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It’s that time of the year again: School is back in session, including for students working toward their master’s degrees in library and information science. In Episode 86, Call Number looks at what’s new in library school. Host Diana Panuncial explores iBlackCaucus, a student organization formed by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and the master’s in library and information science and social work dual degree program at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois....
AL: The Scoop, Aug. 14
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The ALA Disaster Relief Fund provides funds to libraries in the US and around the world that have been damaged or destroyed because of natural or man-made disasters. Lahaina (Hawaii) Public Library was
destroyed by the wildfire that began August 8 and became the
deadliest wildfire in the US in more than a century. ALA is collecting donations to support recovery efforts. To contribute, type “Hawaii” in the tribute line at checkout....
ALA Disaster Relief Fund; Honolulu Civil Beat, Aug. 10; CNBC, Aug. 14
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ALA is now accepting proposals for education programs at the 2024 Annual Conference and Exhibition, to be held June 27–July 2 in San Diego. Proposals are due September 18. Education programs are 60 minutes long, and will be evaluated on their titles and descriptions; learning objectives; timeliness and demand; innovation; collaboration; and contribution to equity, diversity, and inclusion goals. See the
Annual Conference Submission Guide for more details, and the Education Program Proposal Review Rubric....
ALA Conference Services, Aug. 14
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David Gutman writes: “Book battles are raging across the nation, but none have carried the kind of stakes as the one here in Dayton. For [Columbia County (Wash.) Rural Library District], the battle has turned, quite literally, existential: Voters will decide in November whether to shut it down. The library is at risk not because of a lack of funding or a lack of demand for its services. Instead, it could shutter because of a yearlong dispute over the placement of, at first, one book, then a dozen and now well over 100, all dealing with gender, sexuality, or race.”...
Seattle Times, Aug. 13
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Blake Brittain writes: “The Internet Archive and a group of leading book publishers told a Manhattan federal court August 11 that they have resolved aspects of their legal battle over the Archive’s digital lending of their scanned books. If accepted, the
consent judgment would settle questions over potential money damages in the case and the scope of a ban on the Archive’s lending and would clear the way for the Archive to appeal US District Judge John Koeltl’s
decision that it infringed the publishers’ copyrights.” Also on August 11, music labels
sued the Internet Archive over its digitization of 78 rpm records, to which Internet Archive has
responded....
Reuters, Aug. 11, Mar. 27; Internet Archive, Aug. 14
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Rebecca Bryant writes: “Research libraries increasingly provide support and education on the topic of research impact. But what information are they providing users about the biases baked into frequently used research metric resources? According to a recent
research study by Sheila Craft-Morgan at The Ohio State University [in Columbus], not nearly enough. She examined the LibGuides on research impact topics at 50 Association of Research Libraries member libraries. Only 14% included information about bias or diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice resources.”...
Hanging Together, Aug. 10
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The Library of Congress’s National Book Festival took place August 12 in Washington, D.C., and recordings of all talks will soon be made available on the
festival website. Becky Spratford writes: “You can learn about upcoming books, trends, and more. You can put the videos on your website from this year after the fact or post videos from past years. You can use the panels and those authors appearing to help you think of display ideas. You can also think about the National Book Festival programming as your programming. It is from the Library of Congress and thus free to all Americans.”...
RA for All, Aug. 10
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Julie Carey and Maggie More write: “Some parents in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, are expressing anger and surprise over a new requirement to answer a question about sexually explicit books in order to access online school information.” Parents must answer yes or no to whether they want their children “to have access to sexually explicit content in the school libraries” before they can log on to ParentVue, the school’s main parental communication tool. Superintendent Mark Taylor
called it a “plain question” but a message he sent to parents said “Your decisions will help guide policy.”...
WRC-TV (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 4, Aug. 9
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Abigail Goben writes: “Executive function theft is the deliberate abdication of decision making, tasks, and responsibilities that are perceived as administrative or repetitive, of lesser importance, or aren’t pleasant or shiny, to another person, who becomes so exhausted that they are unable to participate in, contribute to, or enjoy higher level efforts. Think of the people who end up with more than their share of administrative maintenance tasks or the colleague who has a list of committee appointments a yard long. Quite often there’s a gendered component as to who is tasked with these additional service responsibilities.”...
Hedgehog Librarian, Aug. 14
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Seth Kugel and Stephen Hiltner write: “In March, Amy Kolsky visited Amazon.com and typed in a few search terms: travel, guidebook, France. Among the top search results was the highly rated France Travel Guide, by ‛Mike Steves,’ who, according to an Amazon author page, is a renowned travel writer. When it arrived, Kolsky was disappointed by its vague descriptions, repetitive text, and lack of itineraries. Kolsky had fallen victim to a new form of travel scam: shoddy guidebooks that appear to be compiled with the help of generative artificial intelligence (AI), self-published and bolstered by sham reviews.” Similarly, Jane Friedman
reported finding books attributed to her, but likely generated by AI, on Amazon and Goodreads....
New York Times, Aug. 5; JaneFriedman.com, Aug. 7
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Kate Harloe writes: “Across the country, a variety of newsroom-library partnerships and experiments have sprung up in recent years. These projects represent links between existing institutions, rather than the creation of a new, third thing—a permanent collaborative mechanism for informing the public. Still, these varied experiments suggest the glimmering possibility of something larger. In their imprints, it’s possible to see a different sort of world: one in which the collective resources that people love are protected and expanded, and in which people might actually own the stories produced about them and their communities.”...
Popula, Aug. 7
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Mariella Moon writes: “Google has introduced a new tool for Slides that can help you make your presentations more interactive and keep your audience’s attention. The new feature, a pen tool, lets you write on a slide in real time, so you can encircle key figures, draw arrows, underline important information, and just generally scribble anything you want on the presentation while in the middle of a meeting or a report. Slides’ new pen tool is built into the program, and there’s no need to download anything extra.”...
Engadget, Aug. 11
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