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ALA has selected The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead as the winner of the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond as the winner of the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The selections were announced January 22 during the RUSA Book and Media Awards ceremony at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta....
ALA Public Awareness Office, Jan. 22 |
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On January 22, John Lewis (right), civil rights hero and representative of Georgia’s 5th congressional district, spoke at the YALSA Morris and Nonfiction Award Program in recognition of March: Book Three winning the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. He spoke passionately about the role that librarians and libraries have played in his life—his late wife was a librarian—and the importance of good trouble and being brave. Watch the video (7:37)....
ALSC Blog, Jan. 24; YouTube, Jan. 24 |
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ALA President Julie B. Todaro called Council III to order on January 24. Pam Klipsch, chair of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, and Ann Dutton Ewbank, chair of the ALA Committee on Legislation, submitted a revised resolution on gun violence affecting libraries, library workers, and library patrons. An Intellectual Freedom Committee resolution on access to accurate information (right) was amended and adopted. Council II tackled an amendment to make an ALA-accredited master’s degree a strongly preferred but not required educational qualification for the ALA Executive Director. Council I featured a visit by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden....
AL: The Scoop, Jan. 22, 24 |
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Erin Leach writes: “Association governance work is boring, but it’s also valuable. There are a million other things you could be doing other than reading the ALA Council discussion list and attending Council meetings and forums at Midwinter. But if we want ALA to reflect our values in an increasingly divisive and challenging world, we need to do this work. I don’t think that the change that people want to happen within ALA is impossible. But I do think it requires being intentional. I’ll be watching, reading, listening, and voting.”...
Constructive Summer: Building the Unified Library Scene, Jan. 26 |
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James LaRue writes: “ALA has as one of its officially stated goals that it is the leading advocate for the public’s right to a free and open information society. ALA opposes any use of governmental power to suppress the free and open exchange of knowledge and information. Amid reports of the Trump administration’s attempts to order media blackouts of federal agencies, it’s important that we resist any attempt to use the power of government to stifle the very agencies charged, like libraries, with the dissemination of information.” The American Association of Law Libraries also reasserted its commitment to advocating for access to government information....
Intellectual Freedom Blog, Jan. 25; The Hill, Jan. 24; American Association of Law Libraries, Jan. 26 |
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The 2017 Rainbow Booklist, a project of the ALA Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table, was announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta. The bibliography features recommended fiction and nonfiction titles for young readers, from birth through age 18, noted for their significant and authentic GLBTQ content. Also announced at Midwinter were the 2017 Over the Rainbow booklist for GLBTQ adults, as well as the 2017 Amelia Bloomer list, which includes well-written and illustrated books with significant feminist content, intended for young readers....
Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services, Jan. 24–25 |
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The Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, an ALA affiliate, has selected the winners of the 2016 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. The awards promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage, based on their literary and artistic merit. The winner in adult fiction was Deceit and Other Possibilities by Vanessa Hua (Willow Publishing). APALA, in association with the American Indian Library Association, is also accepting applications for Talk Story: Sharing Stories, Sharing Culture Grants. The deadline is March 1....
Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, Jan. 21; Talk Story, Jan. |
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The Virginia Board of Education has gutted a controversial measure allowing parents to be notified and opt their children out of classroom material deemed “sexually explicit.” The death of the proposal on January 26 came after more than two hours of debate among board members, who agreed that parents have a right to know what their child is reading, but also that defining “sexually explicit” isn’t a matter for a state board. The measure pit free-speech groups and teachers against some parents who say the notification is simply common sense....
Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, Jan. 26
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A growing number of the 640,000 people a year who use the Evanston (Ill.) Public Library and its two branches are homeless, according to library officials, and the library director said a social worker has been hired to assist them. Director Karen Danczak Lyons said that funding cuts to other social service agencies has led to more homeless people accessing the library for shelter from frigid winter temperatures and summer heat waves. The social worker will begin work at the end of March....
Evanston (Ill.) Review, Jan. 24
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The day President Donald Trump announced plans to move forward with a wall on the US–Mexico border and restrict immigration from Muslim-majority countries, Matthew Burnett launched his nonprofit’s new tool for undocumented immigrants. The Immigration Advocates Network has created immi.org, a site that allows undocumented immigrants and those with temporary status to answer questions about their personal histories. As a result, they can figure out exactly which protections, pathways to citizenship, or legal assistance they could be eligible for....
Mashable, Jan. 26
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Mirela Roncevic writes: “Readers will read books in digital format enthusiastically when they are offered to them for free. Does this mean that publishers will not get paid? Of course not. The whole concept of the Croatia Reads project in December 2016 was designed around the idea that publishers always get paid for everything read (that’s why we opted for the Total Boox model, which pays publishers only for the content read). More importantly, the reading is always sponsored by a third party, in this case No Shelf Required.”...
No Shelf Required, Jan. 25; Dec. 5, 2016
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Alex Hern writes: “Since the inauguration, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has shot up the bestseller charts. The book’s chilling account of a couple’s struggle against a dystopian society has many elements that will strike a contemporary reader as disturbingly prescient. But Nineteen Eighty-Four is also a book about a particular kind of dystopian state: an authoritarian Stalinist future-Britain, based on the fears Orwell felt most pressing in 1948. Here are five better dystopias.”...
The Guardian (UK), Jan. 24, 26
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