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They’re the new faces greeting you at the reference desk, recommending books in the stacks, and experimenting with fresh ideas behind the scenes. These are the library world’s rising stars, the generation that will move, shape, and influence the present and future of the Association and the library profession. These are the ALA’s Emerging Leaders of 2017. We joined them at the 2017 Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta, and asked them for their thoughts on the future of the library profession....
American Libraries feature, Mar./Apr. |
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ALA is gearing up for its upcoming election. Polls will open at 9 a.m. Central time on March 13 for the ALA annual election and will close on April 5 at 11:59 p.m. Central time. The election will take place exclusively online. On February 23, ALA members began receiving notification by email confirming their eligibility to vote. To be eligible, individuals must have been members in good standing as of January 31....
Office of ALA Governance, Feb. 23 |
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ALA President Julie B. Todaro writes: “In my columns and interviews over the past eight months of my presidency, I have focused primarily on ALA’s values and the values of our profession. As a result, I invariably receive a myriad of emphatic emails from people who often tell me that I can’t tell them how to think or what to value. And they are correct. I can’t tell them what to believe in—nor would I want to. What I am doing is articulating that in this profession, we have shared core values.”...
American Libraries column, Mar./Apr. |
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Miguel Figueroa writes: “For many futurists and trend spotters, ‘futuring’ is fundamentally about the study of change. We study change so we can prepare for the many futures that might happen. We start seeing what’s coming next. Collected below are highlights from a conversation with three librarians, each demonstrating how her commitment to library values has helped her pursue library futures in times of change. The interviewees are Emily Drabinski, Sarah Houghton, and Charlotte Roh.”...
American Libraries feature, Mar./Apr. |
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For four years, ALA’s Leadership Institute has offered midcareer librarians the opportunity to take part in a four-day immersive leadership development program. The goal, says former ALA President Maureen Sullivan, is to introduce theories, concepts, and practices for effective leadership and “help people develop self-awareness of their strengths and areas for development.” This year, the class had a new exercise: an opportunity to imagine how current trends might be reflected in library services of the future....
American Libraries feature, Mar./Apr. |
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Mary Kay Magistad writes: “In a gleaming white former church with Greek-style pillars, under the shade of cypress trees in San Francisco, an effort to preserve much of what’s online, and to scan books, and save video streams from around the world, is now underway. This is the Internet Archive, the brainchild of Brewster Kahle, an MIT-educated computer engineer, internet entrepreneur, and digital librarian. Since it started in 1996, its staff has digitized almost 3 million books, and are aiming for 10 million.”...
Public Radio International, Feb. 23 |
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During the entire month of March, the ALA Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship will recognize and celebrate women’s achievements with National Women’s History Month. This year the committee is putting the spotlight on librarians who participated in the Women’s March, a grassroots effort to send the message that women’s rights are human rights. Visit the highlights page to look at photos and stories. Following its establishment at the 1970 ALA Annual Conference in Detroit, the Social Responsibilities Round Table’s Task Force on the Status of Women in Librarianship began to collect information about equal opportunity and responsibility for women in the library field. Here are some facts about female achievers who improved and advocated for our libraries....
Office for Human Resource Development and Recruitment, Mar. 1; ALA Archives Blog, Mar. 1; American Libraries feature, Mar./Apr. |
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Legislation (HB1834) that would prohibit any publicly supported schools in Arkansas “from including in its curriculum or course materials any books or other material authored by or concerning Howard Zinn” was submitted to the Arkansas General Assembly on March 2 by Rep. Kim Hendren (R–Benton County). Zinn, who died in 2010, was a historian and social activist who wrote the bestselling A People’s History of the United States. A version for young readers came out in 2007....
Arkansas Times blog, Mar. 2
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Luren Dickinson writes: “Public libraries across the country, both large and small, have struggled with reduced revenue and keeping up with technology. But one small library has shown that where there is a will, there is a way. Beaumont (Calif.) Library District is the ‘little library district that could.’ Perhaps the biggest recent changes at Beaumont have been in the area of expanded technology.”...
California Special District 12, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb.): 36–38
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Sara Stevenson writes: “As school librarians, we get accustomed to being the only one of our kind on campus and can feel isolated at times. We are teachers but aren’t always considered as such. In order to counter this singular position, reach out to the librarian down the street at your nearest public library branch. Public and school librarians can form a perfect partnership. Our shared goal is to create and encourage lifelong readers and lifelong library patrons.”...
Knowledge Quest blog, Mar. 2
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Andrew E. Kramer writes: “In other parts of the world, viewers might suspect the evening news is just a bunch of lies, but watching the weekly broadcast in Ukraine of StopFake News, they can be certain of it. The group is highly respected in journalistic circles in Kiev for its specialty of debunking fake news. Kiev, with its running battle with Moscow, was plagued by fake news long before concern spiked in Western Europe and the US.” And its website features an IFLA infographic that explains how to spot fake news....
New York Times, Feb. 26
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Sarah Laskow writes: “Finding an anonymous text, if you don’t know which one, exactly, you’re looking for, can be difficult, if not impossible. When Emily Kopley, a scholar of British and American literature, was first researching anonymous texts, she would try searching in library catalogs for a variety of terms: ‘by anonymous’ . . . ‘no author’ . . . ‘by a lady.’ Few people signed ‘by anonymous.’ There’s no agreed-upon system, among libraries, about how to list anonymous or pseudonymous books.”...
Atlas Obscura, Feb. 28
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