Latest Library Links
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In an October 26 statement, the American Library Association (ALA) announced three candidates running for president. Stacey A. Aldrich, state librarian, Hawaii State Public Library System, Honolulu; Ed Garcia, director, Cranston (R.I.) Public Library; and Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada, adult services assistant manager, Palos Verdes Library District in Rolling Hills Estates, California, are candidates for the 2022–2023 presidency of the American Library Association (ALA). Ballot mailing for the ALA election will begin March 8, 2021, and end April 7, 2021. Individuals must be members in good standing to vote.
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As the COVID-19 crisis continues to disrupt higher education, ITHAKA is extending the JSTOR and Artstor expanded access program through June 30, 2021, to help institutions in their shift to remote teaching. Institutions that have opted in don’t need to take any action—they will continue receiving access to unlicensed JSTOR Archive and Primary Source collections and the Artstor Digital Library. Participating institutions that have not yet opted in may still do so; log in to your JSTOR library admin account to request expanded access.
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The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and the International Association of University Libraries issued a joint statement on October 22 to publishers and service providers about the 2021 subscriptions and renewals of electronic resources and databases. Noting the pandemic’s effects on budgets for universities, schools, industries, and libraries worldwide, IFLA and IATUL request that publishers support these institutions by reducing prices.
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A 39-year-old Boston man charged with setting a ballot box outside Boston Public Library on fire October 25 is emotionally disturbed and does not appear to be “plotting against our democracy,” Suffolk County’s top prosecutor said. Worldy Armand appeared October 26 in Boston Municipal Court on a charge of willful and malicious burning, according to Boston police and the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. Judge Mark H. Summerville ordered him held without bail, and Armand is due back in court October 30 for a detention hearing, according to court records.
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The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo has been a part of the curriculum at Lake Norman Charter School in Huntersville, North Carolina, since the 2018–2019 school year. But some parents are pushing to have the book banned this year due to its profanity, sexual references, and anti-Christian verses. Current seniors who have already read the novel say it encourages productive classroom discussions and an elevated level of learning.
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Michael Zamorski of Monmouth Council Boy Scout Troop 18 has created a teaching garden of native plants and other features at the Freehold (N.J.) Public Library as he works to attain the rank of Eagle Scout. In addition to the garden’s aesthetic appeal, Zamorski registered the site as a monarch butterfly waystation with Monarch Watch and created laminated pages (available inside the library) with more information about the featured plants.
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James Hamblin writes: “Full disclosure: I was not eager to read about books bound in human skin. I knew almost nothing about the subject, but I felt pretty confident that nothing was more than enough. With Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom, a rare books specialist and librarian at UCLA, quickly disabused me of this notion. Part scholar, part journalist, part wide-eyed death enthusiast, Rosenbloom takes readers on her own journey to understand how and why human-skin books came to be.”
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William Germano and Kit Nicholls write: “Where do reading lists come from, anyway? Wouldn’t we love to know exactly what Plato’s students were required to read? In Aristotle and other ancient writers we have tantalizing glimpses of works and writers now lost. But even if we had them, those works would be subject to two millennia of thinking about the world, including the world of these ancient texts.”
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David Barnett writes: “As we drift into the season of mists, many of us may cozy up with a ghost story or two. But who are the best known authors behind the classics, who plied their chilling trade in the Victorian and Edwardian eras? There are the usual suspects: M. R. James, Charles Dickens, William Hope Hodgson, Sheridan Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, Wilkie Collins. But what of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman? Evelyn Henty? Olive Harper? Elinor Mordaunt? Lettice Galbraith? B. M. Croker?”
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In a surprise move on July 14, the Chicago Public Library Foundation, the nonprofit fundraising arm of CPL, laid off all staff members whose wages were funded by philanthropic grants. Among these workers were all mentors in the flagship YOUmedia teen program that served as a refuge for Black and Brown youth and an incubator for the city’s top rappers, including Vic Mensa, Noname, and Chance the Rapper.
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With its first virtual conference October 13–16, the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services (ABOS) celebrated its 15th anniversary—and its largest conference turnout. More than 1,000 attendees gathered online from across the US, along with a few from England and Canada, for sessions, virtual bookmobile tours, a cocktail reception, networking, and an award ceremony.
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