Women Archives | American Libraries Magazine

Newsmaker: Melinda Gates

By Phil Morehart | March 1, 2019

Gates spoke with American Libraries at the 2019 American Library Association Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits—where it was revealed that she would serve as this year’s honorary chair of National Library Week. The Moment of Lift is about lifting up women and girls. What do you mean by lift, and why is it so important? I … Continue reading Newsmaker: Melinda Gates →

Melinda Gates and Nancy Pearl at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle.

The Moment of Lift

By Phil Morehart | January 27, 2019

Melinda Gates opened her talk at the 2019 American Library Association’s (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Seattle January 25 with effusive praise for her hosts. Her admiration for libraries is well documented: As cochair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she has been at the forefront of philanthropic funding for libraries. The Gates Library Foundation, … Continue reading The Moment of Lift →

Julie Foudy during the United States Women's National Soccer Team/South Korea Women's National Football Team international friendly match. (Photo by Joe Faraoni / ESPN Images)

Newsmaker: Julie Foudy

By Phil Morehart | April 11, 2017

Where did the title Choose to Matter come from? It comes from a summer leadership academy we’ve been doing for 10-plus years, which is a combination of sports and leadership woven together for a weeklong residential camp. Our tagline is “Choose to Matter” with the kids, because our message is that leadership is personal, not … Continue reading Newsmaker: Julie Foudy →

Heidi Abbey Moyer (Photo: Bob Skalkowski)

Bookend: A History of Women’s Lives

June 1, 2015

The Alice Marshall Women’s History Collection is named for Alice Kahler Marshall (1923–1997), a local journalist, researcher, and avid collector, who was fascinated by the “contradictions between the realities of women’s lives and the stereotypes of women’s behavior.” The collection, compiled over 50 years, encompasses material on all areas of women’s lives from the 15th … Continue reading Bookend: A History of Women’s Lives →

ACRL 2015 in Portland: Sunny Skies, Serious Conversation

By Laurie D. Borman | March 28, 2015

Safiya Umoja Noble, assistant professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, talked about how search-engine bias affects women and girls negatively in her presentation, “Searching for Girls: Identity for Sale in the Age of Google.” “What I’m asking us to think about today is: What does it cost us more broadly … Continue reading ACRL 2015 in Portland: Sunny Skies, Serious Conversation →

An article titled "Spotlight on Women Managers" that was featured in the January 1985 issue of American Libraries.

Women in Management, Revisited

By Greg Landgraf | March 23, 2015

Recently, we followed up with four of those interviewees to see how their experiences matched—or didn’t match—their expectations, their observations of the current state of library management and of women within it, and the lessons they’ve learned over their careers. Our interviewees are: BRIDGET LAMONT, director of the Illinois State Library from 1983 to 2000, … Continue reading Women in Management, Revisited →

Latest Library Links

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The University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library holds one of the most comprehensive collections of materials on the internment of Japanese Americans in the world. In September 1945, the War Relocation Authority gave a copy of its extensive records on internment to UC Berkeley. The collection includes community letters, photos, reports, and administrative files, as well as writings, art, and newspapers created by internees. In 2011, the library undertook a massive digitization project. With funding from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program, the library has digitized 550,000 items, with an additional 150,000 items on the way.
University of California, Berkeley Library News, Feb. 19
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Jon Brodkin writes: “Firefox starts switching browser users to Cloudflare’s encrypted-DNS service February 25 and will roll out the change across the US in coming weeks. DNS over HTTPS helps keep eavesdroppers from seeing what DNS lookups your browser is making, potentially making it more difficult for internet service providers or other third parties to monitor what websites you visit. Mobile broadband providers were caught selling their customers’ real-time location data to third parties, and internet providers can use browsing history to deliver targeted ads.”
Ars Technica, Feb. 25
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Library staff at the Traverse Area (Mich.) District Library may have saved a life recently when a woman was found on the floor of the bathroom. Staff wasn’t able to wake her. While one staff member called 911, another jumped into action. Library Business Manager Deb Radjenovich went into the bathroom to unlock the stall. “I have to give kudos to the 911 dispatcher,” Radjenovich said, “because whoever they were they knew immediately from the symptoms that we had to do CPR.” Luckily, a CPR-trained library user was on hand. Coincidentally, the library board just approved a move to give staff access to the drug Naloxone for overdose incidents.
WWTV, Cadillac, Mich., Feb. 24
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Alex Fusco writes: “Idress Siyawash, a student at Jahan University in Kabul, is founder and chief of a small organization called Read Books (in Pashto: Ketab Lwast), a mobile effort to improve youth literacy rates in Afghanistan by providing books and reading instruction to children in rural areas. Years of war have left Afghanistan with some of the lowest adult literacy rates in the world—about 45% for men, and about 17% for women. Siyawash is determined to change this. Together with volunteers from universities across Kabul, he and his team travel to rural regions by car on a weekly basis, delivering books and enthusiasm by bicycle and loudspeaker.”
American Libraries feature, Feb. 25
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S. C. Stuart writes: “Approximately 70% of teens say that anxiety and depression are a major problem among their peers, and those concerns cross gender, racial, and socioeconomic lines. Could robots help? Elin Björling, cofounder of the Momentary Experience Lab at the University of Washington, leads a sociotherapeutic robot research program called Project EMAR, which helps teens moderate their moods and gain tools to deal with anxiety. We spoke to Björling about her research findings, which she will be presenting at a February 27–28 robotics forum hosted by the National Science Foundation.”
PC Magazine, Feb. 24
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Karin Greenberg writes: “Anyone who has worked in a high school is familiar with senioritis, the syndrome that causes seniors to relax their academic efforts with the justification that they’ve worked hard for the past four years and deserve a break. Senioritis exists because students’ motivation to learn has been crushed in the competitive environment that rewards high GPAs and test scores above learning for learning’s sake. As school librarians, we can assist teachers in implementing activities to help seniors figure out what moves them. One such project I’ve been a part of the past several years is ‘Stand Up For Something.’”
Knowledge Quest blog, Feb. 25
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The British Library opened a new website devoted to historic children’s literature on February 21. Discovering Children’s Books draws on inspiring material from medieval fables to contemporary picture books. The site features thoughtful drafts, scribbled notebooks, sketchbooks, story boards, and dummy books, revealing the creative processes behind some of the best-loved children’s literature. It brings together children’s literature from four major cultural institutions: the British Library, Seven Stories—The National Centre for Children’s Books, the Bodleian Libraries, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
British Library, Feb. 21

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