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
“When they turn 22, they age out of those services. It’s so big and overwhelming that you can’t really wrap your head around it. I think, ‘What am I going to do? Am I the one that’s going to sit with him all day and try to figure that out?’” says Smith. Smith isn’t alone … Continue reading Aging Out of Sensory Storytime
If the yet-unnamed project sticks to its schedule and finds interest as lively as expected, it could open a new chapter in library technology at least as important as the advent of LSPs and the recent rounds of major company mergers and acquisitions. The initiative builds on the enthusiasm of academic and research libraries for … Continue reading EBSCO Supports New Open Source Project
How did you become this year’s spokesperson for School Library Month? MEGAN McDONALD: It’s been amazing. I didn’t even really grasp what was being asked of me, but the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) came to Candlewick Press, my publisher, and asked if I’d be the spokesperson for School Library Month. I feel so … Continue reading Newsmaker: Megan McDonald
In 2016, along with our regular programming for children, we chose the Montana Historical Society traveling history footlocker, Coming to Montana: Immigrants from Around the World, for field trips with elementary-school children from Darby Public Schools, one of our local partners. The footlocker was exhibited at the library and provided a useful starting point for … Continue reading Perspectives on Islam in Montana
By any measure, the event was a huge success: Some 68 million subscribers to 22 national magazines could read well-placed articles about libraries. A total of 170 million homes served by radio and TV could hear or view 14 network programs on libraries. Readers could glean 11,607 stories celebrating libraries running in newspapers at the … Continue reading National Library Week
On October 23, 2015, Southern California Gas Co. discovered a gas leak at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility, which was pouring up to 1,200 tons of methane into the air daily. Residents reported health problems such as nosebleeds, nausea, headaches, stomach aches, and respiratory issues. Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency on … Continue reading Providing Calm in the Chaos
What made you want to write this book? I spend a lot of time scanning the library environment to identify new directions in library services that I can use at my library. Over time I started to notice that truly new ideas popped up occasionally in the library world but that, as a profession, we … Continue reading A Conversation with Author Elisabeth Doucett
The group is made up of 15–20 active quilters who work in and with libraries—including librarians, staff, trustees, friends, and vendors. By auctioning off their quilts at Annual Conference, they support students who are enrolled or who will enroll in library school. The group was founded in 1998 at the Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., … Continue reading Raising Money for Students One Quilt at a Time
When reading your book, I didn’t know whether to be scared out of my mind about the jihadists or think it’s the greatest thing that these librarians were able to get the manuscripts out of danger. JOSHUA HAMMER: I think both reactions would be appropriate. Fearing for more than 350,000 medieval manuscripts in the city, … Continue reading Newsmaker: Joshua Hammer
Eisenhower’s words shocked many because they constituted his first public challenge to McCarthyism—an ethos enveloping the country at the time and fed by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), who inferred communist conspiracies everywhere in American culture, including books on the shelves of 194 information libraries that the US State Department operated in 61 foreign countries. Like-minded … Continue reading The Freedom to Read
The sea change brought about by digital humanities (DH) resources is still rippling through academia. As Stewart Varner and Patricia Hswe write in their special report on “Digital Humanities in Libraries” (American Libraries, Jan./Feb. 2016), libraries are “unsure how they should respond as DH attracts more and more practitioners and its definition evolves to cover … Continue reading How Librarians and Faculty Use Digital Humanities
