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ALA Leadership Institute Participants Continue to Benefit

By Laurie D. Borman | March 26, 2014

Last August, 40 librarians gathered at the Eaglewood Resort and Spa in Itasca, Illinois, to participate in the first ALA Leadership Institute. Facilitated by ALA past-president Maureen Sullivan and Association of College and Research Libraries content strategist Kathryn Deiss, the group learned about models of leadership and group dynamics, and shared ideas and research. They … Continue reading ALA Leadership Institute Participants Continue to Benefit →

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Melissa Brachfeld writes: “Imagine the frustration of a scholar who, after traveling thousands of miles to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, must wait hours to access a single cardboard box that may or may not contain the specific materials they might be seeking. The 43 National Archives and Records Administration facilities contain over 10 billion pages, most of which have not been digitized. It can feel like searching for a historical needle in a very large haystack. Researchers at the University of Maryland, with assistance from information experts from Japan, are working to offer digital solutions to this dilemma.”

University of Maryland: Maryland Today, Oct. 17
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Sarah Wendell writes: “It seems there is some artificial intelligence (AI) weirdness with audiobook narration on OverDrive, and the narrator is only part of the story. On October 14, librarian Robin Bradford posted on Bluesky that she’d purchased an AI audiobook for her library system and she was really upset about it. Over 100 titles by AI ‘narrators’ were in their catalog, and Robin was having trouble finding indications that the authors themselves are real? Interesting.”

Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Oct. 21
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Kelly Jensen writes: “I’ve written about how book bans weren’t about the books specifically. They’re about the ways those books can be used as a tool to do a lot more damage and they’re one arm of a many-tentacled approach in the march toward authoritarianism. The argument is straightforward: if you would not have purchased the ‘inappropriate’ material in the first place, then you would not need to spend all of this money on the process of reviewing the material. Taxpayer money is at stake and poorly stewarded from start to finish. It’s a circular argument.”

Book Riot, Oct. 18
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Bennett Attaway, Elliott Bowen, and Rebecca Norlander write: “As the evaluator for ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities initiative, we’ve been analyzing grantees’ reports to learn about the partnerships they forged while planning and implementing their projects. Most first-round grantees have finished their projects, and reports from 187 grantees have been made available for analysis.” The authors also analyzed how grantees overcame challenges connected to their projects, and spoke to library patrons with disabilities to learn their perspectives on grantee projects. Applications for the third round of grants are open through December 11.

Programming Librarian, Oct. 15, 18, 22
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Forty-six books (23 fiction, 23 nonfiction) have been selected for the longlist for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, cosponsored by Booklist and the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. A six-title shortlist, with three fiction and three nonfiction titles, will be announced November 12, and the fiction and nonfiction medal winners will be announced at RUSA’s Book and Media Awards livestreaming event, to be held January 26 during ALA’s 2024 LibLearnX Conference in Phoenix.

Booklist, Oct. 22
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Chance Townsend writes: “The Internet Archive can’t catch a break. Just a day after the Internet Archive posted the restoration of its Wayback Machine and other services on its blog, the site has gone dark again. It’s another frustrating setback for users who rely on the digital library’s vast resources, though details on who is causing this new disruption are still unclear. At this point, it looks like this is the fourth cyberattack on the Internet Archive since the beginning of October.”

Mashable, Oct. 22
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Faith Bugenhagen writes: “Conroe (Tex.) Independent School District’s self-described ‘mama bear’ trustees’ attempt to block books they deem inappropriate from returning to library and classroom shelves proved unsuccessful October 15. Revisions [to the district’s book policies], which passed on a 4–2 vote, now clearly define that removed titles that bypassed the formal reconsideration process can undergo a formal review process if their removals are challenged. ‘If we trust parents to review books that are being pulled, then we trust parents to review books that are being asked to go into the schools,’ Skeeter Hubert, Conroe ISD board president, said.”

Chron (Houston), Oct. 16

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