Weber, Joseph | American Libraries Magazine

July 31 Joseph Weber retired as director of library services at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

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Emily Long writes: “Canva is one of the most popular design tools for creating everything from fliers and business cards to interactive presentations. It’s pretty user-friendly even for those who don’t have any design experience, but if you want to level up your Canva experience, consider these tips and tricks.”

Lifehacker, Sept. 29
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Roger C. Schonfeld writes: “We are moving away from a model that is primarily organized around digital asset management. Instead, we may wish to think in terms of the activation infrastructure for distinctive collections. Rather than comparatively passive institutional digital custody, an activation infrastructure has as its purpose to maximize the impact of distinctive collections. This activation infrastructure incorporates library and archival professionals, technicians and student workers, distinctive collections, processing workflows, digital systems, and consortial and other cross-institutional tooling, among other elements. Foundationally, it is a kind of fly-wheel, benefiting from, and in turn generating, cross-institutional scale.”

The Scholarly Kitchen, Sept. 29
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Olina Banerji writes: “School boards have been mired in fractious political debates in recent years. Fights with parents and community members have branched out to topics like transgender students’ rights and whether to remove certain books from school libraries. But beyond school board meetings, communities don’t have easy access to information on how their school board members vote on these topics. A new national dashboard will present data on how school boards in 161 districts vote on book bans, LGBTQ-student policies, limits on what teachers can teach, private school choice, and the presence of immigration enforcement agents in schools.”

Education Week, Sept. 25
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Abigail Goben writes: “About a year ago I was invited to give a lecture designed to spark critical thinking in graduate students when considering using generative artificial intelligence and other tools. I wanted something to hang the presentation on, and an acronym emerged. The ACToRS framework is a lens in which to consider the products and vaporware that is being marketed to us, to consider what problem we are trying to solve, and to take a step back from the exclamation points and assertions of Faster! Better! Now! It stands for: accountability, credit, trust, risk, and surveillance.”

Hedgehog Librarian, Sept. 22
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“Library censorship surged in 2025. Small and rural libraries face these challenges with a fraction of the staff and budget of their urban counterparts, which is exactly why the Association for Rural and Small Libraries wanted to ask our members what building a diverse collection actually looks like in their communities. The strategies librarians described were practical, not theoretical. Most rely on patron requests, review journals, and vendor lists to guide their purchasing, and interlibrary loan programs to fill gaps they can’t afford to buy outright.”

Book Riot/Association for Rural and Small Libraries, Sept. 25
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Camellia Burris writes: “Former library director Luanne James is suing Rutherford County (Tenn.) Library System six months after she was fired for refusing to relocate LGBTQ-related books. Luanne James filed a federal civil rights lawsuit September 23 in the US District Court in Nashville. She’s claiming that Rutherford County’s library board wrongfully terminated her in March, violating discrimination laws and her First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The board voted 8–3 to oust James after she refused an order to relocate more than 100 books from the children’s section to the adult’s section.”

WPLN-FM (Nashville), Sept. 25, Mar. 31
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M Roberts writes: “I thought my first year at Vanderbilt had flown by, but as it turns out, the first semester of my second year seems like it’s moving even more quickly! I’ve been thinking a lot about how different this year feels from last year, and how I wish I could go back and tell myself not to be stressed. If there were three things I could tell myself a year ago, they would be: Spend time on relationships, don’t panic if you don’t know the answer, and enjoy the moment.”

ACRLog, Sept. 26

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