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Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead announced on July 2 that he would not be part of a Free Library of Philadelphia author event on July 8. FLP’s Black employees posted an open letter to library leadership on June 26 stating that they are paid less than white coworkers, face routine racism, and have been asked to return to work without plans in place to keep them safe from the coronavirus. -
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest humanities philanthropy in the United States, announced on June 30 that it is adjusting its mission and grant-giving to emphasize programs that promote social justice. A new $5.3 million program will distribute collections of 500 books—“freedom libraries” of fiction, poetry, science, social thought, and more, curated by program leaders—to 1,000 prisons across the country. -
When it was published in 2016, Yaa Gyasi’s first novel Homegoing was lauded for its broad historical, geographical, and generational sweep, tracing a sprawling family tree back to two half-sisters in 18th-century Ghana. Transcendent Kingdom (Knopf, September) also explores the Ghanaian-American immigrant experience, this time through the eyes of a neuroscientist named Gifty, who turns to a discipline called optogenetics to make sense of family tragedies and an upbringing immersed in the racism and evangelism of the American South -
Deep in Jordan’s northern desert, in the refugee camp known as Zaatari, 76,000 Syrians live, work, pray, and—thanks to a campwide, refugee-run library system—read. LIS professor Karen E. Fisher, who has been volunteering at Zaatari since 2015, describes life and libraries in the camp. -
Four libraries earned this year’s ALA) Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects. Their projects included smartphone training for seniors, multicultural events, a country-wide reading festival, and programming to raise awareness of Indigenous populations and their perspectives and needs. -
Tracie D. Hall writes: “We are living in extraordinary times. A time when a pandemic has required that we distance ourselves from one another, and a time when the stand against racism and racial violence requires we come together. Just as there was an outcry across the field to keep our staff and communities safe and protected from COVID-19, so too are we obligated to decry racism. As library and information workers, our resistance in both fights requires resilience.”
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In an April 23 Public Library Association (PLA) webinar, “Public Libraries Respond to COVID-19: Strategies for Advancing Digital Equity Now,” three public librarians shared their experiences with everything from lending laptops and mobile hotspots to low-tech solutions like using sandwich boards and direct mail to advertise library services.
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ALA praised the July 2 introduction of the Library Stabilization Fund Act, introduced in both chambers by Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Representative Andy Levin (D-Mich.), respectively. The legislation would establish a $2 billion fund, administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, to address financial losses and bolster library services, with priority to the hardest-hit communities (view ALA summary).
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In votes on Tuesday, June 23, and Saturday, June 27, the ALA Council voted to approve Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures as a new ALA division beginning September 1, 2020, and to dissolve the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, the Library Information Technology Association, and the Library Leadership and Management Association, effective August 31, 2020. The vote to form Core was 163 to 1. For more information on Core, visit core.ala.org/. -
ALA invites library workers to apply to be part of Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change, a pilot program to help public and academic libraries engage their communities in programs and conversations that address the climate change crisis. The project will fund in-person and virtual film screenings, community dialogues, and related events based on local interest in 25 public and academic libraries, and it will provide instruction and support for the libraries to be centers for community education and support during extreme weather events. Learn more about Resilient Communities and apply online. Applications will be accepted from July 1 to August 28, 2020.
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The Association of College and Research Libraries has published Hidden Architectures of Information Literacy Programs: Structures, Practices, and Contexts, edited by Carolyn Caffrey Gardner, Elizabeth Galoozis, and Rebecca Halpern. This book collects authors from a variety of diverse institutions detailing the day-to-day work of running and coordinating information literacy programs and the soft skills necessary for success in the coordinator role. -
The Library History Round Table announced that this year’s Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award winner is Julie Park for her paper “Infrastructure Story: The Los Angeles Central Library’s Architectural History.” Park is assistant curator and faculty fellow at the Special Collections Center, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library in New York. Her essay uses written contracts, board meeting minutes, floor plans and renovation reports to show “how, as infrastructure, the library’s architecture and its spatial priorities were deeply ‘relational’ [which] required adaptation to changing contingencies over time, despite features that seemed permanent and immovable.”
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