American Association of School Librarians Archives

Council I: Elevating Intellectual Freedom

By Megan Bennett | June 29, 2024

The Council rules (CD#5.1) and agenda (CD#8.4) were adopted. The minutes from ALA’s 2024 LibLearnX Conference in Baltimore (CD#2.2) meetings were approved. Interim ALA Executive Director Leslie Burger shared the Executive Board’s actions since LibLearnX (CD#15.1) and the implementation of Council Actions from the January conference (#9.1). Cindy Hohl, ALA president-elect and Committee on Committees … Continue reading Council I: Elevating Intellectual Freedom →

Culturally Diverse Collections

By Elisabet Kennedy | June 1, 2023

Whatever your school’s library is like, the opportunity to bring in culturally responsive principles exists. If you are a school librarian, time is not always on your side. But with intentional steps, the culturally responsive practices that you decide to implement in your library can be structured into feasible tasks. Each of the following tasks … Continue reading Culturally Diverse Collections →

At the Center of Learning

By Maura Madigan | March 1, 2023

Learning centers also work well in the school library, where makerspaces have similarly paved the way for innovative library instruction. Makerspaces can vary according to setting, participant grade level, budget, and purpose. In general, they’re places where learners have choices and where learners make something. Many learning centers share these qualities. The difference is that … Continue reading At the Center of Learning →

Representation Matters

By Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada | September 1, 2022

The library ecosystem encompasses the life cycles of both our users (to provide representation and touchstones at each stage of a person’s life) and library workers (to assist at each stage of our careers). Seasons come and go, but libraries are always present: creating community, ensuring representation, and upholding our values. Here are some roles … Continue reading Representation Matters →

Book Battle in Tennessee

By Lindsey Kimery | May 11, 2022

Country music star John Rich, who tweeted in January, prior to the bill’s introduction, that he’d met with Gov. Bill Lee and Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn about obscene books in school libraries, addressed the House subcommittee on K–12 education on February 23, comparing teachers, educators, and librarians to “the guy in the white van … Continue reading Book Battle in Tennessee →

Image of ALA President Patricia "Patty" M. Wong

School Librarians Are Essential

By Patricia "Patty" M. Wong | May 2, 2022

A study from 2021 shows that the number of school librarians in the US decreased from 52,545 in 2009 to 42,279 in 2019—a 19.5% drop. The investigators went on to note that school librarians were most likely to be absent in rural and Hispanic districts, as well as in districts with poor and minority students. Like … Continue reading School Librarians Are Essential →

Power to the People

By Phil Morehart | October 27, 2021

Magoon’s interest in the Black Panthers came when she was working as a grant writer in New York City and stumbled upon an article about the organization’s free breakfast program for school children. Unaware that the group conducted this sort of community outreach, Magoon continued her research and was “dazzled by all this new knowledge” … Continue reading Power to the People →

Day Two of the 2021 AASL National Conference

Advocating for Yourself and Others

By Phil Morehart | October 25, 2021

Moderated by Kathryn Roots Lewis, retired director of libraries and instructional technology at Norman (Okla.) Public Schools and 2018–2019 AASL president, and Kathy Carroll, school librarian at Westwood High School in Blythewood, South Carolina, and 2020–2021 AASL president, the October 22 session featured four administrators who had participated in the AASL School Leader Collaborative, an … Continue reading Advocating for Yourself and Others →

School Librarians, Together Again

By Phil Morehart | October 22, 2021

“It’s been a chaotic time, to say the least,” Pelayo-Lozada said. “And we all deserve to enjoy our time here, especially because the weight that you all have carried for your students, yourselves, and your colleagues over the last year and a half is a heavy one with difficult decisions, a lot of empathy, probably … Continue reading School Librarians, Together Again →

Youth Matters, by Becky Calzada, Anita Cellucci, and Courtney Lewis

Reset and Reconnect

By Anita Cellucci and Becky Calzada and Courtney Lewis | November 2, 2020

This past summer, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) created a document and chart titled “School Librarian Role in Pandemic Learning Conditions” to assist K–12 librarians as they encounter a variety of situations this school year. The document analyzes the five key roles that we fill—instructional partner, teacher, leader, information specialist, and program administrator—in … Continue reading Reset and Reconnect →

Separate—and Unequal

By Wayne A. Wiegand | October 6, 2020

Born in Mississippi in 1906, Robinson began her career as a librarian serving Black schools in South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana before settling in Alabama, where she initially worked for Alabama State College as an assistant professor of library education. In 1947, she helped organize a librarian section of the Alabama State Teachers Association, a … Continue reading Separate—and Unequal →

Accepting Queer Realities

By Rae-Anne Montague | June 1, 2020

As our schools and communities grapple with fostering a broader recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity diversity, school librarians play crucial roles in building a welcoming environment and providing access to inclusive resources and services. Social stigma of non-mainstream experiences in schools, particularly among LGBTQ+ students, is reinforced by a lack of accurate information … Continue reading Accepting Queer Realities →

Latest Library Links

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Elisa Shoenberger writes: “These days, it seems that humor and murder mysteries go together like cookies and milk. With films like Knives Out and See How They Run and television shows like Only Murders in the Building, it seems that murder mysteries with a lot of humor are fashionable right now. Plus, we’re going to get the film adaptation of Richard Osman’s delightful The Thursday Murder Club later this year. I’ve put together a list of recently published humorous murder mystery books.”

Book Riot, Feb. 17
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Pranay Parab writes: “Google’s recent foray into artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t going to stop anytime soon. While you can hide Google Workspace’s Gemini buttons and prompts for now, you can’t actually stop the company from continuing to build its apps around a technology that revolves around getting its hands on as much data as possible. I rely on Google Docs for collaboration, but the company’s AI push has got me looking for alternatives, even if Google currently denies using your data to train its models. On that note, these are the best AI-free, encrypted alternatives to Google Docs.”

Lifehacker, Feb. 13
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Elizabeth Coen and Mary Manning write: “In the winter of 2023, we reimagined the curricular design of an undergraduate survey course called American Drama. We wanted students to think deeply about the nature of representation in American theatre, and whose voices are traditionally privileged in play anthologies and theatrical productions and whose voices are not. We also wanted students to examine these privileges and gaps through primary and secondary source research—through group discovery and ‘play’ in the archives and in the stacks.”

TPS Collective, Feb. 14
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Suzan Karabakal writes: “As a UX research and design student at the School of Information, I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to conduct user research on Library Search, the University of Michigan Library’s discovery layer, last summer. My goal was to uncover how novice users approach Library Search features and functions, and to identify design opportunities to improve student experiences. After conducting interviews with librarians in the Learning and Teaching division, student employees who provide ‘Ask a Librarian’ services, and undergraduate students, I compiled a list of five key findings and five key design recommendations.”

University of Michigan Library, Feb. 13
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María Evelia Emerson writes: “Diversity audits, like much of librarianship, are not a simple box to check off once complete. Collections, as well as other programs and services, need to be consistently revisited in order to stay abreast of current trends and make sure that libraries strive to be as inclusive as possible. Although this requires time (something few librarians have an abundance of), without consistent check-ins, reviews, and feedback, collections and services are at risk of catering to a specific group of people, without taking into account the variety and differences of experiences and needs that make up our society.”

Portal: Libraries and the Academy, Jan.
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ALA’s Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services will host “Libraries Respond: Racial Healing and Transforming Communities through Mental Health Practices,” a virtual panel discussion, on February 25 at 3 p.m. Central. The 90-minute event will feature mental health professional Grace Le sharing her expertise on how mental health can impact our individual journeys towards racial healing, and a moderated panel of ALA leaders sharing perspectives and experiences on collective community healing towards racial equity and our roles in our library spaces. Register to receive the Zoom link.

ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy, and outreach Services
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Michelle Reed and Tova Gaster write: “Neo-Censorship in US Libraries: An Investigation into Digital Content Suppression, a new Library Futures report, dives into an underreported area of library censorship—database bans that restrict youth access to ebooks, research resources, and other digital content. While bans on beloved print books are often more visible, challenges to databases and digital collections risk restricting children from viewing a wide range of content—from breast cancer awareness to resources for identifying and reporting sexual abuse.”

Library Futures, Feb. 13

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