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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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April 9 is National Library Workers Day, a time to recognize library professionals for their expertise and leadership skills in transforming lives and communities through education and lifelong learning. The day also reminds the public that library workers serve as community compasses that lead users to endless opportunities for engagement, enrichment, and development. The ALA–Allied Professional Association has developed a free publicity toolkit. Library users are invited to “submit a star” by providing a testimonial about a favorite library employee. Examples of nominations can include how library staff helped with learning 3D printing or writing a résumé. ...
ALA Office of Human Resource Development and Recruitment, Mar. 22, 25 |
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Statistics show that the number of children’s books featuring African-American characters has more than doubled over the last 10 years, and the number featuring Asians more than tripled. Figures from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison show that the number of children’s books featuring African or African-American characters rose from 172 out of a total of 3,000 received by the CCBC in 2008, to 401 out of a total of 3,617 in 2018. The number of books by African or African-American authors also increased, from 83 in 2008 to 202 in 2018....
The Guardian (UK), Mar. 22; Cooperative Children’s Book Center, Mar. 19 |
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Danny O’Brien writes: “In a stunning rejection of the will of 5 million online petitioners and over 100,000 protesters this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive in its entirety, including the problematic Article 13/17. It’s possible that the final text will fail to gain a majority of member states’ approval when the European Council meets later, but this would require at least one key country to change its mind. German and Polish activists are already redoubling their efforts to shift their government’s key votes.”...
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mar. 26; Boing Boing, Mar. 23; International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Mar. 24 |
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Jane Roberts writes: “Earlier in March, Hoopla—an online service that allows public library cardholders to download or stream movies for free—quietly pulled the documentary Vaxxed from its collection. The film, which peddles a repeatedly debunked theory linking vaccines to autism and claims to expose a vaccine-related coverup within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can still be found in libraries around the US. Terry Donahue, Hoopla’s communications manager, indicated that several libraries had contacted the service asking that the film be removed. ‘They didn’t want to be a source of misinformation,’ Donahue said.”...
Undark Magazine, Mar. 22; New York Times, Mar. 5 |
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For more than a century, the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems have dictated the way libraries organize their collections. But books on indigenous communities often get looped into the history section. As a result, information on Native peoples literally gets left in the past. Xwi7xwa Library (pronounced whei-wha) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver is working to change that. It uses a system that was designed by an indigenous librarian. Xwi7xwa uses an adapted version of the Brian Deer Classification system, a cataloging system created in 1974 by Brian Deer, a Kahnawake librarian....
Yes! magazine, Mar. 22 |
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Watercolour World is a large-scale digitization of thousands of watercolors found hidden away in drawers all over the UK by former diplomat Fred Hohler, who came up with the idea for the project while on a tour of Britain’s public collections. “The value—and excitement—of the Watercolour World project,” writes Dale Berning Sawa, “is that it views these historic paintings as documents, not aesthetic objects.” That’s not necessarily how their creators saw them. With a focus on pre-1900 images, the site has launched with around 80,000 digitized watercolors, a number that could expand into over a million....
Open Culture, Mar. 26; The Guardian (UK), Feb. 14 |
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Reforma, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, has received the 2019 Angel Award, sponsored by the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts, that recognizes outstanding contributions to children’s literacy and efforts to bring picture books to children everywhere. The award will be presented at Guastavino’s in New York City on September 26. Reforma is an ALA affiliate organization....
Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Mar. 20 |
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Ashly Roman writes: “Just because teens do not have time for extensive programs does not mean they do not have time for the library. It means we need to take a step back and evaluate how we can still fit into their lives. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with such people at a countywide youth service gathering that meets frequently throughout the year. At these meetings, we are able to share ideas, challenges, and passion projects that benefit our community as well as get support from our district library youth services consultant. Here are some of our ideas.”...
YALSA Blog, Mar. 25 |
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Karin Greenberg writes: “One of the most frustrating aspects of being a high school librarian is failing to increase the level of leisure reading among the teenagers who frequent my library. But the month of March presents an exciting opportunity, one that gives me hope for the future of readers. I am a huge fan of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament and love creating a bracket and competing with family members and friends as we watch the college players perform their magic. So when I began working in my school last year, it was a natural progression for me to extend my love of this tournament into a library event.”...
Knowledge Quest blog, Mar. 26 |
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David Lee King writes: “About a week ago, someone at the Kansas Department of Transportation got fired. Why? Because they sent a grumpy tweet about our current president using one of KDOT’s official Twitter accounts. The tweet was deleted pretty fast. Just a guess on my part, but I’ll bet it was an accident. Very possibly, the state employee uses Twitter for work and for personal use, and forgot to switch back. That can happen to us, too. In fact, it’s happened to me. Don’t want that to happen to you? Here are some tips to keep work and personal social media accounts separate.”...
David Lee King, Mar. 26; Kansas City (Mo.) Star, Mar. 17 |
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Susan Kriete writes: “When family historians come to the New York Public Library’s Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History, and Genealogy, they want to immediately ‘type their name’ into a database, not be referred to a book about how to trace their family tree. Genealogists are willing to hunt through thousands of digitized records to (not) find their ancestors instead of referring to a genealogy guidebook. Consulting a genealogy research guide will save you time, effort, and frustration, and also lead you to information and sources you might never discover otherwise. Here are a few examples of how that happens.”...
New York Public Library blogs, Mar. 25 |
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Tony Hoffman writes: “Picking the right printer can be tough, with so many features to choose from, and individual printers with almost any possible combination of those variations available. Here are some pointers to help you find both the right category of printer and the right model within that type, along with our top-rated reviews. The three most useful ways to categorize printers are by purpose (general or special), intended use (home or office), and technology. Define your needs by all three categories, and you’re well on your way to finding the right printer.”...
PC Magazine, Mar. 22 |
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