Archives

Plagman, Emily

January 8, 2021

Public Library Association Manager of Impact and Advocacy Emily Plagman left ALA October 2.

Berry, John

January 8, 2021

John N. Berry III, 87, editor in chief of Library Journal 1969-2006, died October 10. Berry won the American Library Association’s (ALA) Joseph W. Lippincott Award in 1992 and the Service to the Association for Library and Information Science Education award in 1993.

Fischer, Hans

January 8, 2021

Hans J. Fischer, 87, died August 27. In 1960, he founded the architecture firm that was ultimately known as Fischer-Stein Associates; for 30 years, he led the firm and designed many libraries. After retiring in 1990, he served as a consultant for more than 50 library projects in Kansas.

Griffin, Patricia

January 8, 2021

Patricia Swindell Griffin, 80, library director at Roanoke Bible College (now Mid-Atlantic Christian University) in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1963-2004, died October 23.

Huizenga, Georgiana

January 8, 2021

Georgiana Huizenga, 75, director of Harris-Elmore (Ohio) Public Library until her retirement in 2011, died September 4. She previously served as manager of Wood County (Ohio) District Public Library’s Walbridge branch.

Ingles, Ernest

January 8, 2021

Ernest Boyce Ingles, 71, died September 17. Ingles was founding director of the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (now Canadiana.org); university librarian at University of Regina, Saskatchewan; and university librarian and eventual director of the School of Library and Information Studies at University of Alberta in Edmonton. Innovations that Ingles worked to implement include the … Continue reading Ingles, Ernest →

Liu, Susana

January 8, 2021

Susana Liu, 77, former Chinese American Librarians Association president, died September 27. Liu had served as a librarian at San Jose (Calif.) State University; City College of San Francisco; Stanford (Calif.) University; Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California; Texas A&M University in College Station; Rice University in Houston; University of Missouri in Columbia; and … Continue reading Liu, Susana →

McGrath, Shirley

January 8, 2021

Shirley H. McGrath, 91, a reference librarian at Memorial Hall Library in Andover, Massachusetts, in the 1980s and 1990s, died April 14. McGrath had also been a reference librarian at Rapid City (S. Dak.) Public Library and Lafayette (La.) Public Library.

Park, Katharine

January 8, 2021

Katharine “Kate” Park, 40, former executive director of the Friends of the Dallas Public Library (DPL), died July 2. Park served on the board of United for Libraries and increased funding for DPL, including securing funds in 2014 from the National Endowment for the Arts to bring the Big Read to Dallas.

Patrick, Patricia

January 8, 2021

Patricia Patrick, 82, head of children’s services at Upper Hudson Library System in Albany, New York, until her retirement in 1995, died October 10.

Smith, Wayne

January 8, 2021

K. Wayne Smith, 82, president and CEO of OCLC 1989-1998, died October 13.

Waggener, Linda

January 8, 2021

Linda Rae Waggener, 55, librarian at University of Wyoming Libraries since 2006, died September 12. Waggener previously worked as a librarian for Natrona County (Wyo.) Library and Fort Worth (Tex.) Public Library. In 2019, Waggener completed research on the importance of Wyoming’s Carnegie libraries to the public sector; this research is available at University of … Continue reading Waggener, Linda →

Latest Library Links

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Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
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Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
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Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
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Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

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