Maryland state school board overrules local library book removal

Cover of Flamer Kristen Griffith writes: “Maryland’s school board is reversing Harford County’s removal of a book from public school libraries. The November 4 decision comes after the Harford County school board banned the young adult graphic novel Flamer by Mike Curato last summer. The local board had overruled the superintendent and a review committee who had decided to keep Flamer in middle and high school libraries. This is the first time the state board has ruled on a local book ban since the 2024 passage of Maryland’s Freedom to Read Act.”

Baltimore Banner, Nov. 5; Sept. 10; American Libraries feature, June

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Benjamin Charles Germain Lee and Kyle Deeds write: “We are excited to share GovScape, a public search system for 10+ million government PDFs. GovScape is built upon the End of Term Web Archive, an incredible multi-institutional effort to document the federal government’s online presence at the end of each presidential administration going back to 2004. GovScape currently includes all renderable PDFs from the 2020 crawl that are 50 pages or under in length. We are already working to incorporate PDFs from the other crawls in the End of Term Web Archive, including the 2024 crawl once it is fully uploaded.”

Data Rescue Project, Dec. 2
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Kelly Jensen writes: “It was never a question whether the end of Moms for Liberty’s BookLooks in March would be the end of parental rights groups taking up the mantle on reviewing, rating, and targeting books on library shelves. RatedBooks.org is now developing its own ‘new’ resource of reviews, The National Book Rating Index, [which will] put the reviews done by actual experts in the field beside those done by parents with an agenda. It attempts to elevate those biased reviews to the same level of professionalism and authority as those done by experts.”

Well Sourced, Dec. 6; BookRiot, Mar. 10
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Nick Tanzi writes: “When libraries encounter an emerging technology, we seek to identify both the threats and opportunities for our organizations. Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a significant communication challenge for libraries, requiring engagement with multiple audiences.” This post discusses the information about AI that libraries should be communicating to their staff, users, and vendors.

The Digital Librarian, Dec. 4
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Mike Masnick writes: “Companies that used to provide real value are now focused on extracting more value from users. There was a time when many people felt more fulfilled after using new innovations that helped them do new things. We’ve replaced that with engagement metrics, growth hacks, and AI slop. The tech industry spent the last decade optimizing for shareholder value and calling it innovation. A group of us decided to articulate what the alternative actually looks like. We’re calling it the Resonant Computing Manifesto, and it’s an attempt to reclaim what innovation should mean.”

Techdirt, Dec. 5
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Claire Woodcock writes: “As prices for streaming subscriptions continue to soar, people are turning to the unexpected last stronghold of physical media: the public library. Films and TV shows on streaming also become more vulnerable when companies merge. Some streaming platforms just outright remove their own intellectual property from their catalogs if the content is no longer deemed financially viable, well-performing, or is no longer a strategic priority. The data-driven recommendation systems streaming platforms use tend to favor newer, more easily categorized content, and are starting to warp our perceptions of what classic media exists and matters.”

404 Media, Dec. 3
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Annaliese Melvin writes: “As librarians, it is essential to highlight individuals with disabilities in our programs and our collections. However, it is also necessary to critically evaluate titles that are in your collection or that you are considering adding to the collection to ensure that they portray people with disabilities in an appropriate manner. Here is a list of ideas for evaluating books from several different sources and further resources for deeper research.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 6
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Steve Tetreault writes: “There are a growing number of reasons to be concerned about Google’s products and services. But many schools are Google schools, with Gmail and Google Drive accounts for everyone. So you, like I, might be stuck with Google for a while. A friend was recently trying to access some items in her state library organization account from her school Chromebook. She was having all kinds of difficulty, and I realized she didn’t know about Chrome Profiles. The Chrome browser, and most Chromebooks, allow you to log in to multiple Google accounts at once and toggle between them.”

Knowledge Quest, Dec. 8

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