Harwood Institute Archives | American Libraries Magazine

Listening to Your Community

By Mary Ghikas | November 1, 2019

At the event, R. David Lankes, now director of University of South Carolina’s iSchool, facilitated discussions on the topic. Participants from all types of libraries were asked to take an imaginary walk around their community: observing, listening, seeking to understand the aspirations of the community for itself. During the discussion that followed, participants talked about how … Continue reading Listening to Your Community →

American Libraries to Stream Midwinter Town Hall Meeting

January 17, 2017

In recent months, ALA members have expressed concerns about the effects of the recent election on the positions and advocacy efforts of the Association, and this event was created to provide a forum to continue that conversation. Although the town hall follows the first meeting of ALA’s governing council, all interested conference attendees are welcome to attend and share their feedback, concerns, … Continue reading American Libraries to Stream Midwinter Town Hall Meeting →

Richard Frieder (standing), community engagement director at Hartford Public Library, facilitates a community dialogue among neighborhood residents and Hartford police officers on the topic of community violence and public safety. The dialogue took place in June 2015 at Hartford Public Library's Barbour Street branch. (Photo: Judy Wyman Kelly)

Hartford Public Library Builds, Strengthens Community–Police Relationships

By Alison Marcotte | August 3, 2015

HPL is one of 10 public libraries in the US that have been participating in ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC) initiative since April 2014. The initiative, in collaboration with the nonprofit Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, is an 18-month community engagement training program where libraries learn how to address challenges facing their community. (Read more … Continue reading Hartford Public Library Builds, Strengthens Community–Police Relationships →

Kenneth Wayne Thompson, director of Davenport (Iowa) Public Library, participates in small-group work at an ALA-Harwood Institute training in Atlanta in October.

Libraries Transforming Communities

By Bailey Brewer | January 22, 2015

Of course it wasn’t Freudenberger and the community alone who made these changes happen; it was thanks in part to an initiative called Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC), which launched a program in April 2014 involving 10 library districts. The initiative is the result of a partnership between the American Library Association and the Bethesda, Maryland–based … Continue reading Libraries Transforming Communities →

Latest Library Links

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Genevieve Trainor writes: “The Guinness World Record holder for Most Prolific Book Thief is Ottumwa (Iowa’s) Stephen Blumberg. The 23,600 volumes he accumulated between the 1970s and his arrest in March of 1990 were all stashed in his 17-room home. Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, got involved with Blumberg as part of the FBI’s efforts to return the stolen manuscripts and rare books to their museums and libraries. Referred to as the Omaha Project, the information science proving ground involved four weeks, 44 catalogers and reference librarians and 600 volunteer hours to determine who might be the rightful owners.”

Little Village (Dubuque, Iowa), Dec. 4
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Casey Newton writes: “At the moment, no one knows for sure whether the large language models that are now under development will achieve superintelligence and transform the world. And in that uncertainty, two primary camps of criticism have emerged. The first camp, which I associate with the external critics, holds that artificial intelligence (AI) is fake and sucks. The second camp, which I associate more with the internal critics, believes that AI is real and dangerous. Today I want to lay out why I believe AI is real and dangerous.”

Platformer, Dec. 5
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Latia Ward writes: “One way to keep current with what students think of the library and its services is through Student Library Advisory Committee meetings. These meetings are a way to gather feedback and reinforce the library as a welcoming place. How do librarians create a welcoming environment within Student Library Advisory Committee meetings? Librarians create a welcoming environment through community, purpose, and dedicated space.” Also see part 1 of this blog post.

RIPS Law Librarian Blog, Nov. 13, Dec. 5
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Eleanor Hecks writes: “Few things are as frustrating to a user as when a site won’t respond. Unfortunately, it’s also an all-too-common scenario. Graceful degradation is a design approach that ensures the basics of a website will still function even if specific individual parts of it stop working. The approach removes single points of failure: just because one thing stops working doesn’t mean the system as a whole fails. A site following this principle fails in pieces instead of all at once, so the most important features remain available when some components encounter an error.”

Smashing Magazine, Dec. 6
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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9

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