Ellenberger, Jack | American Libraries Magazine

Jack Ellenberger, 90, former president of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), died November 21. He started his career as law librarian at the US Department of Health before working at several law firms. He received AALL’s Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award in 1994 and is a member of the AALL Hall of Fame.

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Mia Blixt-Shehan writes: “The ALA Core Metadata Standards Committee has developed a rubric to help information professionals evaluate metadata schemas in order to select one that would best fit the needs of a given project. The first official version of the Metadata Schema Assessment Framework is now available via the ALA Institutional Repository. The Committee identified several criteria that can be used to evaluate metadata schemas, and the rubric also contains levels for assessing the extent that a given schema meets each criterion.”

Core News, Nov. 27
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Lorin M. Flores writes: “The ongoing need to rapidly acquire knowledge and skills related to new technologies and developments in the library field has been a preoccupation of library workers and administrators for years. Keeping current may seem impossible, given time and budget constraints. But microlearning in the form of short online courses, or microcourses, can be an efficient and effective strategy to fulfill professional development needs. Microlearning involves condensing instructional content into bite-sized chunks of information for maximum cognitive impact. Ideally, each course should range from five to 10 minutes to make the information graspable and maximize engagement.”

American Libraries column, Nov./Dec.
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Alison Marcotte writes: “Author-illustrator Vashti Harrison made history this year as the first Black woman to win the Caldecott Medal, which has been awarded since 1938, for her picture book Big. It tells the story of a big girl in a world that celebrates small, tracing her journey to self-love and showing the power of words to both hurt and heal. Harrison also received 2024 Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Honor awards. American Libraries spoke with Harrison about the response from readers nationwide, life after winning the Caldecott, and how the publishing world can continue to elevate untold stories.”

American Libraries Trend, Nov./Dec.
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Jessamyn West writes: “My drop-in time work used to be a lot of teaching basic skills. Then for a time it was teaching people about software, [and then] social media, then mobile phones. Lately the major thing I do is something I call ‘How do I connect this to that?’ Each of these things is not just a ‘read the help pages’ situation because it involves multiple interrelated systems. Understanding how these things work together is the main skill that’s required to help people troubleshoot. Here are a few concepts that are useful.”

Librarian.net, Nov. 23
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Abigail Goben writes: “If you have followed me on Mastodon in the past two years, you may have seen a post of Today’s Survey Demographics. I started this one day when yet another survey hit one of the myriad professional listservs I lurk on, in order to be publicly annoyed at how quickly I could be re-identified from the ‘entirely anonymous’ survey that had been distributed. What else is social media for? Then about 15 months ago, I started capturing the survey instruments to see what the demographic question trends really were and the variety of risks surveyors were introducing.”

Hedgehog Librarian, Nov. 20
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“Some public libraries in Japan will trial sales of new books from fiscal 2025 to fill the void caused by a nationwide decline in the number of physical bookstores, industry officials said. The program is aimed at increasing opportunities for people to buy books, particularly the elderly who may be unfamiliar with the process of using online shopping sites. The trial will be conducted in a number of libraries by TRC Library Service Inc., which provides library services for local governments and others, in conjunction with book wholesaler Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Inc.”

Kyodo News, Nov. 23
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Kathleen Hughes writes: “In this episode of FYI: The Public Libraries Podcast, we share inspiring stories of library joy. Ten stories in under 20 minutes! Inspired by Mychal Threets’ focus on celebrating joy in libraries, this episode highlights moments from library workers across the country that capture the magic, connection, and transformation that happen in libraries every day.”

Public Libraries Online, Nov. 25

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