7m
Trey Walk writes: “Over the past few years, new policies and laws in Florida have stopped teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity, while also repressing any honest efforts to grapple with systemic racism and slavery. [But] many people have taken a stand against these prejudiced policies, including in Florida. Their goal: to build a brighter future for the state. We hope today’s leaders fighting censorship in Florida can offer a blueprint to people across the United States to further truly free and just education.”
Human Rights Watch, July 18
19h
Angela Dennis writes: “Young scholars, parents, and staff from the East Tennessee Freedom Schools program, a local summer enrichment program, marched in downtown Knoxville July 17 to protest literary censorship in public schools and libraries across the country. Recent legislation in Tennessee has fueled concerns about literary censorship. In May, Governor Bill Lee signed into law an expansion of the Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Opponents fear the new law might exclude the perspectives of marginalized groups in educational materials. The Knox County Schools Board recently revised its library policy to align with the new state law, further fueling debate.”
Knoxville News Sentinel, July 18
22h
Daniel Pfeiffer writes: “Information literacy has become a watchword for librarians—not merely a pedagogical aim but a moral obligation in a digital and political landscape riddled with misinformation. The clear necessity of information literacy in society belies a more difficult question: Should librarians be the ones to take on the full weight of this mantle?” Pfeiffer interviewed Amber Willenborg and Robert Detmering, librarians at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and authors of a new paper examining this question through interviews with 20 academic librarians.
Choice 360 LibTech Insights, July 17
1d
Jennifer Nardine writes: “I recently finished a second master’s degree, in counseling, from Virginia Tech’s School of Education. Shortly after graduating, I was startled when a colleague asked, ‘How are you going to show that [mental health] counseling is related to your work?’ Her implication: even though I’d put in the work to earn the degree, it wouldn’t serve me when it came time to apply for promotion. My response: It’s obvious to me that education, librarianship, and counseling are related.”
ACRLog, July 18
2d
Willem Marx writes: “Sometimes it’s not about catching up on the newest news or the hottest debut. Sometimes it’s about taking a bath with a cup of tea on a Sunday morning and listening to famous writers laugh about their MFA students while going nuts about their favorite short story writers. Sometimes it’s about taking a plane across the Atlantic just to visit a bookstore and pretend it’s still 1922 and Ulysses is all the rage. The book life is about a lot of things and these podcasts cover every single one.”
Electric Literature, July 19
2d
Stephanie Buffamonte writes: “Altamonte Springs (Fla.) residents came together to save their local library. In an Altamonte Springs City Commission meeting July 18, commissioners voted to keep the city’s local library after the city previously announced it would close. The city held a special meeting to discuss the library shutting down, and residents came out in droves. Most argued to commissioners that the library should not shut down and is vital to the city.” Commissioners voted at the meeting to raise the city’s property tax rate from 3.01 mills to 4 mills.
WRBW-TV (Orlando), July 19; WESH-TV (Orlando), July 9; Orlando Sentinel, July 19
2d
ALA applauded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s July 18 vote allowing libraries and schools to use federal E-Rate funding to purchase Wi-Fi hotspots for lending. The new policy is a keystone of FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel’s Learn Without Limits proposal, announced at ALA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition in June 2023, to meet increasing connectivity needs nationwide by expanding and modernizing the E-Rate program. The move comes amid concerns about the impact of recently sunset pandemic-era programs, including the Emergency Connectivity Fund, which helped more than a thousand libraries provide Wi-Fi hotspots during the past three years.
ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, July 18