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For daily ALA and library news, check the American Libraries website or subscribe to our RSS feed.
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Ten librarians have been honored with the 2018 I Love My Librarian Award. Selected from more than 1,000 nominations submitted by library users nationwide, the winning librarians are recognized for their leadership in transforming lives and communities through education and lifelong learning. This year marks the award’s 10-year anniversary. Each winning librarian receives a $5,000 prize at an award ceremony and reception cohosted by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York Public Library, and The New York Times. Follow the action live via webcast at 4 p.m. Central time on December 4.”...
AL: The Scoop, Dec. 4 |
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The November 30 earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska, affected many schools and two branches of the Anchorage Public Library. The main Loussac Library remained closed December 3 as staff and others picked up books tossed from the shelves and replaced broken pipes and dropped ceiling tiles. It reopened December 4. The Chugiak-Eagle River branch sustained window damage and toppled books and is closed indefinitely. All APL staff weathered the earthquake without injury. Many Anchorage schools, including Chugiak High School, sustained damage. The University of Alaska Anchorage Consortium Library and the Matanuska–Susitna College library also had fallen boxes and books....
Anchorage (Alaska) Public Library, Dec. 1; Chugiak–Eagle River Star, Dec. 1; Karen Kiely, UAA Special Collections, and Holly A. Bell Twitter feeds, Dec. 1 |
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On December 1, all branches of the Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library started to issue Easy Access Cards, which are designed specifically for people who don’t have a fixed address. Those wanting a card will still need a photo ID but don’t have to prove they have a residence, according to a recent circulation policy update. Easy Access cardholders will be able to check out three books or other library materials at a time, put holds on three items, use library computers, and check out laptops for in-library use, said Acting Director of Library Services Elliot Warren....
Berkeleyside, Dec. 3 |
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The board of the Timberland Regional Library in Tumwater, Washington, voted November 28 to remove the lingering threat of branch closures, but faced questions about eroded public trust in the library system’s administration. The vote came after months of public backlash following the capital facilities proposal released by the Timberland administration in September. That document called for the closure of a third of the 27 libraries in TRL’s five-county system and was crafted without the knowledge of the board or the public....
Centralia (Wash.) Daily Chronicle, Nov. 29–30 |
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David Shook writes: “In Kurdish Iraq, the centuries-old struggle to build a repository of Kurdish culture and history has primarily and often necessarily continued with little visibility, undertaken by idealists and individualists. Recently, I visited Zheen Archive Center, and met the people making that dream a reality. Here, two optimistic, broadminded brothers and an all-woman team of manuscript preservationists are building a collection of books, manuscripts, and papers that have survived hundreds of years of language bans.”...
Logger: The Believer magazine, Nov. 29 |
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The National Archives and Records Administration has begun an effort to conserve and digitize 377 Native American treaties for inclusion in the agency’s online catalog. The project will add the treaties and supplemental records to the digital catalog, providing worldwide public access to them for the first time. The scanning project also includes accompanying papers to the treaties, the Presidential Proclamations, and the Resolutions of Ratification by Senate. More than 130 documents have been scanned as of the beginning of November....
National Archives News, Nov. 21 |
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Not only do public libraries in Kansas let you borrow books, but many libraries around Wichita have added some unusual items. Like cake pans, fishing poles, costumes, and plug-in energy meters. At the Andover Public Library, patrons can check out more than 80 shaped cake pans—Batman, Thomas the Tank Engine, Barney, ladybugs, footballs, Easter bunnies—and return them in three weeks. Valley Center Public Library offers fishing poles. (First-time borrowers also get a tackle box with basic supplies and a set of cards with information about native fish.)...
Wichita (Kans.) Eagle, Dec. 3 |
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Hailley Fargo writes: “Leisure reading collections (aka recreational reading, browsing, or popular reading collections) were first started in academic libraries in the 1920s and 1930s, when a core value of academic librarians was to promote reading. They became less prevalent in the 1940s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that academic libraries started to create leisure reading collections again. Recent studies have shown the benefits of reading for leisure, including a correlation with higher academic achievement, critical thinking, and reading comprehension.”...
ACRLog, Dec. 3 |
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Jennifer Howard writes: “At the Ithaka Next Wave 2018 conference, held in New York City on November 29, academic librarians and scholarly publishers explored how higher education must adapt to changing demographics, rising inequality, and continuing tensions between big commercial companies and their academic customers. The program kicked off with a riveting one-on-one conversation between Kevin Guthrie, Ithaka’s president, and Youngsuk Chi (right), the chairman of Elsevier, a company that routinely attracts criticism from librarians over its pricing and profits.”...
EdSurge, Dec. 3 |
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Heidi Rabinowitz Estrin writes: “In response to the tragedy at the synagogue in Pittsburgh and to rising anti-Semitism in the US, the Association of Jewish Libraries offers a series of book lists for young readers. This is the third list in the series, intended to provide children and their families with a greater understanding of the Jewish religion and its people. It features books about Jewish life in the US from the earliest days to the present time.”...
People of the Books Blog, Dec. 3 |
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Year-end lists, which seem to come out closer and closer to Halloween every year, can feel like a burden to reader and compiler alike. For the former, more books to feel guilty about not having read; for the latter, the inevitable opprobrium of your readers for those books you left off the list. And yet, we couldn’t resist asking both staff and contributors to tell us what their favorite books were this year. Here’s what they said....
Literary Hub, Dec. 3 |
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James Colley writes: “Not enjoying that book you’re reading? Quit. It’s okay. You’re allowed to do it. There are a lot of books and we are but mortals. You simply will not read every book in your lifetime. As The Twilight Zone teaches, even if you are the final person on Earth with nothing but time to read, the powerful forces of dramatic irony will ensure your glasses fall to the floor and shatter. If it were a film, you’d walk out. Yet when it’s a book and requires a great deal more time commitment, it’s harder to take out the bookmark and move on.”...
The Guardian (UK), Nov. 30 |
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