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ALA President Jim Neal and AASL President Steven Yates released a joint statement on March 8 in response to Florida Senate Bill 7026, which would permit librarians, counselors, and coaches to carry firearms in Florida public schools. The statement encourages “Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida state legislature to honor the recommendations of the Florida Association for Media in Education and other statewide teaching organizations regarding SB 7026.”...
AL: The Scoop, Mar. 8; Politico, Mar. 7; Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, Mar. 9; Orlando (Fla.) Weekly, Mar. 9 |
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Phil Morehart writes: “Readers’ advisory is incredibly personal. Finding books a patron may enjoy requires librarians to mine a plethora of factors. Some libraries, however, have taken RA to even deeper levels by recommending books based on a patron’s tattoos. Multnomah County (Oreg.) Library began a tattoo RA program as an offshoot of a successful 2011 social media campaign, in which it asked Facebook users to tell the library things about themselves that could be used for book recommendations.”...
American Libraries Trend, Mar./Apr. |
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Joanna M. Burkhardt writes: “Bots are automatic software programs that perform repetitive tasks to gather data from the internet. Bots can automate tedious and time-consuming processes efficiently, but they can also be deployed to mine users’ data or manipulate public opinion. The Imperva Incapsula security company’s Bot Traffic Report 2016 estimates that approximately 30% of internet traffic is produced by malicious bots. People who are unaware that they are interacting with a bot can easily be supplied with false information.”...
American Libraries column, Mar./Apr. |
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Meredith Farkas writes: “In K–12 and academic libraries, learning analytics systems are aggregating student data to make trends visible. The systems allow advisors, instructors, and other stakeholders to use the trend data to identify a student at risk based on specific characteristics or behaviors. They allow educators to intervene, often before a student exhibits any difficulties. While the possibilities of library data in learning analytics might be intriguing, the privacy implications are immense.”...
American Libraries column, Mar./Apr. |
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Joseph Janes writes: “Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock in a cave on Mars with your fingers in your ears, you’ve heard a lot of discussion and angst about the search for the new ALA executive director. Having just been part of two major leadership searches, I know how difficult and tricky these can be; timing is important, as are the nature of the candidate pool, the composition of the committee, the shoes you’re trying to fill, and 100 random factors you might not even have known existed when you started.”...
American Libraries column, Mar./Apr. |
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After weeks of collaborative efforts by the Virginia Association of School Librarians and the Virginia Library Association, the state senate’s education committee narrowly defeated a bill that would have relaxed requirements for librarians at the middle and high school level. The Virginia House Education Committee defeated Senate Bill 261 in a 12–10 vote on March 5. This local collaboration mirrored much of the work occurring at the national level, where AASL and ALA have provided support and assistance for Virginia librarians....
I Love Libraries, Mar. 8; VEA Daily Reports, Mar. 5 |
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The 2018 James Madison Award goes to US Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif., left) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.). The Eileen Cooke Award goes to Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. Both awards honor individuals or organizations who have championed, protected, and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know how it functions. ALA President Jim Neal will present the awards March 9 during a National Sunshine Week preview event in Washington, D.C....
District Dispatch, Mar. 9 |
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A book about gay marriage has sparked community dialogue in Athens, Georgia, after a censorship dispute between an indie bookstore and a private academy earlier this week. Avid Bookshop abruptly pulled out of a book fair at Athens Academy on March 7 after the school demanded that the bookstore remove copies of Newbery medalist Richard Peck’s The Best Man from its display. The book had been selected and approved by the school in advance of the fair as part of a display of award titles....
Publishers Weekly, Mar. 9
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Kristin Pekoll writes: “People can be spectacularly creative with how they express their displeasure and indignation over library materials. What about when labels are strategically placed over images? What about when patrons check out books and never return them because of what they think is offensive content? What about when materials are intentionally defaced and destroyed? What about when someone takes materials off a library display and hides them? What about blacking out profanity on the page?”...
Intellectual Freedom Blog, Mar. 8 |
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Librarians at the University of British Columbia have waved their magic wand and conjured up a rare UK first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for US$36,500. They got a good deal. Chelsea Shriver, UBC rare books and special collections librarian, said the university had been watching one rare book auction where the most expensive copy of the first UK edition went for US$81,000. The original UK print run of the first Harry Potter book in 1997 was 500. Of those, 300 went to libraries....
Vancouver (B.C.) Sun, Mar. 7 |
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An ambitious and first-of-its-kind study published March 8 in Science analyzes every contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million English-speaking users, over more than 10 years—and finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor. By every common metric, falsehood consistently dominates the truth on Twitter, the study finds: Fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper, and spread much faster than accurate stories....
The Atlantic, Mar. 8; Science, Mar. 8 |
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Rachel Brittain writes: “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I will never be over Black Panther. I’m already looking for excuses to go see it again. I’m always really drawn to SFF stories not based on European culture, and Black Panther really hit it out of the park on that front. It made me want to search out other great sci-fi and fantasy books based on African culture. It won’t be Wakanda, but maybe it will still become a new favorite. Here are 10 great books like Black Panther for your reading pleasure.”...
Book Riot, Mar. 7 |
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