Within an hour, library leaders had been alerted to the suspicious activity, and the IT director had disconnected the servers, halting a ransomware attack mid-strike. “We caught them in the act,” says OTPL Director Chase McMunn. Worldwide, more than 15 million cyberattacks have been reported every year since 2020. At public institutions like libraries, these … Continue reading Road to Recovery
30,000 Number of objects—in addition to 40 million pages of documents—held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Ralph Wilson Jr. Pro Football Research and Preservation Center in Canton, Ohio. The archive has more than 100 scrapbooks, game programs, and game summaries dating back to the early 20th century, as well as biographical files for … Continue reading By the Numbers: Sports
“There’s a reason [for the lyrics of] ‘Bulls on Parade’ by Rage Against the Machine: ‘They don’t gotta burn the books / They just remove ’em.’ That’s what authoritarian regimes always do. Libraries and books are always the first step, along with picking out marginalized and oppressed communities. We have to point it out … Continue reading Noted and Quoted: Intellectual Freedom
“A core front in the culture wars is: What does it mean to be a full human being under the age of 18?” says Emily Knox, interim dean and professor at the School of Information Sciences at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a board member of the nonprofit National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). “We’re in … Continue reading The Next Generation of Activists
B&T is in the process of closing following financial difficulties experienced over the last two years, according to Publishers Weekly; Shaw Local, a media group in northern Illinois; and a handful of individuals who reported being laid off on Reddit and other social media. While B&T has not yet issued a public statement and did … Continue reading Baker & Taylor to Cease Operations
Banned Books Week takes place October 5–11. This year’s theme is “Censorship Is So 1984. Read for Your Rights.” 1982 Year that ALA held its first Banned Books Week. 2,452 Total number of unique titles challenged in libraries in in 2024 that were documented by ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. While that number is a … Continue reading By the Numbers: Banned Books Week 2025
What is your earliest memory of a library? I think it’s probably my elementary school library. I went to public school in a suburb of Detroit called Bloomfield Hills—Pine Lake Elementary. It was this really beautiful building. The classrooms were all round. In my memory, we’d be in the library a few times a week. … Continue reading Meet Dan Montgomery
Within an hour, library leaders had been alerted to the suspicious activity, and the IT director had disconnected the servers, halting a ransomware attack mid-strike. “We caught them in the act,” says OTPL Director Chase McMunn. Ransomware attacks and cybersecurity incidents are no longer rare, with more than 15 million cyberattacks worldwide annually since 2020, … Continue reading Road to Recovery
“If you have anxiety, you can build your worst-case [driving] scenario and then play through it as many times as you need to realize that you have power over that scenario,” says Gabriella Norton, a librarian at MEBAL who helped bring the technology to the library. “What could you do if, God forbid, an actual … Continue reading License to Learn
In 2022, as part of the City Librarian’s Innovation Challenge, Toronto Public Library (TPL) asked staff to submit ideas for workforce development initiatives. Recognizing Canada’s high unemployment rate among autistic adults, TPL librarians Tim Feller and Melanie LaFleche suggested an event at which neurodivergent job seekers could connect with employers and employment resources in a … Continue reading An Accessible Expo
London, Milan, New York, and Paris will host their Fashion Weeks throughout September and October. 754 Number of 20th-century vintage sewing and knitting patterns held by Arizona State University’s California Center Library in Los Angeles. 1,500 Number of fashion designers whose files can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s Irene Lewisohn … Continue reading By the Numbers: Fashion and Beauty
“We’ve always had a hardcore group of local writers,” says Erin Helmrich, librarian at AADL. The library first launched a program to provide support, learning, and advice for local emerging writers. That program, she says, “started the idea percolating of how else we could support the local writing community.” And so emerged Fifth Avenue Press, … Continue reading Going to Press
