When people in the US cannot afford an attorney’s services or don’t know the answers to legal questions, they often turn to their local library. Which is exactly why the Law Librarians of New England and its Access to Justice Committee offers targeted resources, education, and outreach to public librarians in their region. The right … Continue reading Justice for All
“Our Silent Book Club has been a surprising success—surprising because if someone had told me a year ago that relaxing on comfortable beanbags and reading whatever books we want to read qualifies as an actual program, I would have yeeted that person straight out of the library,” says Wolfskehl, using the popular slang term for … Continue reading The Sound of Silence
Aaron Mason, Cleveland Public Library’s (CPL) director of outreach and programming services, says that example from one of CPL’s monthly legal aid clinics shows how a number of libraries are filling a significant need in their communities by connecting patrons to civil legal aid. Civil legal matters encompass noncriminal issues such as health care, housing, … Continue reading Meeting Legal Needs
Earth Day will be observed April 22. 1 Year ago the American Library Association (ALA) added sustainability as a core value of librarianship. At the 2019 Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, ALA Council committed to the triple bottom-line framework for sustainability: practices that are environmentally sound, economically feasible, and socially equitable. 50 Number of years Earth … Continue reading By the Numbers: Libraries and Sustainability
“A friend of mine is a [high school] teacher,” says NHML Library Technical Assistant Melinda Landino. “One of her students vaped in the bathroom, [then] flatlined in class. They had to bring in EMTs.” NHML is one of many libraries across the US addressing the vaping scare that gained momentum in summer 2019. As of … Continue reading Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
“As soon as you popped a balloon, it got everyone’s attention,” Jill Merkle, library media specialist at Greensview Elementary in Upper Arlington, Ohio, says. “It was fun to see the students rally and root for one another.” Merkle and Kristen Pavlasek, who now teaches 3rd grade at Greensview Elementary, teamed up in 2018 to create … Continue reading Robots: Activate
Children are present in many types of libraries—not just the public variety. The expense and difficulties of arranging childcare means that even academic library patrons often need to bring young ones along when studying or browsing the stacks. Now, through the creation of a family study space and other amenities, University of Maryland Libraries has … Continue reading Helping Parents in a Pinch
6 Number of years since the American Library Association last held its Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits in Philadelphia. 6 million Number of visits the Free Library of Philadelphia’s (FLP) 54 locations receive annually. 130,000 Number of current and historical maps in the Map Collection at FLP’s Parkway Central Library. $1,975 Amount that collector A. S. … Continue reading By the Numbers: Literary Philadelphia
Mirroring offerings from Netflix and Hulu, libraries are seeing renewed interest in materials through the creation of binge box collections—sets of movies and television shows on DVD with related themes and titles to help sate patrons’ binge-watching needs. “We were just going to do it for [a] summer and put it on display downstairs, but … Continue reading Ready to Binge-Watch?
“He was really excited about them,” says Kristina Gomez, MPL events and programming librarian. “I was really happy to see that he participated.” Though usually small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, zines pack a punch as an empowering form of personal and community expression. Small and self-published, zines are handmade publications … Continue reading On the Zine Scene
The call represented a trend unfolding in public facilities across the country: individuals who arm themselves with video cameras, proclaim themselves First Amendment auditors, and enter police precincts, post offices, libraries, and other spaces under the auspices of the First Amendment right to free speech in order to record staff violations. The Connecticut caller was … Continue reading Free Speech—or Free-for-All?
The origins of these events can be traced back to communal meals such as the World’s Longest Lunch, held annually across Australia. In 2015 the first Longest Table meal served 400 people along a two-block stretch of downtown Tallahassee, Florida. That inaugural evening was organized by city and county leaders, local nonprofit The Village Square, … Continue reading Tables of Content
