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Sallyann Price writes: “Birdwatching has exploded in popularity during the pandemic, with The New York Times last year observing record participation in Global Big Day, an annual birdwatching event in early May, and the National Audubon Society reporting a boom in sales of birding supplies. Libraries, too, are flocking to the hobby. With help from their collections and community partners, they’re working to get patrons outside—even if it’s just a backyard or neighborhood park.”

American Libraries Trend, Sept./Oct.
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Araceli Méndez Hintermeister writes: “Embarking on a new design or renovation project at your library can be overwhelming. These works, ranging from books on user design to volumes on architectural planning, will help spark ideas.”

American Libraries column, Sept./Oct.
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The Plum Creek Literacy Festival in Seward, Nebraska, canceled its Children’s Festival and Adult Conference September 24–25 after several authors withdrew in protest of Concordia University’s code of conduct, which they called discriminatory toward the LGBT community. The absence of several books from a presale list, and a subsequent explanation for why one author was pulling out of the event that went viral on social media, led the festival to cancel its Friday and Saturday activities.

Lincoln (Neb.) Journal-Star, Sept. 23
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Kimberly Johnson and Jennifer Greb write: “As the 100th anniversary of the devastating 1921 Tulsa race massacre approached and Tulsa City–County Library looked for ways to educate the community about a significant piece of our city’s past, we had a disturbing realization: Many of our patrons, even those native to Tulsa, knew little to nothing about it. Decades of whitewashed reports and unacknowledged losses added up to a serious gap in how we understand our local and national history.”

American Libraries Trend, Sept./Oct.
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R. E. Hawley writes: “I’m going to describe an image for you; maybe it’s something you’ve seen before. It’s a canvas filled with amorphous daubs of warm, bright color, intersecting with one another to form different hues in the overlapping spaces. On top of the canvas, a blocky but refined sans serif spells the title and the author’s name. I am, of course, describing a book cover—or rather, the book cover, that of the current literary zeitgeist, whose abstract splotches are a ubiquitous presence in the new releases display at your local bookstore. Writer Alana Pockros calls it the unicorn frappuccino cover.”

Print, Sept. 23
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Heather Kelly and Geoffrey A. Fowler write: “We all know it’s important to protect our privacy online to prevent things as simple as our birthdate or as detailed as our search history from being used by companies, strangers, and even governments. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know where to start. We have gone through the settings for the most popular (and problematic) services to give you recommendations on what exactly you should do.”

Washington Post, Sept. 23
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Laura Solomon writes: “In my job as a front end designer/developer, I work with a lot of library logos. I also work with a lot of library staff that don’t understand the importance of what logos do, or how a good one is created. When faced with a subpar logo, there’s often not much I can do other than work with whatever I’ve been given. Even libraries with awful logos cannot undertake a redesign lightly, or particular staff people may be emotionally invested in their creation and don’t want something new … even if it’s better.”

Mean Laura, Aug. 17