Latest Library Links
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Phil Morehart writes: “Five libraries earned this year’s ALA Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects. The winning projects include programs that offered online academic aid and games to college students during the pandemic; examined the significance of historic lighthouses and maritime history; established lifelines to senior citizens; and provided digital literacy kits to help combat social isolation.”
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Magician Mikayla Oz was set to perform her first show in Wyoming on July 14. She booked six shows for kids and teens at the Campbell County Public Library in Gillette about a year ago, she said, and was excited to bring her family-friendly show about the magic of reading to the state. Then, last week, the library began receiving calls and emails and noticing social media posts protesting Oz’s shows after community members found out she is transgender.
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HarperCollins acquired Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for $39 million dollars in May. The publisher wasted no time in changing terms for digital content that is being distributed to public libraries. In a notice sent to library customers, ebook titles from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will change from one copy/one user perpetual access model to 26-lend metered access model, one copy/one user on August 1.
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The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a UK/US nonprofit and nongovernmental organization, found that the vast majority of COVID-19 antivaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories originated from just 12 online personalities they dubbed the “disinformation dozen,” who have a combined following of 59 million people across multiple social media platforms. CCDH analyzed 812,000 Facebook posts and tweets and found 65% came from the disinformation dozen.
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David Nield writes: “When it comes to looking something up on the web, most of us default to Googling it—the search engine has become so dominant that it’s now a verb, in the same way that Photoshop is. But using Google for your searches comes with a privacy trade-off. While Google has made moves to limit this data collection, you might want to switch to a different search provider that doesn’t log your queries. And if you want to stick with Google, there are ways to limit the amount of data that gets recorded.”
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A 1704 edition of the 1688 book The Faith and Practice of a Church of England Man was returned to Sheffield Cathedral in England around 300 years after it was checked out of the cathedral’s library, which was dispersed almost 200 years ago. The book arrived in the mail with a note from a woman in Wales explaining that her godmother had died and willed the book back to the cathedral.
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As Congress works to finalize the nation’s infrastructure investments, ALA is asking advocates to ensure libraries aren’t left out. Urge your legislators to include the Build America’s Libraries Act in the 2022 budget resolution and reconciliation instructions.
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Kevin Strowder’s first day as director of ALA’s Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services was June 21—a mere few days before the start of the 2021 Annual Conference and Exhibition Virtual. As head of ODLOS, Strowder will oversee a unit that manages prominent programs, initiatives, awards, and relationships that support equity and inclusion through a lens of social justice. Strowder answered our 11 Questions to introduce himself to ALA members.
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Amy Carlton writes: “First published in 1974, ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual has become an essential reference for library workers who need dependable answers to thorny questions about book challenges, patron privacy, and policy development for their institutions. The 10th edition, coedited by Martin Garnar, director of Amherst (Mass.) College Library and former president of the Freedom to Read Foundation, and Trina Magi, library professor and reference and instruction librarian at University of Vermont, was released under the direction of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom earlier this year. American Libraries spoke with Garnar and Magi, as well as several of the manual’s contributors, about the latest challenges to intellectual freedom that library workers face.” Read “A Deeper Look: Censorship beyond Books,” an excerpt from the Intellectual Freedom Manual.
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Earlier this year, United for Libraries hosted “Friends and Trustees under 40: Recruit Them, Retain Them, Engage Them,” a webinar featuring tips for attracting millennials and younger adults to Friends groups, trustee boards, and foundations. The session was moderated by Jillian Wentworth, UFL’s manager of marketing and membership, and presented by members of UFL’s Millennial Engagement Task Force, and the panelists are coauthors of All Ages Welcome: Recruiting and Retaining Younger Generations for Library Boards, Friends Groups, and Foundations (ALA Editions, 2020). Read excerpts from the webinar in our July/August issue.
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ALA President Patricia “Patty” M. Wong writes: “Connection—across our diverse backgrounds, experiences, and futures—is a theme of my presidential year, and it is a necessary conversation. Demographers predict that by 2050, African Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, Latinx, and Indigenous people will constitute the majority of Americans. So how does ALA fit into our rapidly evolving democracy? How can we connect to one another as librarians and use the tools of our profession to foster connections with others?”
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Lily Hay Newman writes: “There are certain sci-fi promises the future is supposed to hold: jetpacks, flying cars, a Mars colony. But there are also some seemingly more attainable goals that somehow also always feel just on the horizon. And one of the most tantalizing is the end of passwords. The good news is that the infrastructure—across all the major operating systems and browsers—is largely in place to support passwordless login. The less-good news? You’re still plugging passwords into multiple sites and services every day, and you will be for a while.”
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