ALA Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits Archives | Page 5 of 12

Council III: Tributes, Memorials, and ALA Finances

By Amy Carlton | January 28, 2020

Memorials were read for Ellen Greenblatt (M#1), Willis Bernard “Bill” Lukenbill (M#2), Hilda L. Jay (M#3), Bill Ptacek (M#4), Carolyn A. Markuson (M#5), Learned T. “Dag” Bulman (M#6), and Jennifer Ford Paustenbaugh (M#7). Tributes were read to recognize the 100th anniversary of the Florida Library Association (T#1) and to honor Dita Kraus, “The Librarian of … Continue reading Council III: Tributes, Memorials, and ALA Finances →

Midwinter 2020 Top 10 Tweets—Day 4

By Crystal Carrazco | January 28, 2020

We started off the day waiting in line for the Youth Media Awards. I’m up and ready to head over to the #alamw20 Youth Media Awards. Yes, I’m early. I like it that way. — Tom Bober (@CaptainLibrary) January 27, 2020 And then the awards began! https://twitter.com/alizateach/status/1221792101500882945 https://twitter.com/stynnelahl/status/1221938480768417792 Where we all collectively celebrated the first … Continue reading Midwinter 2020 Top 10 Tweets—Day 4 →

Committee Reports and Resolutions at Council II

By Amy Carlton | January 27, 2020

Jim Neal, chair of the Committee on Organization (COO), presented the COO report (CD#27), which included a look at the requirement for committees to file biannual reports, an event that does not happen consistently. Kim Copenhaver, a member of the Committee Information Update subcommittee, presented a report on whether that requirement should be changed, based … Continue reading Committee Reports and Resolutions at Council II →

Making the News

By Phil Morehart | January 27, 2020

Christi Buker, executive director of the Pennsylvania Library Association, stressed that libraries should focus on what they do best when conducting advocacy, highlighting successful programs and outreach efforts that can justify continued or new government funding. Alternately, Buker said that libraries need to focus on the bad, too. If libraries are hurting due to lack … Continue reading Making the News →

Exploring Speculative Design

By Carrie Smith | January 27, 2020

Jung and Renee Albrecht-Mallinger, senior design researcher at IA Collaborative, hosted a reading group at a collaborative art space in Chicago to address climate change through speculative design, with an end goal of creating an art piece that would engage people and get them to think more deeply about the topic. Jung spoke about the … Continue reading Exploring Speculative Design →

Midwinter 2020 Top 10 Tweets—Day 3

By Crystal Carrazco | January 27, 2020

What a day! Since I’m walking through Philadelphia, should probably take off the silly grin of happiness. #alamw20 I want to express gratitude to each and everyone but I’ve seen today for inspiring me! — Annie Bélanger (@Annie_Belanger) January 26, 2020 Robots #AI talk about to start @bohyunkim @URILibraries #alamw20 pic.twitter.com/yCBacN2Z99 — Karim B … Continue reading Midwinter 2020 Top 10 Tweets—Day 3 →

Being the Change

By Terra Dankowski | January 27, 2020

“I knew I wanted to do something about civics, but I didn’t know where to begin. I bribed [teens] with Pizza and Politics,” Remy, branch supervisor at Springfield City Library, told attendees at “Young Changemakers in 21st Century Libraries,” a January 25 program at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. Remy soon learned … Continue reading Being the Change →

Scott Simon’s Sunny Side

By Phil Morehart | January 27, 2020

The revered radio broadcaster, journalist, and author joined Matthew Winner, host of The Children’s Podcast, for a live taping of the show on the Pop Top Stage before a packed crowd of Midwinter attendees. Simon has authored eight fiction and nonfiction books for adults, but his new book, Sunnyside Plaza (Little, Brown Books for Young … Continue reading Scott Simon’s Sunny Side →

Hungry with Knowledge

By Terra Dankowski | January 26, 2020

“I was growing up hungry in a single-parent, dysfunctional home in the 1960s,” he told the crowd at American Library Association President Wanda Kay Brown’s program at the Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits in Philadelphia on January 26. “I had a little homeboy dream that I’d be able to buy a house on a hill with … Continue reading Hungry with Knowledge →

You Can’t Prepare for the Future! Or Can You?

By Hannah Byrd Little | January 26, 2020

Turner challenged attendees to think in a different way about the future of libraries. He had photos of the sleek Seattle Central Library that people called “futuristic” when it was built. But the library could not have prepared for every possibility of the future. However, what the library did do was “liberate thoughts of what … Continue reading You Can’t Prepare for the Future! Or Can You? →

Using Lit to Help Kids

By Phil Morehart | January 26, 2020

Abigail Hing Wen (Loveboat, Tapei), I.W. Gregorio (This Is My Brain in Love, 2020), Gail Silver (Mindful Bea and the Worry Tree, 2019), Sharon Huss Roat (How to Disappear, 2017), and Beth Kephart (The Great Upending, 2020) were joined by Lauren Caldwell, director of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Children, Youth, and Families Office, for … Continue reading Using Lit to Help Kids →

Creating a “Queer” Shelf in the School Library

By Sallyann Price | January 26, 2020

“We are everywhere,” Montague said of the LGBT community. “That means, first of all, there are many potential curriculum connections, many ways we can be thinking about how to incorporate queer history and important people and events into the curriculum.” She highlighted the role of mindful collection development in educating about LGBT issues, pointing to … Continue reading Creating a “Queer” Shelf in the School Library →

Latest Library Links

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Jory Heckman writes: “The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) put all of its approximately 75-employee workforce on paid administrative leave March 31, according to several IMLS employees, as the agency prepares for major cuts to its operations. The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403 said all work processing 2025 grant applications has ended, ‘in the absence of staff’ and that ‘The status of previously awarded grants is unclear. Without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated.’”

Federal News Network, Mar. 31
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Allison Escoto writes: “Sustainability has rightly become a major concern for our profession. From education and advocacy to library architecture and supportive workplace environments, library professionals are addressing all types of sustainability in their work. These recommended reads are part of American Libraries’ special report on libraries and sustainability.”

American Libraries column, Mar./Apr.
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Avani Kalra writes: “In 2022, Sami Aaron started facilitating virtual climate cafés, forums where people could express their anxieties about climate change and connect with like-minded individuals without the pressure to turn sessions into activism. Aaron has so far facilitated 32 virtual climate cafés—including several alongside ALA’s Sustainability Round Table (SustainRT)—and is in the early stages of developing in-person events for libraries. In recent years, dozens of other organizations, activists, and therapists have hosted similar cafés at libraries across the country.”

American Libraries Trend, Mar./Apr.
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Phil Morehart writes: “Hubbard (Ohio) Public Library’s (HPL) oldest patron, Lily Walter, who celebrates her 105th birthday in May, stopped by the library last month to renew her library card. She told the library she has loved reading and libraries for 101 years—as long as she can remember. Lily got her first library card at age four, and it began a lifelong love of the library. She volunteered at HPL during her 80s and 90s and said she was fascinated by learning about library circulation and what people did—and didn’t—read.”

I Love Libraries, Mar. 14
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Briana Mendez-Padilla writes: “To encourage students to read novels, teachers can employ strategies such as allowing students to choose their books, encouraging them to read ones outside their comfort zone, and providing supplemental reading materials. The reading of novels is being sacrificed for short passage reading because students are more likely to encounter these texts in standardized tests, said Alex Corbitt, assistant professor of literacy at the State University of New York at Cortland. Corbitt encourages teachers to create book clubs that are thematically organized but with three or four different novel options at varying reading levels for students to choose from.”

K-12 Dive, Mar. 19
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Barbara M. Pope and Samantha Thompson-Franklin write: “Students with disabilities attending institutions of higher education without accessible library resources and students who are unaware of available resources may be unable to fully participate in or complete their education. Accessibility in library resources and services helps to eliminate those barriers, but the information must be communicated to those who need it, including student disability services, teaching faculty, and students themselves. Ideally, academic libraries should collaborate with campus partners to assess existing resources and services to provide accessible learning and support materials.”

Journal of Creative Library Practice, Mar. 25
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Mike Olson writes: “Library catalogs have always been battlegrounds where content is not merely described but debated. President Trump’s Executive Order 14172 directing the renaming of longstanding geographical designations ‘Mount Denali’ and ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to the politically loaded ‘Mount McKinley’ and ‘Gulf of America’ reveal the naked truth of what cataloging has always been: a battlefield where meaning is contested and conquered. When catalogers implement politically motivated terminology changes, they become unwilling performers in a linguistic ritual that normalizes certain worldviews while erasing others. But there’s potential for subversion within these systems.”

The Scholarly Kitchen, Mar. 25

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