“I’ve been in the middle of a normal library transaction and had the person say something about asking me out,” McLain says. “I look that person in the eye and say, ‘That’s inappropriate,’ and go back to what I was doing. If they do it again, I say, ‘That’s inappropriate, and I need you to … Continue reading Stop Sexual Harassment in Your Library
Junior high school can be a socially rough time for students. New hormones, new social mores, and a new academic environment—it’s a lot to navigate. That’s why April Lesher, librarian at Mesa, Arizona’s Highland Junior High School, has worked hard to make the school library not just a bullying-free zone but a place where every … Continue reading Finding Friends, Learning Leadership
“She told me she got it for her birthday and it was a lot of fun, but one day, it just stopped working,” says Seltzer, an MIT-trained engineer and the U-Fix-It Clinic coordinator. “We took it apart together, and we were able to fix it. Pretty soon she was zipping around the parking lot on … Continue reading Libraries and the Art of Everything Maintenance
A natural fit “Librarians, by nature, curate resources,” says Jennifer Scotten, library media specialist at South Middle School in Lawrence, Kansas. Those curation abilities make librarians invaluable for implementing OERs, which can be overwhelming for first-time users browsing a seemingly endless catalog of online resources. For Kelly Hart, a 7th-grade English and language arts teacher … Continue reading Open Educational Resources
“Besides the entertainment value, we also wanted to impart some history—it’s not fake news; it’s reliable news,” says Anita Doering, archives manager at LCPL. LCPL—which also offers the by-demand Footsteps of La Crosse historic walking tour—is not the only library to recognize that sightseeing ventures are the perfect vehicle to get employees outside the building and … Continue reading Walking History
First-person shooter games. Military training exercises. Those are the applications most often associated with the words “virtual reality” (VR). But as new library offerings at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh demonstrate, VR represents an amazing, state-of-the-art resource that can enhance just about any discipline, from cartography to psychology, architecture to English. No recordings … Continue reading Making Virtual Reality a Reality
1988 The year then–Secretary of Education William Bennett issued the challenge: “Let’s have a national campaign. Every child should obtain a library card—and use it.” The following year, the American Library Association declared September as Library Card Sign-Up Month. 500 Number of children who attended the October 14, 1988, kickoff event on the National Mall … Continue reading By the Numbers: Library Cards
756,000 Square footage of Chicago Public Library’s (CPL) main building, the Harold Washington Library Center. At the time of its completion in 1991, it was the largest single library building in the US. 9th Floor of the Harold Washington Library Center where you’ll find the Winter Garden, a meeting space featuring an atrium, marble floors, … Continue reading By the Numbers: Literary Chicago
The Winnebago Reservation in northeastern Nebraska lies about 20 miles from the nearest drugstore. Long on farmland and short on commercial services, this rural area is a place where it’s easy for people who are elderly, homebound, or both to become isolated. Seven years ago, though, the local community college and public library created the … Continue reading Coming Home, Building Community
Providing this support in user-centered and responsive ways fulfills the librarian’s obligation to offer service to all users. However, paying attention to accessibility for visually impaired patrons is not just the right thing to do. It may also protect your library from legal trouble. Legal precedents for access In 2012 the National Federation of the … Continue reading Library Websites for All
“That’s cool,” Ménard thought, though she couldn’t imagine the initiative taking hold at her academic library. But that summer, another Williams professor also learned about Human Libraries while in Europe, and he later approached Ménard about collaborating on a campus event. That’s how, in 2012, Williams College became one of the first institutions in the … Continue reading If These Books Could Talk
The effort began at University of Toronto and Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania prior to Trump’s inauguration and has since spread to as many as two dozen universities and libraries across the US and Canada. The fear that government research and information—particularly that produced by the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and the … Continue reading Archiving Against the Clock
