Use the Annual Conference Scheduler to start planning. Speakers who inspire Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit working to close the gender gap in technology, will be the featured speaker at the Opening General Session (June 23). ALA President Julie B. Todaro welcomes actor, producer, designer, and library and literacy … Continue reading 2017 ALA Annual Conference Must-Dos
American Libraries spoke to library tech leaders—members of the Library and Information Technology Association’s popular Top Tech Trends panel from the 2017 Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits—to get the apps, devices, software, and best practices that you can adopt for your library right now and in the near future. 1. Take patrons on a virtual tour … Continue reading Top Library Tech Trends
The students and their topics are: April Lynne Anderson (Iowa State University in Ames) examined information literacy programs in community colleges. Laura K. Clark (Florida State University in Tallahassee) explored the motivations of caregivers who bring children to emergent literacy programs in the public library. Sarah Clark (Oklahoma State University in Stillwater) investigated the ways … Continue reading Notable Dissertations 2017
You have published work in so many formats: novels, books of essays and short stories, a comic book (Marvel’s Black Panther: World of Wakanda, with Ta-Nehisi Coates and Yona Harvey), plus an upcoming memoir and a screenplay. What are the different challenges and rewards of working in each medium? Storytelling is storytelling, I have learned, … Continue reading Newsmaker: Roxane Gay
Don’t ask Brunsdale to name a favorite item; instead, “it’s the stories that draw me in,” she says, such as the contents of a 1907 letter from circus magnate Otto Ringling to his brothers, suggesting that they purchase the rival outfit of Barnum & Bailey. Among other highlights of the collection: an elephant harness and … Continue reading Bookend: Not Clowning Around
The Soufrière Young Authors project has published six books since its first workshop in April 2016. Its goal is to produce all of its students’ books and distribute them widely on the 27-mile-long island. Peace Corps volunteer Grace Kilbane and Soufrière Public Library Librarian Catherine Prospere developed the project as a way to increase literacy … Continue reading Soufrière Young Authors Project
“The librarian profession cares a great deal about the public’s right to privacy, and this is a very serious erosion of that,” says Alison Macrina. Macrina is director of Library Freedom Project, an organization that educates librarians about privacy-related rights and tools. “It means that whatever ISP we use in the library is now privy … Continue reading How to Protect Patrons’ Digital Privacy
For the first five days of her first job out of college, as an intern for the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois, Hamilton-Smith oversaw the transfer and preservation of about 2.5 million postcards and related materials. Each item held a different degree of historical significance, none of them were cataloged, and all were … Continue reading Greetings from the Newberry Library
Where did the title Choose to Matter come from? It comes from a summer leadership academy we’ve been doing for 10-plus years, which is a combination of sports and leadership woven together for a weeklong residential camp. Our tagline is “Choose to Matter” with the kids, because our message is that leadership is personal, not … Continue reading Newsmaker: Julie Foudy
Kowalsky is a librarian and professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, where she teaches and supervises undergraduate learners and graduate students in their research endeavors. Woodruff is director of the Academic Success Center and Disability Resources at Rowan University. He coordinates campus services for students with disabilities and manages transitions for students entering … Continue reading A Conversation with Authors Michelle Kowalsky and John Woodruff
“We can learn a great deal about what may happen in the future by looking systematically at what is actually happening now,” wrote Edward Cornish, one of the founders of the World Future Society. We study change so we can prepare for the many futures that might happen. We start seeing what’s coming next. We … Continue reading Our Futures in Times of Change
Initiated in 1997 as a one-year program under former ALA President Mary R. Somerville and revived in 2006 under former ALA President Leslie Burger, Emerging Leaders recognizes the best and brightest new leaders in our industry. It’s open to librarians new to the library profession of any age with fewer than five years of experience … Continue reading Emerging Leaders 2017
