Ryan, Tom

At LJ’s 2022 Design Institute in New York City, held at the New York Public Library's Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on June 9, five libraries in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Illinois, Connecticut, and New Jersey enlisted architects and attendees to brainstorm on upcoming library design challenges.

To maximize service—and to help safeguard the jobs of their colleagues from layoffs and furloughs—library and archives workers are crowdsourcing lists of work-from-home assignments. These lists continue to grow—as does the need for them.

Keeping up with the ever-growing demand for network connectivity and power is every library leader’s challenge. Solutions exist to make cables and power supply accessible; the trouble comes when faced with cost, sustainability, stakeholder buy-in, time, and impact on the library environment.

This year brought the sequester, casting its shadow on initiatives and agencies, including the Census Bureau yet again, which stands to take a $46 million hit that would delay the distribution of the 2012 Economic Census, curtail ongoing research, and impact planning for the 2020 decennial census. Time will tell how many more tried-and-true government resources will be affected and what kinds of workarounds might emerge to deliver data in a timely way. In the meantime, the Notable Documents panel thanks all who participated in the nominating process this year. Nearly all of the publications are available online, many with no-cost print counterparts.