school libraries Archives | American Libraries Magazine

Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Libraries

By Hannah Weinberg | March 19, 2025

While the legality of many of these actions is still being decided by the courts, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals have been working through the confusion to preserve access to information. Below are several examples of the challenges libraries have faced over the past two months and the ways in which librarians and advocates have … Continue reading Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Libraries →

Assessing AI

By Sarah Tribelhorn | March 3, 2025

Training and operating AI tools like large language models, for instance, require substantial computational power. Generating one image could use as much energy as charging an average smartphone, according to a 2023 study by AI developer Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the first study of its kind to measure the carbon and … Continue reading Assessing AI →

2025 Youth Media Award Winners

January 27, 2025

A complete list of the 2025 award winners follows. John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature: The First State of Being, written by Erin Entrada Kelly, is the 2025 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Four Newbery Honor Books also were named: Across … Continue reading 2025 Youth Media Award Winners →

Sitting area with fireplace in Brown County Library, East branch.

Submissions Open for Library Design Showcase

January 2, 2025

We are looking for examples of innovative library architecture that address patrons’ needs in unique and effective ways. We are especially interested in submissions from libraries that are approaching design with sustainability, accessibility, and smaller budgets in mind. Partial renovations, projects under $1 million, and school libraries are encouraged to apply. To be eligible, projects … Continue reading Submissions Open for Library Design Showcase →

An older woman and a child look at a photo of a Ferris wheel.

For the Ages

By Rosie Newmark | November 1, 2024

“There’s so much that we share / That it’s time we’re aware / It’s a small world after all,” several older adults sang along with students, who were visiting from nearby Totoket Valley Elementary School (TVES) as part of an intergenerational book club. The song was part of the club’s discussion of the picture book Mr. … Continue reading For the Ages →

Beyond the Book List

By Melissa Jacobs and Vincent Hyland | August 28, 2024

Have you been hearing that refrain more often lately? We are certainly hearing it in New York City. Where many in the library profession used to bemoan the fact that the kids don’t read, the conversation has shifted in recent years to the more urgent question of whether they can. Bearing in mind the steep … Continue reading Beyond the Book List →

Wendy DeGroat stands with a microphone in front of a slide at ALA Annual 2024 in San Diego

Seeing the Inner Light of Humanity

By Carrie Smith | June 30, 2024

That’s why, in 2021, when the national storytelling nonprofit StoryCorps launched One Small Step (OSS)—a program that encourages those on opposite sides of political issues to understand each other as people—DeGroat leapt at the chance to adapt it for her students. On Saturday, June 29, DeGroat shared her experience with OSS in “Fostering Conversation and … Continue reading Seeing the Inner Light of Humanity →

Allison Frick (left), lower school STEAM librarian, and Sara DeSabato, first grade teacher at Friends Select School in Philadelphia, present “Let's Talk About Sex: Gender and Sexuality Education in Elementary School Using Age Congruent Literature"

Expanding Gender, Sexuality Education

By Megan Bennett | June 29, 2024

“When they think sex education, they think of themselves in middle school where all the girls go into one room, all the boys go into another, and then they learn about completely different things and never talk about it again,” she says. “We want to make it really, really clear that is not what we’re … Continue reading Expanding Gender, Sexuality Education →

Show Yourself

By Sara Kelly Johns and Susan D. Ballard | May 1, 2024

You might be thinking, “Our school library has a brand?” Most of us associate the word with a name, logo, tagline, and design elements that a corporation uses to distinguish itself from others. It also involves marketing and merchandising to promote the organization’s product or service. When all these components are combined, the result is … Continue reading Show Yourself →

A photo of a piece of sheet music from University of Michigan's collection of Thomas Edison's sheet music.

By the Numbers: Inventors

By Megan Bennett | May 1, 2024

May is National Inventors Month 135,850 Number of items in the Edison Sheet Music Collection, housed at University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor. Thomas Edison, who invented the phonograph in 1877, spearheaded this collection as a way for his phonograph company to select vocal and instrumental scores to record. 44 Number of agricultural bulletins … Continue reading By the Numbers: Inventors →

Protecting the Equalizers

By Nihar Malaviya | April 8, 2024

Growing up in Rajkot, India, I regularly walked nearly an hour to the closest library to check out a book. It was there that I discovered new perspectives and places. My whole world expanded, and my imagination flourished. It didn’t take me long to read the entire children’s section! When my family moved to the … Continue reading Protecting the Equalizers →

The World of AI

By Emily Udell | March 1, 2024

A hot topic in many industries, generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) has increasingly occupied our cultural consciousness since the large language model ChatGPT debuted for public use in November 2022. Some libraries are playing a unique role in charting a path through this new technological territory as the boundaries of AI’s uses and impacts continue … Continue reading The World of AI →

Latest Library Links

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Rosie Newmark writes: “On January 7, as local officials issued fire warnings for the area, Altadena (Calif.) Library District (ALD) closed early to let staff evacuate. About an hour later, at 6:18 p.m., the Eaton Fire erupted in the nearby Los Angeles County foothills. While many of the buildings and houses surrounding the library were destroyed, Altadena Main Library was not damaged. Still, the Main Library required cleanup from debris and smoke, and the building was without power, water, and internet for weeks. On March 4, ALD’s Main Library reopened its doors.”

AL: The Scoop, Apr. 22, Jan. 22
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ALA’s Games & Gaming Round Table (GameRT) of the American Library Association is pleased to announce its second cohort of classic titles to be included in the Hall of Fame for its Platinum Play Award (the “Platy”). These titles were selected by GameRT’s Awards Committee based on their historic and ongoing excellence for library use, whether in collections or programs. Classic titles are over ten years old, and many are evergreen selections whether at home or in a Library context. Honorees include Uno, Zork, Ticket to Ride, and others.

ALA Games & Gaming Round Table, Apr. 16
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Applications are now being accepted for two ALA Endowment Trustee positions. All applicants must submit an electronic application, as well as upload a CV and three references. Applications will be reviewed by the current ALA Endowment Trustees, who will make recommendations to the ALA Executive Board, which will make final selections at the 2025 ALA Annual Conference in Philadelphia. The selected applicants will begin serving a three-year term, which will expire after the 2028 ALA Annual Conference, immediately upon notification of their selection. The deadline for submission of applications has been extended until Wednesday, April 30.

ALA Governance Office, Apr. 4
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Lisa Varga became associate executive director of ALA’s Public Policy and Advocacy Office in Washington, D.C., on April 21. Before joining ALA, she spent 15 years as executive director of the Virginia Library Association. Varga has been an ALA member for 20 years and has served on the ALA Policy Corps, Intellectual Freedom Committee, Intellectual Freedom Summit steering committee, ALA Leadership Institute, and Chapter Relations Committee. She answered our 11 Questions to introduce herself to ALA members.

AL: The Scoop, Apr. 21
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Rebecca Kheel writes: “A dozen students at Defense Department grade schools across the globe are suing the department after books were removed from libraries, school yearbooks were allegedly censored, and class curriculums were sanitized to implement President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity and anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders. Alleging First Amendment violations, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit April 15 against the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and the Pentagon on behalf of 12 students in pre-K through 11th grade from six military families who attend schools on bases in Virginia, Kentucky, Italy and Japan. Trump administration book bans at Pentagon institutions have not been isolated to the DoDEA. The Naval Academy recently pulled nearly 400 books from its libraries, and the Associated Press reported that the libraries at West Point and the Air Force Academy have also been directed to review their collections for any books to remove.
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Marjorie Henderson and Taren Urquhart write: “Over the past few decades, the decline in bee populations worldwide from human activity and climate change has led to efforts to mitigate the threat. West Vancouver (B.C.) Memorial Library is making a beeline toward innovation with its unique Mason Bee House Lending Program. Since 2022, patrons have been able to support the health of the local ecosystem by borrowing colonies to care for at home.”

American Libraries Trend, Mar./Apr.
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Ada EZach Knippen writes: “In honor of National Library Week, teachers and staff [at Ada (Ohio) Exempted Village Schools] cooperated on a fun event for their students. Teachers volunteered to be a ‘Masked Reader’ and picked a book to read in their mask, and just like the show The Masked Singer, their voices were modified so the students couldn’t easily guess them. ‘I’ve heard kids of all ages, I’m saying kindergarten through 12th grade, who have just been chattering this week about the videos that they saw and guessing who they were,’ said District Librarian Chanda Smith.”

WLIO-TV (Lima, Ohio), Apr. 10

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