Laura Lippman, author of the Tess Monaghan novels, and David Simon, creator of the HBO series The Wire and Treme, are a married couple, but the PLA President’s Program was still the first time they’d appeared together—apart from a single appearance before a much smaller audience in a synagogue. They spoke to each other and … Continue reading Books and TV: Laura Lippman and David Simon Address PLA
YALSA’s Teens and Technology Interest Group sponsored a Pecha Kucha 20×20 session on programming and other technology issues for teen services. Pecha Kucha is a short-format talk. Each speaker prepares a slide show of 20 images, which each show for 20 seconds before advancing automatically, for a total presentation time of just under 7 minutes. … Continue reading In a Flash: Tech Services for Teens
The folks at Wikipedia “are lovers of the institutions of knowledge” and definitely libraries, said Sue Gardner at ALA President Roberta Stevens’s special program Sunday at ALA in New Orleans. The executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, said that the wiki is not opposed to traditional media; and, in fact, “we want … Continue reading Sue Gardner Calls for Librarians to Dive in to the World of Wikipedia
Transliteracy is a trendy word these days, and much like the Web 2.0 debate that took place a few years ago, there are those who question whether or not transliteracy is just a new, fancier term for information literacy. According to Bobbi Newman, one of the speakers on the Why Transliteracy panel that took place … Continue reading Trans-what? A Day of Literacies at the ALA Annual Conference
“If the Intellectual Freedom Committee is the brains of the ALA and the Committee on Professional Ethics is the conscience, then we (the LeRoy C. Merritt Fund) are the righteous arm for the individual librarian,” declared Loriene Roy, past ALA president and current Merritt Fund trustee. It became clear during the Intellectual Freedom 101 presentation, … Continue reading Intellectual Freedom 101: The Brains of the ALA
“If we don’t advocate for ourselves, then who’s going to advocate for us?” asked Cindy Singer of the County of Los Angeles Public Library and moderator of the “Privatization of Libraries: What’s at Stake for Your Profession and Community” session. That question set the tone for the afternoon and advocate librarians did. The room was … Continue reading This Is Our Last Public Space
Even though he wrote The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry), Siva Vaidhyanathan has plenty of good to say about the company. “Google has actually treated us very well,” he said during his Auditorium Speaker Series speech. “Google does a good job with what they offer and they do it for free…. They’re … Continue reading Vaidhyanathan Speaks on the Limitations of Benevolence
LearnRT’s “TEDx, Boot Camps, and Unconferences: Innovative and Low-Cost Staff Development Events” offered insights on using nontraditional methods to help library staff gain knowledge and insight to better perform their jobs. Janie Hermann, program librarian at Princeton (N.J.) Public Library, described how the library created a camp experience for its staff development day in 2009. … Continue reading Saving on Staff Development
Jill Nishi of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation kicked off a panel discussion of “Recovery along the Gulf Coast” by saying it was hard for her to believe that it has been five years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged large portions of Mississippi and Louisiana. “But so much has been accomplished,” she added. Nishi noted … Continue reading Librarians Share Front-Line Stories of Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery
“Everyone loves series,” declared Jonathan Stroud, author of The Bartimaeus Sequence. “Children love series, adults love series, publishers love series.” Stroud spoke as part of a panel at “Keep ’Em Coming: Series Fiction Creators Talk Shop,” where four young adult authors talked about the whys and the hows of series fiction. Financial considerations are a … Continue reading Panel Reveals Series Secrets
As ALA staff members pack for the Association’s Annual Conference in New Orleans June 23–28, the second since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast six years ago, what should arrive but an email thank-you note from a Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, librarian regarding ALA’s 2006 Annual Conference there. Open Letter to ALA: On behalf of the … Continue reading Kudos from the Crescent City
An Open Letter from ALA President Roberta Stevens and ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels: Dear Colleagues: Here is ALA’s new 2015 Strategic Plan (PDF file). The plan outlines the vision and goals that will guide us through what promises to be a period of unprecedented challenges and opportunities for libraries. It reflects the work … Continue reading Unveiling the ALA 2015 Strategic Plan
