#alaac16 Archives | Page 2 of 6 | American Libraries Magazine

Top Ten(ish) Tweets – Monday (Day 4)

By Julie Cai | June 27, 2016

The end of conference means attendees are packing up, struggling to fit all their tote bags, ARCs, and swag into their luggage, and saying goodbye to old and new friends.

Marketing Your Library

By Terra Dankowski | June 27, 2016

Robbie Barber, media and education tech instructor at Woodland Middle School in Decatur, Georgia, kicked off her “Marketing Your Library: Developing Relationships Through Public Relations” session in a unique way: She shared her failures.

Jodi Shaw, Mary Beth Lock, Madeleine Charney, Raymond Pun

Striving for Sustainability

By Terra Dankowski | June 27, 2016

You might not give much thought to urban agriculture, campus conversations, reusable mugs, or student programs in the context of libraries or climate change, but the four librarians presenting “Planting the Seeds: Libraries and Librarians as Change Agents for Sustainability in Their Communities,” a session sponsored by the Sustainability Round Table at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida, think these all have a role in combating environmental problems.

Jacquie Welsh, Leo Hayden, and Susan Woodwick

Preparing Inmates for Life After Prison

By Terra Dankowski | June 27, 2016

Jacquie Welsh was looking to undertake a project during her two-year residency at Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), so she asked herself the question: “How can we innovate to make our libraries more accessible and more just?” What resulted was Pathways, a program designed to provide resources to those reentering the community after prison.

Holly Robinson Peete, RJ Peete, and Ryan Peete

Holly Robinson Peete with RJ and Ryan Elizabeth Peete: The Peete Street

By Meredith Myers | June 27, 2016

The girl from 21 Jump Street opened her Auditorium Speaker Series presentation talking about an entirely different street: Sesame Street.

Geek on the Cheap

By Phil Morehart | June 27, 2016

Successful geek programming for teens can be a costly endeavor. But there are shortcuts.

Programs for Diverse Teens

By Meredith Myers | June 27, 2016

Their program, “You Did What? Programs For Diverse Teens,” sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, was so good it should have had a cover charge and two-drink minimum. Never has a morning meeting been more entertaining and made an audience of librarians wanting more. Programming ideas included an urban lit club; a game … Continue reading Programs for Diverse Teens →

Sustainable Thinking for Libraries

By Amy Carlton | June 27, 2016

Aldrich and her copresenter Matthew Bollerman of Hauppauge (N.Y.) Public Library, who spoke Saturday at the 2016 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida, said libraries can become sustainable by focusing on the triple bottom line, a term borrowed from the accounting world. For libraries, this means finding the overlap between decisions that are environmentally … Continue reading Sustainable Thinking for Libraries →

Selections from the Prose Writings of Matthew Arnold, annotated by former University of Virginia President Edwin Alderman on the left, compared to a pristine copy downloaded from Google Books.

Hidden in Plain Sight

By George M. Eberhart | June 27, 2016

Three librarians from the University of Virginia described their Book Traces project, an effort to discover uniquely modified copies of pre-1923 books in the circulating collections of Alderman Library, in a Sunday program sponsored by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services. Arts and Humanities Director Christine Ruotolo explained that the university has a long-standing tradition of emphasizing book history and bibliography and, because many of their books were originally donated by distinguished faculty and notable families in the Charlottesville area, many of them have potentially valuable modifications by their former owners—marginalia, inserts, inscriptions, annotations, and even doodles that can have evidential value for humanities scholars.

Council II Marks ALA’s 140th Anniversary

By Amy Carlton | June 27, 2016

Policy Monitoring Committee Chair Vicky Crone presented the Policy Monitoring Committee report (CD#17.1). A motion to insert a change to the policy manual adopted at the 2016 Midwinter Meeting passed. Sue Considine, chair of Committee on Organization, presented two action items (CD#27.1): Item 1 makes the definition of “subdivision” as an ALA division or round … Continue reading Council II Marks ALA’s 140th Anniversary →

From left: Joelle Pitts, Camille Chesley, Jami Schwarzwalder, Kelly Sattler, and Jeff Lacy

Gamification for Teens and College Students

By Kara Pauley | June 27, 2016

The panel included: moderator Breanne Kirsch, public services librarian at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg; Joelle Pitts, instructional design librarian at Kansas State University Library in Manhattan, Kansas; Camille Chesley, reference and instruction librarian at the University of Montevallo in Alabama; Jami Schwarzwalder, teen librarian at South Hill Pierce County (Wash.) Library; … Continue reading Gamification for Teens and College Students →

Randa Kamal (left) and Diana Sayej-Naser

Academic Libraries in Palestine

By George M. Eberhart | June 27, 2016

Randa Kamal, director of the library at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and president of the Palestinian Library and Information Association (PLIA), said one of the biggest challenges for her library is acquiring research materials. Books or journals that “discuss Palestinian culture or the Israeli-Arab conflict are prohibited” by the Israeli occupation forces and are subject … Continue reading Academic Libraries in Palestine →

Latest Library Links

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Year-end “best of” lists are a common phenomenon, and many libraries have created lists of staff or patron picks of their favorite reads of the year. See staff picks from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Seattle Public Library, Kent (Mich.) District Library, Los Angeles Public Library, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Farmington (Conn.) Libraries, and King County (Wash.) Library System. Seattle Public Library and Kent (Mich.) District Library have also released lists of patron favorites

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Dec. 11; Seattle Public Library; Kent (Mich.) District Library, Nov. 20, Dec. 13; Los Angeles Public Library, Dec. 16; New York Public Library, Nov. 26; Chicago Public Library, Nov. 18; Farmington (Conn.) Libraries, Dec. 6; King County (Wash.) Library System; Seattle Times, Dec. 17
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The Library of Congress announced 25 additions to the National Film Registry December 17. The new selections date back nearly 130 years and include a diverse group of films, filmmakers, and Hollywood landmarks. The selections range from Annabelle Serpentine Dance, a silent film created to entice audiences at the dawn of cinema in 1895 to the 2010 film The Social Network. Films are selected for their cultural, historic, or aesthetic importance, and this year’s selections bring the number of films in the registry to 900.

Library of Congress, Dec. 17
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Douglas Soule writes: “To support some of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ most prominent and controversial K–12 education laws, Florida has agreed to spend millions of dollars on a service it says is a tool for transparency. But free expression advocates warn it could be a vehicle for censorship. In a contract signed this September, the Florida Department of Education agreed to pay up to $15.6 million over four years to Maryland-based education technology company Trinity Education Group. The company has been tapped to develop a ‘statewide, centralized, easily accessible’ system for people to review and even object to instructional materials and library books in Florida school districts.”

Tallahassee Democrat, Dec. 12
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Olivia Olander and Jeremy Gorner write: “Starting this year, public libraries in Illinois had a choice: Adopt principles against book banning or give up state grants. [About 40] school districts, many of them in deeply conservative areas of south and central Illinois, appear to have taken the latter option. Administrators at some of those districts acknowledged being concerned about giving up any measure of control on what books are allowed on their schools’ library shelves. Some 700 school districts statewide have regularly applied for state library grant funding in the last two years.”

Chicago Tribune, Dec. 8
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Despina Gerasimidou and Maela Rakočević Uvodić write: “Displaced persons are scattered all over the world looking for the safest place for them and their families to settle and when they move to a new country are faced with legal, cultural, educational, and economic challenges, while in need of information, guidance, and support. The new IFLA Guidelines for Libraries Supporting Displaced Persons showcase how libraries can champion their core mission for universal and equitable access to information, ideas, and works of imagination, aiming at social, educational, cultural, democratic, and economic well-being.”

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Dec. 16
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Rebecca Bryant writes: “In 2021, the University of Calgary Libraries in Alberta launched a multilingual reference chatbot by leveraging a commercial product that combines a large language model with retrieval-augmented generation technology. The chatbot is trained on the library’s own web content, including LibGuides and operating hours, and is accessed from the library’s website. Before launch, the implementation team estimated that the chatbot could answer 14%–24% of reference chat questions, but today the chatbot answers about 50% of all questions with a rating of at least 4/5.”

Hanging Together, Dec. 12
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Chase Ollis writes: “On December 16, ALA announced 10 recipients of the 2025 I Love My Librarian Award, nominated by library users for their expertise, dedication, and impact in their communities. Four academic librarians, three public librarians, and three school librarians were selected to receive the 2025 award. ALA received nearly 1,300 nominations from library users across the country. Nominations highlighted librarians’ outstanding service in expanding access to literacy and library services, outreach to their communities, and supporting the needs of the most vulnerable. Each honoree will receive a $5,000 cash prize and complimentary registration and a travel stipend to attend ALA’s LibLearnX conference in Phoenix.”

AL: The Scoop, Dec. 17

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