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ALA announced on April 13 that Emily Drabinski, interim chief librarian at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, has been elected 2022–2023 president-elect of the Association. Drabinski received 5,401 votes, while her opponent, Kelvin Watson, executive director of the Las Vegas–Clark County (Nev.) Library District, received 4,622 votes. “I am ready to get to work with all of you to strengthen our Association and our field to support library workers and the communities we serve,” Drabinski said in a statement. Additionally, Peter Hepburn, head librarian at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California, has been elected treasurer of ALA for 2022–2025. Hepburn received 8,947 votes in an uncontested race....
AL: The Scoop, Apr. 13
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American Libraries is
accepting submissions for the 2022 Library Design Showcase, our annual feature celebrating new and newly renovated libraries of all types. The showcase will appear in the September/October 2022 issue. We are looking for examples of innovative library architecture that address patrons’ needs in unique, interesting, and effective ways. We are also interested in submissions from libraries that are responding to the pandemic through building design and renovation. The submission deadline is May 31. To be eligible, projects must have been completed between May 1, 2021, and April 30, 2022....
AL: The Scoop, Apr. 7
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On behalf of ALA, Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) Director Deborah Caldwell-Stone
submitted
a letter to the chair and ranking member of the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform for its April 7 hearing, “Free Speech Under Attack: Book Bans and Academic Censorship.” OIF
counted 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials in 2021, a historically high number and a four-fold increase over 2020....
ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, Apr. 8; NPR, Apr. 4
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Celeste Ng (pictured), New York Times bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cocreator
Kevin Eastman will speak at ALA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition, to be held June 23–28 in Washington, D.C. They join actor and new author John Cho and award-winning journalist and Futuro Media founder Maria Hinojosa as
conference speakers, with more names to be announced soon....
ALA Conference Services, Apr. 7; Mar. 31
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The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has officially announced the
2022 Teens’ Top Ten nominees. This year’s list of nominees features 25 titles that were published between January 1 and December 31, 2021. Teens are encouraged to read the nominees throughout the summer to prepare for the national Teens’ Top Ten vote, which will take place August 15–October 12. The ten titles that receive the most votes will be named the official 2022 Teens’ Top Ten....
YALSA, Apr. 8
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Jason Lamb writes: “As Governor Lee has signed a bill into law requiring schools to ensure their books are all age-appropriate, Williamson County Schools said this week it has temporarily removed a digital library app that gives students access to thousands of books. Williamson County Schools said it is reviewing the app, called Epic!, to make sure its internet filters are appropriately screening content.” The Moms for Liberty Williamson County group, which has
protested several books locally, complained about the availability of An ABC of Equality (by Chana Ginelle Ewing) through the app....
WTVF-TV, Apr. 8; BookRiot, Apr. 8
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Richard Byrne writes: “A little Twitter conversation last week reminded me that the start of the baseball season is full of hope and for all but one team ends with heartbreak. There’s a lot of poetry in that. And so it’s fitting that the start of the baseball season is in April and that April is National Poetry Month.” He suggests activities, including Coding with Poetry, Jamboard Magnetic Poetry, and Poetry Comics. Poets.org offers
additional activities....
Free Technology for Teachers, Apr. 10; Poets.org
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Hailley Fargo writes: “In stepping into a department head role, I’ve tried to be intentional about when and why we meet. Especially when I started in the job, I wanted to make sure we had time as a team to come together, discuss current topics, and make decisions together. I used those meetings to gain additional institutional context and open up space for the team to see connections between their experiences. Those were the types of meetings that truly could not be an email and helped to establish a strong team foundation.”...
ACRLog, Apr. 5
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Eliot Higgins writes: “Factchecking outfits may do good work, but they are missing a crucial component: the power of the crowd. Because, as well as counterfactual communities, we’ve also seen what you might call truth-seeking communities emerge around specific issues. These are the internet users who want to inform themselves while guarding against manipulation by others, or being misled by their own preconceptions. Once established, they will not only share and propagate factchecks in a way that lends them credibility, but often conduct the process of factchecking themselves.”...
The Guardian (UK), Apr. 4
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The US Government Publishing Office (GPO) has kicked off a Library Services and Content Management (LSCM) pilot project to help Federal Depository Library Initiative libraries make government information more discoverable for the American public. Through the pilot project, GPO staffers will visit libraries across the nation to assess the condition of tangible documents, conduct item-level inventories, and catalog and digitize government collections. GPO selected Utah State University’s Merrill Cazier Library as the first LSCM pilot participant....
US Government Publishing Office, Apr. 6
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Tracy Brower writes: “Some aspects of perfectionism—setting high standards and working toward goals proactively—can be good for your career. But perfectionism has a significant downside. Obsessing about making mistakes or letting others down or holding yourself to impossibly high standards can have negative consequences. According to research examining 43 different studies over 20 years by York St. John University, perfectionism is linked to burnout as well as depression, anxiety, and even mortality. Part of getting out of the perfectionist trap is understanding how it holds you back.”...
Forbes, Apr. 3
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Stuart Roberts writes: “Two notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin, one of which contains his iconic 1837 Tree of Life sketch, have been safely returned to Cambridge University Library, more than two decades after first being reported missing. The notebooks are in good condition, with no obvious signs of significant handling or damage sustained in the years since their disappearance. They were returned in a bright pink gift bag containing the notebooks’ archive box and inside a plain brown envelope addressed to the university librarian with the printed message: ‘Librarian / Happy Easter / X.’”...
Cambridge (UK) University Libraries
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