Library of Congress Archives | Page 3 of 3 | American Libraries Magazine

Obama to Nominate Carla Hayden for Librarian of Congress

By Amy Carlton | February 24, 2016

In a statement, President Obama said: “Michelle and I have known Dr. Carla Hayden for a long time, since her days working at the Chicago Public Library, and I am proud to nominate her to lead our nation’s oldest federal institution as our 14th Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to modernizing … Continue reading Obama to Nominate Carla Hayden for Librarian of Congress →

2015: Year in Review

By the editors of American Libraries | January 4, 2016

Librarian of Congress Moves On James H. Billington (left) retired as Librarian of Congress after 28 years. During his tenure, LC launched the National Digital Library and National Book Festival, among other accomplishments. Billington’s decision came after the Government Accountability Office issued a report identifying weaknesses in LC’s information technology planning. … Continue reading 2015: Year in Review →

David Gibson. (Photo: Geo. Willeman/Library of Congress)

Bookend: Game On

November 1, 2015

David Gibson, a moving image technician, is LC’s videogame steward, and he earned the role by chance. “I was the youngest person in the office, so they gave me the job,” he says, laughing. He does credit gaming as a youth and while in graduate school with providing a background to archive the 4,000 videogame … Continue reading Bookend: Game On →

David Mao, Acting Librarian of Congress. Photo by Abby Brack Lewis

An interview with David Mao

George M. Eberhart | October 13, 2015

What’s the best thing going for LC right now? DAVID MAO: We have a lot of great things going on right now. Overall, one of the best assets that we have here at the Library of Congress is our staff. Through thick and thin, we have employees who work at the library because they are … Continue reading An interview with David Mao →

The Convergence of LAMs

By Karen Muller | December 12, 2014

Rare book collections are not just limited to well-known libraries—they may be present in any size or type of library local history collection, or special collection surrounding an event of importance to the larger community. Sidney E. Berger’s Rare Books and Special Collections is a handbook to help an administrator understand the special aspects of … Continue reading The Convergence of LAMs →

Latest Library Links

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Gretchen Corsillo writes: “High school students around the country could now stand to lose even more as a result of the recent widespread efforts to ban and challenge books. Earlier this month, College Board, the nonprofit that administers testing and college readiness programs such as the SAT, Advanced Placement (AP) Program, and PSAT, released a new set of guiding principles. Titled What AP Stands For, the statement directly opposes censorship and clarifies that schools that remove essential topics or readings from AP classes could lose their official designation.”

Intellectual Freedom Blog, May 18; College Board
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Taylor Healey-Brooks and Michelle Lee write: “Research across many fields has shown that having a mentor can be crucial for people of color. Mentoring can lead to knowledge, experience, networking opportunities, and increased job satisfaction. One of the most important things mentoring offers is a sense of community and emotional support in one’s career. But it can be difficult for new librarians to find such a person with years of training. Because of the lack of diversity in librarianship (in 2020, approximately 83% of credentialed librarians were white) and problems retaining librarians of color, it can be challenging for new librarians to find a mentor with ample experience in the field. Peer mentoring—a relationship in which the participants are at similar points in their career—can help fill this gap.”

American Libraries column, May; AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees, June 10, 2021
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On May 18, the American Library Association announced that actor, singer-songwriter, and philanthropist Idina Menzel and her sister, author and educator Cara Mentzel, have been named this year’s honorary chairs for Library Card Sign-Up Month. This September marks 35 years since the Library Card Sign-Up Month campaign began. Menzel and Mentzel are coauthors of the forthcoming picture book, Loud Mouse. For more information, visit the Library Card Sign-Up Month webpage.

ALA, May 18
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Adi Robertson writes: “For weeks, tech news has been dominated by billionaire Elon Musk’s attempts to buy (and subsequently avoid buying) Twitter. And since Musk announced his plans in April, people have debated whether it’s better for online social spaces like Twitter to remain publicly traded companies—where they’re under pressure from shareholders—or be owned by a single wealthy figure like Musk. But Ben Tarnoff, author of the upcoming book Internet for the People, believes there’s a better way. Tarnoff’s book discusses common proposals like lessening the power of internet gatekeepers with antitrust reform, but it also argues that promoting competition isn’t enough: there should also be a political movement advocating for local, noncommercial spaces online.”

The Verge, May 23
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Hannah Natanson writes: “On a hot, dusty Wednesday afternoon, 10 girls gathered in their high school library to talk about a book the adults said they weren’t allowed to read. The teens came complaining about tests and chattering about TikTok dances—but they quieted when Ella Scott, the 16-year-old cofounder and copresident of the Vandegrift High School (Tex.) Banned Book Club, cleared her throat. Ella looked at her notes for the club’s 14th meeting, convened to review I. W. Gregorio’s None of the Above. The book tells the story of Kristin, a high school student who discovers she is intersex, a condition in which people are born with atypical combinations of chromosomes, hormones, gonads, or genitals. In December, the Leander (Tex.) Independent School District had banned the novel from classroom libraries and from use in high school student book clubs—along with 10 other books.”

The Washington Post, May 22
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Austin Persinger writes: “Last November, our local police department wrote on Facebook that it had received complaints about misused and abandoned shopping buggies strewn about Hinton, our city of 2,800 people. The police, using the tools at their disposal, threatened disciplinary measures for what it referred to as the unlawful removal of buggies. I thought this was a knee-jerk reaction and not the best solution for the situation. I read this story through the lens of a rural librarian conducting a reference interview. The story that I heard was that there are lower-income people in our community who take these carts because they live in a food desert and lack reliable transportation.”

American Libraries Trend, May
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Annemarie Mannion writes: “When her son brought home speech cards from elementary school to help him better learn and articulate words, Jen Taggart could barely see what the cards depicted. The cards had been duplicated and the images were blurry, says Taggart, head of youth services at Bloomfield Township (Mich.) Public Library (BTPL). That experience more than 13 years ago inspired her to start BTPL’s Youth Accessibility Support Collection, a set of items designed to meet the needs of children with various types of disabilities and learning needs. Since 2009, families have been borrowing from the collection, which includes adaptive toys, sensory storytime boxes, speech therapy cards, and skills development sets.”

American Libraries Trend, May

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