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Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada, adult services assistant manager at Palos Verdes Library District in Rolling Hills Estates, California, has been elected 2021–2022 president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA). Pelayo-Lozada received 4,056 votes, while her opponents, Ed Garcia, director of Cranston (R.I.) Public Library, received 2,598 votes, and Stacey A. Aldrich, state librarian of the Hawaii State Public Library System in Honolulu, received 2,186 votes....
AL: The Scoop, Apr. 14
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Amy Carlton writes: “Award-winning author, educator, podcaster, and cultural critic Tressie McMillan Cottom opened the Association of College and Research
Libraries (ACRL) 2021 Virtual Conference on April 13 by noting how the conference theme—“Ascending into an Open Future”—parallels conversations she’s been having with colleagues around the idea of what openness means in an information-based society.”...
AL: The Scoop, Apr. 14
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ALA announced April 9 it will make available $1.25 million in emergency relief grants to libraries that have experienced substantial economic hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic. ALA invites public, school, academic, and tribal libraries across the US and its territories to apply for grants of $30,000–$50,000 from the ALA COVID Library Relief Fund. Libraries serving low-income and rural communities, or communities that are predominately Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and people of color, are especially encouraged to apply....
AL: The Scoop, Apr. 9
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Brooklyn Public Library Outreach Archivist Acacia Thompson writes: “In the Greenpoint neighborhood of northwestern Brooklyn, New York, Laura Hoffman’s family and neighbors have experienced disturbingly high rates of rare cancers and other illnesses. School superintendent Alicja Winnicki, a Polish immigrant, says children in her school have suffered unusually high levels of allergies and asthma. Other residents have complained of bad odors in their homes. These stories are threads of a broader narrative—one BPL aims to document and preserve through oral histories as part of the Greenpoint Environmental History Project, which comprises 300 unique digital items and 59 interviews with more than 100 local subjects.”...
American Libraries Trend, Mar./Apr.
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New York Times–bestselling author Jason Reynolds will serve as the inaugural Honorary Chair of
Banned Books Week, September 26–October 2. Reynolds is a multiple National Book Award finalist and has received a Newberry Honor, several Coretta Scott King Awards, and an NAACP Image Award. He is currently serving as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for the Library of Congress. Two of his works (Stamped, with Ibram X. Kendi, and All American Boys) are on ALA’s list of the
Top 10 Most Challenged Book of 2020....
Entertainment Weekly, Apr. 13
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Due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, the
Reforma National Conference will be an all-virtual event, November 4–7. RNC VII is the premier training and networking event for anyone interested in library services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking.
Reforma will be accepting proposals written in English and Spanish, and programs presented in English and Spanish. Proposals should be related to the conference theme Somos el cambio / We are the change....
Reforma, Apr. 10
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When the coronavirus began to spread in the United States last spring, many experts warned of the danger posed by surfaces. Researchers
reported that the virus could survive for days on plastic or stainless steel, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that if someone touched one of these contaminated surfaces—and then touched their eyes, nose or mouth—they could become infected. But the era of
“hygiene theater” may have come to an unofficial end this week, when the CDC
updated its surface cleaning guidelines and noted that the risk of contracting the virus from touching a contaminated surface was less than 1 in 10,000....
New York Times, Apr. 8; New England Journal of Medicine, Apr. 16, 2020; The Atlantic, July 27, 2020; CDC, Apr. 5;
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Quint Forgey writes: “Twitter will not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump’s past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available on the social media platform in the latest display of Silicon Valley’s power over communications channels used by the US government. The statement came as the National Archives and Records Administration has been working to create an official online archive of Trump’s tweets as president, including those that prompted Twitter to permanently suspend him earlier this year as a threat to public safety.”...
Politico, Apr. 7, Jan. 8
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Jessica Colarossi writes: “The words joke and ruin might not rhyme in English. But, thanks to a new, interactive database of American Sign Language, called
ASL-LEX 2.0, we can now see that these two words do in fact rhyme in ASL. Since launching in February 2021, in conjunction with a published paper highlighting the ways the database has expanded, ASL-LEX 2.0—now
the largest interactive ASL database in the world—makes learning about the fundamentals of ASL easier and more accessible.”...
The Brink (Boston University), March 22; Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Feb. 18
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The past year has underlined how essential it is for libraries to be able to offer access to digital content. With major increases in demand from users, there have been both welcome moves from publishers to facilitate access but also increasingly clear evidence of underlying challenges in the ebook market that need addressing. IFLA spoke with ALA Senior Fellow Sari Feldman and Senior Director of Public Policy and Government Relations Alan S. Inouye for an update on the latest developments....
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Apr. 6
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