an End to Socialized Intellectual Property →

Latest Library Links

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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
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On June 27, the Supreme Court upheld the Universal Service Fund, which funds the E-Rate program. ALA issued a statement regarding the ruling that reads, in part, “The ALA applauds the Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision to uphold the Universal Service Fund. The system of telecommunications subsidies administered by the Federal Communications Commission includes the E-Rate program, which provides libraries and schools billions of dollars each year for broadband access and connectivity. More than half of all public libraries apply for funding to subsidize the cost of internet connectivity through E-Rate each year.”

AL: The Scoop, June 27
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On June 27, ALA announced its new executive director, Daniel J. Montgomery. ALA’s announcement read, in part, “Montgomery has worked on behalf of public education and the rights of workers for more than two decades. He was elected to a three-year term as president of the 103,000-member Illinois Federation of Teachers in October 2010 and has been unanimously reelected every three years since then. He will start at ALA on November 10. The steering committee chose Montgomery because of his commitment to public institutions, his comfort working across diverse and difficult political situations, his service to both cities and rural areas, and his experience managing a complex, member-driven organization.”
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Oliver Moody writes: “In the €100 million Oodi library, which looms over central Helsinki like a cruise ship from the future, robots called Tatu, Patu, and Veera trundle back and forth between the shelves and the reading rooms. Against this backdrop, foreign visitors might be surprised to see how many children and teenagers are engaged in an almost unsettlingly archaic activity: reading and borrowing books. In the age of TikTok, Netflix, and Candy Crush, it is not just Finland’s public libraries that are booming, but also demand for their physical paperbacks and hardbacks.”

The Times (London), June 20

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