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On July 13, the Senate approved, 74–18, the nomination of Carla Hayden (right) to serve as the nation’s 14th Librarian of Congress. Hayden, ALA past president and director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, is the first female and the first African American to lead the Library of Congress. She also is the first professional librarian to be confirmed in more than 60 years. Hayden’s appointment comes on the heels of a vigorous ALA grassroots and social media campaign that encouraged thousands of library advocates to contact their senators to support her confirmation. Call, email, and tweet the senators who voted “yea” to confirm Hayden.....
AL: The Scoop, July 13; District Dispatch, July 14; US Senate |
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![Page 117 of Donald Erdman's journal includes a drawing of a red and black Labrid [sic] and Epinephelus. The page is from a field book documenting Erdman's specimen collecting in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea under the auspices of the Arabian American Oil Company in 1948](../julyimages/erdmanfieldnote.jpg "Page 117 of Donald Erdman's journal includes a drawing of a red and black Labrid [sic] and Epinephelus. The page is from a field book documenting Erdman's specimen collecting in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea under the auspices of the Arabian American Oil Company in 1948")
Patrick Burke writes: “Large-scale digitization is reshaping the library’s contribution to research, and the natural sciences are front and center. Until recently, researcher field notes and firsthand observations were difficult to digitize because of handwriting issues and formatting. Three projects—the Field Book Project, the Biodiversity Heritage Library Field Notes Project, and Expanding Access to Biodiversity Literature—are changing that.”...
American Libraries feature, July 14 |
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Patricia A. Wand writes: “Plans are under way for the third ALA Library Conference at the 35th Sharjah International Book Fair, to be held November 8–10, at the Expo Center in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The conference will offer programs, in-depth preconference institutes, and a poster session on a wide range of topics for librarians from all types of libraries. But what happens when you transplant an ALA conference into an Arabic country? Diverse, lively exchanges are the best way to describe the ambiance of this event.”...
AL: The Scoop, July 14 |
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Sarah Bean Thompson writes: “Pokémon Go popularity is not showing any signs of slowing down anytime soon. According to a report in USA Today, the game has topped 15 million downloads and the average person is spending around 33 minutes per day in the app. With the game continuing its pop culture run and with libraries as many Pokéstops or Gyms, this is a perfect time to embrace media mentorship in the library and incorporate it into our Pokémon Go programs.” PC Magazine calls it the “best worst game ever”: “Servers will go down, the app will crash, and it will drain your phone battery” And here are 11 hidden tips....
ALSC Blog, July 14; USA Today, July 13; PC Magazine, July 11, 14–15 |
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Katharine Stevens writes: “Human brains aren’t born—they are built from the ground up, through the combined influences of children’s genes and early experiences. During the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, over 700 neural connections are formed every second, literally shaping the architecture of the brain. Those rapidly growing connections are largely driven by a child’s interactions with parents and other caretakers. New research shows that children are affected by early experiences at much younger ages than previously understood.”...
US News and World Report, July 14; Harvard Center on the Developing Child |
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Cinthya Ippoliti writes: “The library world is paying more attention than ever to demonstrating the impact we have on student learning, faculty productivity, serving our communities, and the overall missions of our institutions. Chances are we only have few opportunities to communicate this. So how can you pack that punch? Enter the increasingly popular infographic. At Oklahoma State University, we are in the midst of deciding how to best harness the power of such a tool for our purposes.”...
LITA Blog, July 14 |
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Libraries may seem an unlikely place to go in the search for answers after the police shooting of Philando Castile and Black Lives Matter protests in the Twin Cities. But the Hennepin (Minn.) County Library has responded by launching a Black Lives Matter teen reading list that is now being replicated at libraries across the country. For the first time, one of its reading lists also has been picked up by national publications. The library also has a similar reading list for kids....
Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 14 |
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Ashley Cooksey writes: “Vacation! We love to hear the word. But, how many of us truly take a vacation? I know the entire time I was away from home last month I searched for resources to pack away into my suitcase to bring back to my faculty and students. Vacations are some of the best places to get free resources. Think about it. You’re away from your school campus, probably somewhere many students will never travel. That’s a perfect place to find resources to share with them.”...
Knowledge Quest blog, July 15 |
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The Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor has created a comprehensive, plain-language, and visually rich resource for Family and Medical Leave Act administration. The Employer’s Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act was designed especially for employers, managers, human resources specialists, and professional leave administrators. The chapters walk readers step by step through the FMLA leave administration process....
US Department of Labor Blog, July 14 |
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David Kravets writes: “A recent study concludes what everybody already knows: No one reads the lengthy terms of service and privacy policies that bombard internet users every day. They’re too long, and they often don’t make sense. Most of the university students who signed up for a fake social networking site called NameDrop did not read the terms that required them to give up their first born. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. The few participants who read those clauses signed up for the service anyway.”...
Ars Technica, July 12; Social Science Research Network, July 7
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Carey Dunne writes: “In Rome, around the year 400, a scribe and three painters created an illuminated manuscript of Virgil’s Aeneid, illustrating the ancient hero Aeneas’s journey from Troy to Italy. Some 1,600 years later, the Vatican Library digitized the surviving fragments of this manuscript. Known as the Vergilius Vaticanus, it’s one of the world’s oldest versions of the Latin epic poem, and you can browse it for free online.”...
Hyperallergic, July 13 |
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Dawn Abron writes: “Thanks to Libba Bray and her Gemma Doyle series and Cassandra Clare and her Infernal Devices series, there was never a shortage of books set in Victorian England with a lovely girl in a fabulous dress gracing the cover. But it’s been a couple of years since their publication, and there has been a bit of a shortage of YA set in the UK, especially contemporary and science fiction. But 2016 is seeing a resurgence. So before England Brexits completely, enjoy these YA books set in the UK.”...
YALSA The Hub, July 15 |
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