Holocaust Archives | American Libraries Magazine

Conversations with Holocaust Survivors

By Sally Stieglitz | July 2, 2024

In 1993, director Steven Spielberg told the story of Oskar Schindler, a German factory worker who became an unlikely hero. Spielberg’s experiences working with survivors on set served as the genesis for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which today is the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. It is … Continue reading Conversations with Holocaust Survivors →

Photo of author Art Spiegelman sitting with arms crossed on table

Newsmaker: Art Spiegelman

By Phil Morehart | June 1, 2022

Spiegelman spoke with American Libraries about book banning, how comic books are used as teaching tools, and the importance of libraries in his life. The recent ban of Maus in Tennessee isn’t its first challenge. What did you think when you heard the news? Well, this was the most prominent. [And] this was much more, … Continue reading Newsmaker: Art Spiegelman →

Holocaust survivor Severin Fayerman, who died in 2015, shows his Auschwitz tattoo to students at Southern Middle School in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania.

‘How Would I Respond?’

By Anne Ford | January 3, 2017

Ann Yawornitsky first heard of the Holocaust in 9th-grade world cultures class. She found the news so shocking that at first, she had a hard time believing it. “I remember going home to my mom and saying, ‘Is my teacher making this up, or did this really happen?,’” Yawornitsky says. “Then I read the diary … Continue reading ‘How Would I Respond?’ →

Latest Library Links

9h

Sheila Craft-Morgan writes: “Citations are a key measure of the impact of a researcher’s work. However, research in a variety of disciplines has found that women are less likely to be cited than men; citations contain geographic bias; and the Matthew effect—in which those who begin with advantage continue to gain advantage—leads to more citations for prominent scholars in a specific discipline. These findings contribute to the notion that scholarly knowledge comes from a homogenous group of researchers, thereby overlooking the contributions of other groups.”

American Libraries column, June
12h

Mel Baldwin writes: “Regardless of why someone comes into a library, every patron should be free to interact with staff, browse materials, and use the internet without fear of harassment or worse. That freedom depends on libraries upholding patron privacy. With nearly 400 active anti-trans bills pending in state legislatures as of April 2024, it is a dangerous time in the US to be gender nonconforming, someone whose gender expression does not align with the traditional male or female binary. And for trans people of color, studies show the risk of discrimination and violence is higher.”

American Libraries column, June
16h

Greg Landgraf writes: “On a school morning last September, small groups of 5th-graders crowded around tools connected to scientific research—a microscope, a robotic camera, and even a snake named Morgan Freeman—clipboards and pencils in hand. They were at the Melrose branch of Roanoke (Va.) Public Libraries (RPL), judging graduate students from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on their research. The event was RPL’s second Flip the Fair, introduced in 2022 to help graduate students develop skills to effectively communicate their research while engaging local elementary students with STEM topics and the library.”

American Libraries Trend, June
3d

Aaryn Bierly writes: “Disability Pride Month is traditionally celebrated in July to celebrate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The ADA regulates laws regarding service animals, requires employers to accommodate their employees’ physical and medical needs, stipulates the number and placement of accessible parking spaces and restrooms, and more. One in five Americans has some type of disability that makes working more difficult, and the ADA has made working conditions easier for a significant number of Americans. We’ve got several great lists of books for kids and teens of different ages featuring characters with a range of disabilities.”

Herrick District Library (Holland, Mich.), July 1
4d

“Many people already turn to libraries as sources of trusted information ahead of elections, and organizations like ALA and the League of Women Voters are hoping to expand those numbers. We’ve curated a selection of resources, tools, and ideas to help inform your library’s approach to this important work.”

WebJunction, July 3
4d

“A federal appeals court in New Orleans is taking another look at its own order requiring a Texas county to keep eight books that deal with subjects including sex, gender identity, and racism on public library shelves. Llano County officials had initially removed 17 books from its shelves amid complaints about the subject matter. The June 6 order was vacated July 3 after a majority of the 17-member court granted Llano County officials a new hearing before the full court. The order did not state reasons and the hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled.”

Associated Press, July 7
5d

Todd Spangler writes: “In the days after Paramount Global disabled mtvnews.com and mtv.com/news in June—removing a trove of hundreds of thousands of articles about music and pop culture from the internet—the not-for-profit Internet Archive assembled a searchable index of 460,575 web pages previously published at mtv.com/news. The Wayback Machine’s archive of MTV News is not the full complement of what was published over the span of more than two decades. But the new collection at least ensures, for the time being, that much of MTV News’ articles remain accessible in some form.”

Variety, July 2

View more Latest Library Links