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On June 27, ALA announced its new executive director, Daniel J.
Montgomery.
ALA’s announcement read, in part, “Montgomery has worked on behalf of public education and the rights of workers for more than two decades.
He was elected to a three-year term as president of the 103,000-member Illinois Federation of Teachers in October 2010 and has been unanimously reelected every three years since then.
He will start at ALA on November 10. The steering committee chose Montgomery because of his commitment to public institutions, his comfort working across diverse and difficult political situations, his service to both cities and rural areas, and his experience managing a complex, member-driven organization.”...
AL: The Scoop, June 27
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On June 27, the Supreme Court upheld the Universal Service Fund, which funds the E-Rate program. ALA issued
a statement regarding the ruling that reads, in part, “The ALA applauds the
Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision to uphold the Universal Service Fund.
The system of telecommunications subsidies administered by the Federal Communications Commission includes the E-Rate program, which provides libraries and schools billions of dollars each year for broadband access and connectivity.
More than half of all public libraries apply for funding to subsidize the cost of internet connectivity through E-Rate each year.”...
AL: The Scoop, June 27
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used her
Opening Session presentation to celebrate librarians and encourage optimism in tough times.
“I have found so much joy in my public libraries, and my girls have as well,” she said. “It’s about opening opportunity to everyone, no matter who you are and where you come from.” Other memorable speakers included former Librarian of Congress
Carla Hayden, actor and activist
George Takei, comedian
Roy Wood Jr., and
Thien Ho, lead prosecutor in the Golden State Killer case....
AL: The Scoop, June 27–July 2
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Programming at Annual covered a multitude of subjects for librarians working in all types of libraries.
Intellectual freedom was unsurprisingly a hot topic, with sessions on
balancing internal and external pressures,
age-appropriate resources,
current litigation,
soft censorship, and more. Other sessions explored
influencer marketing (and how the Library of Congress built a partnership with Grammy-award winning singer Lizzo),
accessible videogame programs,
tech trends, and
history programming in school libraries. See American Libraries’
full conference coverage, as well as conference blogging from the
Association for Library Service to Children....
AL: The Scoop, June 27–July 2; ALSC Blog, June 27–July 1
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Stories from communities nationwide come to life on ALA’s new Show Up for Our Libraries
interactive site map. The stories illustrate the real-life consequences of potential funding cuts to rural, research, city, state, and university library programs and, in turn, to the hundreds of millions of library users across the country.
Services such as summer reading programs, telehealth resources, interlibrary loan, and ebooks have all been affected.
ALA collected the stories in conversation with patrons, library professionals, and advocates across the country to better understand the impact of federal funding cuts since the President Trump’s
executive order to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services....
ALA Public Policy and Advocacy Office, June 25
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Robin Camille Davis writes: “It wasn’t until seven years into my career as a user experience librarian that I realized I’d been accidentally excluding a sizable segment of users from my user research.
Interviews, surveys, and usability studies favor people who are gifted at oral and written communication.
What about people who are more gifted at visual communication? In the context of user research, this participatory design invites participants to design their own response to a given prompt.”...
Choice 360 LibTech Insights, June 30
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Jennifer A. Keach, Jenne M. Klotz, and Galen J. Talis write: “Library leaders at all levels are well-placed to create opportunities for joy in their organizations and to model how to do so with nuance and balance.
Toward that end, we explored the multidisciplinary literature and compiled an annotated bibliography for leaders who wish to support joy within groups, organizational change agents who want to create equitable conditions for joy in the workplace, and readers seeking to develop their personal practice of joy.
We provide a guide exploring five themes: defining joy, finding individual joy, work and organizational joy, empowering change with joy, and joy-adjacent emotions.”...
Library Leadership and Management, June 30
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Victoria Cox writes: “LaRue County (Ky.) Board of Education heard both criticism and praise last week when members were asked to remove 14 books from the high school library.
Although the vote was split, the board ultimately refused to ban the books, citing the need to uphold the constitutional rights of students” by a 4–1 vote. Books the board considered include The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini....
LaRue County (Ky.) Herald News, June 25
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David Vickers Loertscher and Michelle Young write: “This tutorial introduces school librarians to the use of data visualization tools for documenting and communicating their impact on teaching and learning.
By leveraging accessible platforms like Google Forms and Google Sheets, the authors demonstrate how librarians can build dashboards and real-time visual reports to showcase co-teaching, instructional collaboration, and student engagement.
The tutorial features real-world examples, highlights common data sources already available to librarians, and argues that dynamic visual storytelling is a powerful alternative to traditional library statistics.”...
Learning Hub, June 25
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Angela Hursh writes: “Libraries have great stories to tell. But getting the media to listen isn’t always easy. Here are the top 10 practical tips that Leslie Marinelli, communications manager at Forsyth County (Ga.) Public Library; Ray Holley, communications manager at Sonoma County (Calif.) Library; and I shared [at a recent online panel] for getting your library into the news.”...
Super Library Marketing, June 30
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Pranay Parab writes: “I've mostly been really happy with my M1 MacBook Air, which I've been using for nearly three years now.
However, I regret not going for the variant with 16GB of RAM. The newer laptop still occasionally slows down when I open too many browser tabs.
Luckily, I did some troubleshooting and fixed the problem, and I'm here to share what I've learned with you. So, if Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari or other browsers are slowing down on your computer, try some of these tips to nip that problem in the bud.”...
Lifehacker, June 26
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