rural libraries Archives | Page 2 of 2 | American Libraries Magazine

Graves County (Ky.) Public Library's bookmobile. Photo: Graves County (Ky.) Public Library

By the Numbers: Rural and Small Libraries

By Alison Marcotte | September 1, 2020

1982 Year the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) was founded by Bernard Vavrek, director of the Center for the Study of Rural Librarianship at Clarion (Pa.) University. 5 Number of days the ARSL Conference will take place, September 28–October 2. Previously scheduled for Wichita, Kansas, the conference has switched to a virtual format. … Continue reading By the Numbers: Rural and Small Libraries →

From left: Punxsutawney Phil, 134 years old and living at the Punxsutawney (Pa.) Memorial Library since the 1970s, inside his burrow; at the front of the library, visitors can see Phil's Burrow through the viewing window. Photos: Punxsutawney (Pa.) Memorial Library

Burrowed in Books

By Terra Dankowski | January 31, 2020

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in January 2020. You read that correctly. When Phil isn’t swarmed by media and visitors clamoring for his shadow-dependent spring predictions on Groundhog Day every February 2—in 2019, 25,000 people gathered before the stump at Gobbler’s Knob—the well-known woodchuck lives in a burrow at the front of Punxsutawney … Continue reading Burrowed in Books →

Latest Library Links

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Daniel Pfeiffer writes: “It has been a brutal summer for artificial intelligence (AI) news and commentary. Though I have deep reservations about the trajectory we’re on, I do at least feel good about the work that librarians are undertaking in this field, such as organizing communities of practice, incorporating AI into information literacy instruction, and finding thoughtful uses of it. Such applications underscore that librarians have an important role in shepherding this technology, and we need more AI-literate librarians to enter these conversations and decision-making processes.” Pfeiffer recommends new reports and research to help librarians gain that literacy.

Choice 360: LibTech Insights, July 28, July 14, July 7, June 9
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Rachel McRady writes: “Dan Pelzer read more than 5,000 books throughout the course of his life, including one classic he called ‘pure torture.’ Pelzer, who died on July 1 at the age of 92, left his friends and family a 109-page handwritten list of all the books he’s read since 1962. Pelzer’s family scanned the list and created a website sharing his reads, What Dan Read. In a post shared on the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Facebook page, Pelzer’s daughter, Marci, wrote, ‘ALL of his books were Columbus Metropolitan Library books. Nobody loved the library more than Dan.’”

People, July 22; Columbus Metropolitan Library, July 21
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Greg Landgraf writes: “Libraries are having a Hollywood moment, as several documentarians have recently turned their lenses towards libraries, librarians, and intellectual freedom issues. Some of these films made their mark at the recent ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia, on PBS, at the Sundance Film Festival, and even at the Oscars, where The ABCs of Book Banning was nominated last year for Best Documentary Short Film. Below you can read about some favorites (and find out how to watch them).”

American Libraries Online, July 28
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ALA has launched the ALA Learning Library, a member-exclusive collection of free professional development resources. Introduced at the 2025 ALA Annual Conference, the ALA Learning Library will help ALA members easily access a large and growing of eLearning events that are only available to them. In addition to demonstrating the value of membership to current members, the new library also helps promote membership to non-members who want to take advantage of the professional development offerings.

ALA Communications, Marketing, and Media Relations Office, July 23
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Sam Helmick writes: “As library professionals, we often traffic in the timeless—in books, archives, and community memory. But this year’s ALA Annual Conference reminded us that timing matters, too. At a moment when the core tenets of librarianship—intellectual freedom, the right to read, equitable access to information—are under direct attack across the country, gathering in Philadelphia felt as much like a profound act of civic engagement as it did impactful professional development. There was an unmistakable sense that showing up mattered.”

American Libraries column, July/Aug.
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Marshall Breeding writes: “Although libraries are currently facing a climate of political and financial upheaval, that didn’t stop information professionals from showing up in force to ALA’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition. With more than 600 vendors and a variety of live stages and pavilions, the Library Marketplace showcased products for libraries facing intense new challenges. Services and solutions that focused on libraries’ ongoing needs for efficiency and impact were in high demand.”

American Libraries feature, July/Aug.
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Daisy Atterbury writes: “Literature, like space travel, offers an escape, but also a way to reimagine what it means to be tethered to this planet, to each other, to the futures we may or may not reach. A multi-genre class of experimental writers challenged me to think against the steady gravitational pull of capitalist orientations to space. Space belongs not to the empire, but to the storytellers, the poets, the dreamers who refuse the logic of extraction and conquest. Each of these books remind us that another world is always possible, whether here, ‘out there,’ or somewhere between.”

Electric Literature, July 18

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