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Today is Giving Tuesday, the annual 24-hour giving-palooza. ALA is hoping to meet a $25,000 Giving Tuesday goal, and thanks to a matching grant, gifts of up to $1,000 will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $10,000 per ALA unit and $100,000 overall. Gifts help ALA provide information access to everyone, make sure our libraries are safe spaces for communities, and tell the world about the amazing impact of libraries...
ALA Development Office |
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Larra Clark writes: “Last week, we highlighted a disturbing policy change that we had been anticipating for a while: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s (right) plan to roll back the net neutrality rules that require internet service providers to treat all internet traffic and services equally. Between Thanksgiving preparations and leftovers, we have had some time to review this big turkey (220 pages worth). Below are some first impressions.” ALA’s Washington Office has set up its action center to contact your elected officials about the plan....
District Dispatch, Nov. 27, Nov. 21 |
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A parent in Florida is citing profanity and violence in trying to get the local school to ban Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451—itself a cautionary tale on the banning of books. Another wants to remove Walter Dean Myers’ Bad Boy for using the word penis and a homophobic slur. Under a bill passed by the Florida Legislature this year, any district resident—regardless of whether they have a child in school—can now challenge material as pornographic, biased, inaccurate, or a violation of state law and get a hearing before an outside mediator....
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Nov. 26 |
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Prescott Valley (Ariz.) Police Chief Bryan Jarrell (right) left his service weapon in a restroom at Prescott Valley Public Library on Thursday, November 9. He reported it missing several days later. “As chief of police, I take full responsibility for my negligent actions that resulted in the misplacing of my service weapon,” Jarrell said in a statement on the police department’s Facebook page. The weapon still has not been found....
Prescott Valley (Ariz.) Tribune, Nov. 21; Facebook, Nov. 21 |
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Dawn Finch, immediate past president of CILIP, the professional association for UK librarians, sent an open letter to Secretary of State for Education Justine Greening (right), demanding that her department stop closing school libraries. The letter, cosigned by more than 150 authors, illustrators, and poets, states in part “we must act now to counter the loss of school and college libraries before we consign a generation to a lifetime of low attainment and mobility.”...
BoingBoing, Nov. 24 |
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The screening of an anti-Islam film called Killing Europe at the main branch of the Ottawa (Canada) Public Library was cancelled after an email campaign by residents who argued it would violate the library’s own policies around hate speech. Ottawa City Councillor Catherine McKenney, a library board member, said she raised concerns about the film after being contacted by residents. “If you look at the content of what was going to be shown, it really does go against our policy. We will not rent space to groups that promote discrimination against others and this [screening] clearly contravened that.”...
CBC News, Nov. 25 |
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Mike Masnick writes: “The Constitutional rationale for copyright is ‘to promote the progress of science.’ ‘Science’ in the language of the day was synonymous with ‘learning.’ Indeed, the very first US copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790 is literally subtitled ‘An Act for the Encouragement of Learning.’ I'm thinking about all of this again in response to a new report noting that 65 out of the 100 most cited papers are behind a paywall.”...
TechDirt, Nov. 20; Legal Information Institute; Authorea |
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Bill Estep writes: “Kaylee Lay (left), who is 5, was so happy to see the bookmobile pull up in front of her house in McCreary County recently that she ran outside with no shoes, then reached up for her mother to carry her over the rough ground. That kind of enthusiasm that has helped keep the largest fleet of bookmobiles in the nation operating in rural Kentucky, delivering books to people who often can’t get to county-seat libraries.”...
Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Nov. 24
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![John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (Photo: Fcb981, this edit [cropped to pano, corrected distortion] by mixpix)](../novemberimages/jfklibrary.jpg "John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum (Photo: Fcb981, this edit [cropped to pano, corrected distortion] by mixpix)")
Mark Shanahan writes: “The search for a new director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum—two years after the last director resigned—does not seem to be going well. The position, which oversees and administers activities at the JFK Library, including all archival, exhibit, public, and educational programs, has been without a permanent replacement since 2015, when longtime director Tom Putnam left abruptly amid questions about the leadership style of Heather Campion, the then–newly appointed chief executive of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Campion has since departed—she resigned—but the library director post, which Putnam had held for eight years, remains unfilled.”...
Boston Globe, Nov. 27 |
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Ann Foster writes: “If you were thinking that the fairytale engagement of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry felt somehow timeless and familiar... well, you’re not wrong. There have been stories of everyday people falling in love with royalty as there have been royals to swoon about... Cinderella, anyone? While most of the books published in the royal romance genre feature white Americans falling for white Europeans, hopefully Markle’s multiracial background will inspire more diverse titles to be published in this genre.”...
Book Riot, Nov. 28 |
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