Inside ALA Archives | American Libraries Magazine

ALA Statement on Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping

October 29, 2020

“On September 22, the White House issued its Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, prohibiting federal employees, contractors, and grant recipients from discussing or considering concepts such as critical race theory and white privilege and discouraging diversity education and training. This order is based on the patently false and malicious claim that diversity … Continue reading ALA Statement on Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping →

ALA presidential candidates for the 2022–2023 term, from left: Stacey A. Aldrich, Ed Garcia, and Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada

ALA Presidential Candidates Announced

October 26, 2020

“Stacey A. Aldrich, state librarian, Hawaii State Public Library System, Honolulu; Ed Garcia, director, Cranston (R.I.) Public Library; and Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada, adult services assistant manager, Palos Verdes Library District in Rolling Hills Estates, California, are candidates for the 2022–2023 presidency of the American Library Association (ALA). Aldrich currently serves on the ALA Center for the … Continue reading ALA Presidential Candidates Announced →

Remembering Art Plotnik

September 1, 2020

Before joining the American Library Association (ALA) in 1975, Plotnik earned his MSLS at Columbia University in New York City, wrote pulp fiction, served as a press and public relations assistant and newsletter editor in the Librarian’s Office of the Library of Congress, and served as associate editor of the magazine Wilson Library Bulletin. Plotnik … Continue reading Remembering Art Plotnik →

ALA Statement on Institutional Racism

June 26, 2020

The American Library Association (ALA) accepts and acknowledges its role in upholding unjust systems of racism and discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) within the Association and the profession. We recognize that the founding of our Association was not built on inclusion and equity but instead was built on systemic racism and … Continue reading ALA Statement on Institutional Racism →

ALA Affirms the Rights of Transgender People

June 24, 2020

The American Library Association (ALA), and particularly its Rainbow Round Table, unequivocally and emphatically stands in solidarity with its transgender staff and members, transgender library workers, transgender library users, transgender authors, and the transgender members of the communities we serve. As an organization committed to social justice, ALA seeks to support all transgender people, and … Continue reading ALA Affirms the Rights of Transgender People →

ALA Condemns Police Violence

June 11, 2020

In a June 11 statement, the American Library Association condemned police violence against people of color, protesters, and journalists. The full statement reads as follows: The American Library Association is deeply saddened by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, as well as the killings by police or vigilantes … Continue reading ALA Condemns Police Violence →

ALA Executive Board Stands with BCALA

June 1, 2020

The Executive Board of the American Library Association (ALA) stands with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) in condemning violence and racism toward black people and all people of color. The ALA Executive Board endorses BCALA’s May 28 statement, in which the caucus decries the death of George Floyd at the hands of … Continue reading ALA Executive Board Stands with BCALA →

ALA Executive Board Stands with APALA in Condemning Xenophobia, Racism

May 26, 2020

The Executive Board of the American Library Association (ALA) stands with the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) in condemning xenophobia and racism. The ALA Executive Board endorses APALA’s March 13 statement, in which it “unequivocally denounce[d] the rise in racism and xenophobia against Asians and Asian/Pacific Americans in the wake of the outbreak of COVID-19 … Continue reading ALA Executive Board Stands with APALA in Condemning Xenophobia, Racism →

Libraries Adapt amid Crisis

By Wanda Kay Brown | May 1, 2020

COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus have upended our way of life and altered the way we as library professionals do our work. Of course, it has also impacted the American Library Association in profound ways. In March, the Executive Board made two difficult decisions: First, to recommend the closing of all libraries to all patrons. … Continue reading Libraries Adapt amid Crisis →

From the Executive Director by Tracie D. Hall

Perfect Storm

By Tracie D. Hall | May 1, 2020

And all this within the first 30 days of my taking the helm. On day 31, a member wrote to me acknowledging the unforeseen series of events that had played out, and confided, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you had buyer’s remorse.” I didn’t, and I don’t. Though I certainly would have wished for other … Continue reading Perfect Storm →

ALA National Library Workers Day Statement

April 21, 2020

The American Library Association stands in solidarity with and support of library workers. As we said last month when we recommended and urged all libraries to close to the public, “The health of our library workers and the communities we serve is of utmost and equal importance.” Since that time, we have been buoyed by … Continue reading ALA National Library Workers Day Statement →

ALCTS, LITA, and LLAMA Members Vote to Create New ALA Division

April 8, 2020

The vote was part of the just-completed ALA election: ALCTS: 91% yes LITA: 96% yes LLAMA: 96% yes Pending final approval by the ALA Committee on Organization and the ALA Council, ALCTS, LITA, and LLAMA will officially sunset August 31, 2020, and their members will be united in Core, the new division launching September 1. … Continue reading ALCTS, LITA, and LLAMA Members Vote to Create New ALA Division →

Latest Library Links

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Caroline Leavitt and Christina Ianzito write: “Lights on! Doors locked! It can be fun to fray your nerves when the source is fictional (or is it?!). We asked some booksellers and other bibliophiles to recommend their all-time favorite scary stories. Here are 20 of them.”

AARP, Oct. 20
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Richard Byrne writes: “Recently, YouTube made some changes to the way that the caption editing process works. Those changes are for the better as they’ve made it easier to adjust the correlation between timestamps and your edited captions. In the following video I demonstrate how to edit the captions and adjust the timing of the captions on your YouTube videos.”

Free Technology for Teachers, Oct. 27
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The Chronicling Resistance Project is a new archival effort to document more than 300 years of resistance history in Philadelphia by collecting letters, photographs, reports, scrapbooks, and other materials from civil, women’s, and LGBTQ rights struggles. An artistic response to the 2016 presidential election’s impact on minority communities, Chronicling Resistance—recently awarded a $600,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—aims to uplift people who are underrepresented in US archives. The curated materials eventually will be housed in an exhibit at Philadelphia Free Library’s Parkway Central branch.

Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 26
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Red paint was smeared on doors and windows of Austin (Tex.) Public Library’s Central location on Cesar Chavez Street early October 26. City officials said the on-duty security guard discovered the vandalism at around 5 a.m. and said the act happened around 2 a.m. The culprits also wrote anti-voting sentiments on the walls of the library, but staff members were able to cover it up with brown paper in the early daylight hours.

KXAN-TX Austin, Oct. 26
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Schools nationwide are struggling to recover unreturned library books, seven months after the coronavirus pandemic shut down buildings and displaced students. A Morris County (N.J.) schools superintendent recently issued a plea to parents after more than 1,100 school library books in his K–12 district went missing. In Osceola, Florida, school officials announced last month that they were seeking 37,801 overdue books worth an estimated $756,020. An AASL survey in September found that 54% of school districts were bracing for a collection loss of up to 10%.

NJ.com, Oct. 24
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Each year, American Libraries tracks dozens of library referenda across the country, using the ballot box as a means of tracking support for public and school libraries. Because next week’s presidential election is expected to generate high voter turnout, some communities may be pushing harder than usual to get local referenda in front of taxpayers, even as the ongoing pandemic lends uncertainty to, well, everything. To get the ball rolling, here we present library referenda that have appeared since last year’s roundup.

AL: The Scoop, Oct. 27
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Claudia C. Breland writes: “In my 10 years as a professional genealogist, working with hundreds of clients and thousands of records, I have learned a lot about judging the quality of a source. Genealogists know that the closer a record is to the event in question, the more likely it is to be accurate. Original documents with primary information are best; sources with secondary information need to be explored further. Sometimes you will have several sources that record the same information—but on digging deeper, you might find that the information is in fact, incorrect.”

Genealogy and Online Research, Oct. 17

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