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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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In a June 11 statement, ALA condemned police violence against people of color, protesters, and journalists: “The American Library Association is deeply saddened by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, as well as the killings by police or vigilantes of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many others. We are in solidarity with the statements of BCALA [the Black Council of the American Library Association] and APALA [the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association], and affirm our earlier statement [on June 1] condemning violence and racism toward black people, indigenous people, and all people of color.”....
AL: The Scoop, May 26, June 1, June 11 |
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Much has changed since Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library closed its doors March 16—but not the assistance the library strives to provide for the village’s 14,000 residents. Director Dana Wishnick’s first priority was setting up the phone system to forward calls to staffers working from home: “We have about 20% of our community that doesn’t have access to computers or internet connections, and we really wanted to be able to serve them during this time.” To let users know that staffers were standing by, CRPL advertised its remote-reference services not only on social media, but also via postcards mailed out to every household in Chicago Ridge—an idea, Wishnick says, that went from concept to printer within 48 hours....
American Libraries feature, June |
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Laura Quilter writes: “All of us who teach copyright have been confronted with a person who says sheepishly, ‘I know I should know about copyright. I’m probably doing everything wrong and could go to jail!’ This rueful self-declaration is really a way of saying, ‘Copyright has never been important to me, and I don’t take it seriously.’ But those of us who teach copyright know that it’s both important and exciting—we just need to communicate that.”...
American Libraries feature, June |
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Youth Matters columnist Leigh Fox writes: “Many libraries across the country have been forced to cancel programs and close their doors because of COVID-19. With that in mind, here are some ideas on how youth librarians can respond to this crisis in their communities by working with existing partner organizations and institutions.”...
American Libraries column, June |
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Internet Archive is ending its National Emergency Library program of offering free, unrestricted copies of ebooks two weeks early because of a lawsuit from publishers, which said lending books without compensation for authors or publishers was “willful mass copyright infringement.” Since March, the nonprofit Internet Archive has made more than 1.3 million books available online. In a June 10 blog post founder Brewster Kahle (right) said the library will close next week....
Internet Archive Blogs, June 10; New York Times, March 30, June 1 |
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PLA President Ramiro S. Salazar (right) appeared as a guest on Pandemic: What You Need to Know, a new ABC News program temporarily replacing the third hour of Good Morning America. This national news segment focused on how libraries are responding to challenges fueled by COVID-19, detailed in findings from Libraries Respond: COVID-19 Survey, a comprehensive survey of academic, public, and school libraries....
ALA News, June 11; ABC, June 11 |
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Responding to health and privacy concerns during the reopening of libraries and recent discussions of video surveillance and filming in libraries, ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee and its Privacy Subcommittee have approved guidelines to assist library workers: “Guidelines for Reopening Libraries During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Guidelines on Contact Tracing, Health Checks, and Library Users’ Privacy,” and “Video Surveillance in the Library Guidelines.”...
ALA OIF, June 9; American Libraries Trend, Jan./Feb. |
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Comic books have always been political. From the first appearance of Captain America in March 1941 punching the face of Hitler, to recent titles like I Am Alfonso Jones and the March series, comic books have been and continue to be vitally important avenues to visually tell our stories, to share our histories, and to show experiences and multiple perspectives while engaging both sides of our brain. ALA's Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table is collaborating with BCALA on a new Black Lives Matter Comics Reading List that aims to draw attention to the black experiences of the past and present to demand a new future....
GNCRT, June 9 |
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YALSA’s Board of Directors has announced that the 2020 YA Services Symposium will be held virtually November 6–8 in lieu of the originally planned in-person event in Reno, Nevada. The virtual symposium will feature an array of programs, author panels, discussion and poster sessions, and more. New this year, the Edwards Award celebration will also take place at the virtual symposium. The Symposium Marketing and Planning Taskforce is currently working to reconfigure and adapt the slate of programs....
YALSA, June 4 |
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Rachel Lerman writes: “Kelly Passek has thought up a way to get kids to read this summer: deliver library books by drone. Passek, a middle-school librarian, was one of the first customers of a drone delivery service launched in Christiansburg, Virginia, last year by Wing, a company owned by Google parent Alphabet. After seeing how quickly her household goods and meals were delivered, she petitioned the company to take on library books, too. The company said yes, and the first books fly out this week.”...
Washington Post, June 10, Oct. 19, 2019 |
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Christopher Cox, dean of libraries at Clemson University, writes: “With discussions now occurring about reopening campuses, academic libraries face a paradigm shift. Instead of returning to normal, librarians will be returning to a ‘new normal’—one where in-person classes and service interactions may be impossible or no longer preferred, where collections in physical format may be a barrier to access, and where collaborative study is shunned in favor of social distancing in buildings that can only safely house half the people they used to. How can we leverage this crisis to create new and innovative collections and services to improve our campus communities?”...
Inside Higher Ed, June 5 |
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This year, Pride Month comes at a momentous and grief-stricken time. As queer communities around the world take to the streets in the fight for racial justice, many are also working to raise awareness of the full spectrum of queer experience, including its intersections with race, class, culture, and more. Words without Borders asked eight indie presses to recommend queer books in translation from all over the world. The resulting list features work from Equatorial Guinea to Peru to Denmark on working-class life, memory, motherhood, and more....
Words without Borders, June 8 |
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