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The American Library Association (ALA) 2019 Midwinter Meeting in Seattle, January 25–29, saw uncharacteristically sunny skies, a busy exhibit floor at the Washington State Conference Center, and a host of well-attended offerings that addressed civic and social innovation, human-centered design, and support for future leadership.
Author and activist Robin DiAngelo explained that grappling with racism can be uncomfortable for white people—but it's crucial to dismantling systemic oppression.
Spirits were high on the evening of Friday, January 25, when LJ celebrated 2019 Librarian of the Year Skye Patrick with a reception at Seattle’s Hotel Theodore.
Library Journal’s 2018 Directors’ Summit, held December 6–7 in San Diego, CA, convened 170 attendees at the San Diego Public Library’s Central Library to explore innovative ideas, programs, and services around the theme “Break Through: Unconventional Approaches, Exceptional Impact.”
Dragon Con, one of the largest science fiction, gaming, and pop culture conventions in the world, took place in Atlanta over an extended five-day Labor Day weekend.
As always, library vendors had a number of announcements to share at the American Library Association’s 2018 annual conference in New Orleans. Here are a few that LJ had an opportunity to learn about in person.
A group of experts discussed emerging, library-relevant technology trends ranging from Quantum Computers to the deployment of digital libraries in public housing developments during the Library and Information Technology Association’s Top Tech Trends panel at ALA Annual 2018
MOVING ON UP On Friday, June 22, LJ hosted the Class of 2018 Movers & Shakers at the National WWII Museum's Stage Door Canteen. The afternoon event, sponsored by Baker & Taylor, OCLC, and SAGE Publishing, helped the newest cohort—with Movers from past years on hand to welcome them—kick off a busy American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference weekend in New Orleans with cocktails and appetizers.
Many people documenting microaggressions in higher ed, faced with the resultant backlash, found that their institutions were not ready to back them up. At the 2018 American Library Association annual convention, a panel titled “Bullying, Trolling, and Doxxing, Oh My! Protecting our Advocacy and Public Discourse around Diversity and Social Justice” examined that gap.
Council revisited its ongoing plan to reorganize for effectiveness and efficiency, adopted several important resolutions, and more at the 2018 Annual ALA Conference,
Across downtown New Orleans on Friday, June 22, attendees of the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference buzzed about the Opening General Session, where Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden would be interviewing former First Lady Michelle Obama.
The American Library Association (ALA) annual conference returns to New Orleans, June 21–26, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. From a jam-packed four days of session and meeting offerings, below, LJ editors heading South curate a subjective selection of those that caught their eye.
People heading out to New Orleans for the American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference—and those who will be following along from home (or the reference desk)—may want to get a jump on some regional lore. In addition to highlighting some notable sessions happening at ALA 2018, LJ editors have picked a selection of books set in and about New Orleans to get you in the mood no matter where you're reading from.
We Need Diverse Books is a staple at BookExpo, and this year's well-attended session on Friday, June 1 answered an important question—How do books get made?
Historic, distinctive, and notorious, with a rich literary past and a celebratory spirit, New Orleans has a character all its own. Home to pirates and plantation owners, voodoo queens and vampires (or so the legend goes), it’s no wonder this city has inspired writers for centuries. And you’re in luck, because with the city commemorating its tricentennial, there’s never been a better time to visit.
With so many sessions, panels, and events, trade publishing conference BookExpo and its consumer companion BookCon, held May 30–June 1 and June 2–3, respectively, at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, can be overwhelming for conference newbies and veterans alike. Here are a few that the LJ editors are most excited to attend.
The third Personal Librarian and First Year Experience Library Conference, held at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University on March 21 and 22, focuses on all aspects of the first-year student experience and the personalization of outreach and services for incoming students.
The comprehensive program at the 13th annual Electronic Resources and Libraries (ER&L) conference featured presentations from danah boyd and Robyn Caplan of the Data & Society Research Institute.
For many attending the Public Library Association (PLA) 2018 conference in Philadelphia, the biggest challenge was simply getting there, thanks to an early spring Nor’easter that dumped snow from Washington, DC to New England on Wednesday, March 21. Just under 6,000 public library professionals and supporters registered to attend in person, with 1,821 exhibitors signed up as well.
There’s perhaps no better time to explore it than right now, and—lucky for you—the Philadelphia Convention Center is smack dab in the middle of some of Philly’s greatest hits.
The Library Information Technology Association’s (LITA) Top Tech Trends Panel, held during the American Library Association’s 2018 Midwinter conference in Denver, CO, included discussions of AI, drones, personalization and privacy, the embedding of libraries in academic learning processes, and more.
Library vendors had lots of news to share at this year’s American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits in Denver. Here are a few of the announcements LJ had the opportunity to learn about in person.
The 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter meeting returned to Denver for the fourth time since 1982, offering attendees a range of programming from high-name-recognition speakers to a controversial President’s Program to a lively assortment of forward-looking symposia sponsored by the Center for the Future of Libraries.
Update: On January 25, the ALA Executive Board appointed interim executive director Mary Ghikas as executive director through January 2020, effective immediately. The session at ALA Midwinter will continue as scheduled, and the qualification question will remain on the upcoming all-member ballot. The search process for the executive director will begin in spring 2019 after the position description requirements have been finalized. The ALA Executive Board plans to name a new executive director after the board meeting in October 2019.
The American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting returns to Denver, February 9–12, at the Colorado Convention Center. While the later-than-usual timing pushes the conference closer to March’s Public Library Association (PLA) biennial gathering, a potential bottleneck for some, Midwinter offers plenty of compelling content to pull librarians to the Mile High City.
The 2017 ACRL/NY (Greater New York Metropolitan Area Chapter of Association of College and Research Libraries) Symposium, held on December 1 at Baruch College in Manhattan, led off with an interesting proposition: that thinking creatively about access—and how libraries can provide the widest range of access now and into the future—can offer a new kind of framework for shaping collections.
Speakers at ITHAKA’s The Next Wave conference, held at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel on November 29, made the case for work that colleges and universities must take on if they want to improve national educational attainment. The conference, “Innovating and Adapting to Address Today’s Higher Education Challenges,” looked at new approaches from a variety of angles, from administration to the classroom to research, with alignment between leadership and the library given particular attention.
This year’s Charleston Conference, held from November 6–10, addressed the theme “What’s Past Is Prologue.” As always, the conference was too packed with content for a single editor to do more than dip into a small sample. However, some commonalities did emerge across the sessions attended.
It may not always be sunny in Philadelphia, but Library Journal’s 2017 Directors’ Summit, held November 2–3 at the Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP), saw blue skies and warm days—all the better to tour FLP’s revamped spaces, network on the Parkway Central Library’s rooftop terrace, and learn from a dynamic collection of directors, librarians, and library partners who offered up their knowledge and experience.
The 2017 Charleston Library Conference will take place November 6–10 in its home city of Charleston, SC, a historic tourism and foodie destination. This year’s event will address many of the evergreen topics for which this unique gathering is known: ebooks and acquisition models, serials and “big deals,” open access, professional development, new vendor launches and collaborations, and more. However, perusing the program also shows several newly emerging themes.
With record-breaking attendance, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, the 12th annual New York Comic Con (NYCC), held October 5–8, in a move to support its diverse and ever-growing body of attendees, this year extended its regular programming efforts by partnering with nearby businesses and institutions, offering events outside its central location at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.
On Monday, August 21, all eyes—or at least, all those with adequate protection—will be on the first total solar eclipse to cross the country from ocean to ocean since 1918. The path of totality will cross the entire United States from west to east starting at 10:15 a.m. PDT in Pacific Palisades, OR (west of Salem) and ending at 2:48 p.m. EDT in Bulls Bay, SC (north of Charleston). More than 1,000 libraries will hold viewing parties with safe viewing glasses during the event, and imaginative eclipse-themed programs have been happening all summer from Alaska to Maine.
OverDrive will soon launch a feature for its new Libby ebook and audiobook app that will enable new patrons to sign up for a library card using their smartphone or tablet, confirming residency requirements without requiring a visit to a library branch.
Chromebook deployment, targeted Maker spaces, open source disruption, and improving institutional social media practices were among the other topics discussed during the Library Information Technology Association’s Top Tech Trends panel at the American Library Association’s annual conference on June 25.
The majority of the offerings at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago focused on libraries and library-related content based in the United States and Canada. A notable exception was the International Relations Round Table (IRRT) Chair's Program, “Acting for Humanity: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Libraries,” which took a look at how libraries both domestic and abroad are working to address the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed by the United Nations (UN) Development Programme.
Salesmanship is rarely considered the work of academic librarians. Librarians responsible for outreach and building connections with students and faculty might benefit from embracing the idea they have something worth offering and then selling it.
Looking beyond the headlines to examine public policy issues that affect the American Library Association (ALA), panelists at the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) session “Report from the Swamp: Policy Developments from Washington” discussed the need for ongoing vigilance—and also promising avenues for advocacy.
In a conversation that touched upon the inner workings of publishing, the implications of censorship, and the marketability of diverse books, an attentive audience heard varied perspectives from a publisher, a librarian, and an American Library Association (ALA) executive on Saturday, June 24, at ALA's Annual Conference in Chicago.
As always, the 2017 American Library Association (ALA) annual conference featured well-attended author panels sponsored by United for Libraries, the ALA division representing library trustees, advocates, and friends groups. This year’s panels were distinguished by the ready exchange they engendered between authors and audience and among audience members as well. “Out and Proud: LGBTQ Literature” […]
The American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, held this year at Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center, June 22-27, included a number of announcements and product launches from library vendors. Here are a few that LJ had the opportunity to learn about in person.
The American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, held June 22–27 at Chicago’s McCormick Place, saw booming attendance. At the conference’s end, the convention center had seen 23,545 people come thru the doors, made up of 17,657 attendees and 5,888 exhibitors, beating 2016’s Orlando conference by more than 8,000 people and even narrowly edging out 2015’s San Francisco event by nearly 1,000 attendees. For all those attendees, internal governance was far from the only thing on the agenda, but neither was it forgotten—and, of course, it reflected the currents in the larger worlds of both governance and libraries.
The American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference, held in Chicago June 22–27, got off to a literary start with a sold-out Friday night reception at the American Writers Museum (AWM) featuring poet, author, and activist Nikki Giovanni, to benefit ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund, which supports humanities, civic, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programming in libraries of all types.
While intellectual freedom and open access (OA) are two ideals widely held and strongly advocated for across all disciplines of librarianship, each touches on different values. The panel “Intellectual Freedom and Open Access; Working Toward a Common Goal?” at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago, sponsored by ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Round Table, invited three librarians from different sectors to weigh in on where and how the two principles overlap, and how they can support each other.
In some ways, the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference’s return to Chicago represents a tried and tested winner. Annual and the Midwinter Meeting alike both frequently revisit ALA’s home ground, where the central location helps ensure a high turnout. In other ways, however, this year’s get-together is all about change.
Sue Macy’s Motor Girls, YA authors dishing about YA, gender stereotypes in YA romance, a World War II fighter pilot sharing his story, and more are poppin’ up at the PopTop stage or at Chapter 1.
Sarah Jessica Parker will sprinkle some stardust on the American Library Association (ALA) Annual meeting this year. The television and film actor/producer and library supporter is serving as Honorary Chair of ALA’s new global digital online platform, Book Club Central. Parker will reveal Book Club Central’s inaugural pick at its official launch during the President’s Program at ALA, Saturday, June 24, 3:30 p.m. at McCormick Place West in Chicago.
On May 6, the Library of Congress (LC) was transformed into a disco for one night. Librarians from the Washington, DC, area (as well as 23 other states, Australia, Mexico, and Switzerland) dressed up in their finest ’70s vintage duds and danced the night away under a mirror ball in the Great Hall of LC’s Thomas Jefferson Building. DJs spun tunes, disco diva Gloria Gaynor belted, and—to everyone’s delight—Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden donned a formidable afro wig and mirror ball earrings.
At the March for Science on Earth Day, April 22, and the Climate March held the following week, thousands of participants took to the streets in cities around the world, voicing their support for policies and practices based on scientific principles, government funding of research, and open dissemination of the resulting data. In those crowds, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals were well-represented.
After zipping over to the windy city last year, Book Expo returns to New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and will run from Wednesday, May 31, through Friday, June 2, with the fourth annual Book Con, a consumer-facing, pop culture–focused gathering for fans, happening Saturday, June 3, and Sunday, June 4. One of the big changes this year is the branding shift—from BookExpo America (BEA) to the truncated Book Expo—in recognition of the global reach of the show.
Literacy—and how libraries are reimagining services to address it for patrons of all ages—took center stage at the Northeast Dade–Aventura Branch, Miami Dade Public Library System (MDPLS), FL, March 9–10, at LJ and School Library Journal’s 2017 Public Library Think Tank. The event—targeting “Libraries and Literacies: Redefining Our Impact”—looked at multiple literacies, including digital, media/information, civic, reading, visual, multicultural, and health, and focused on strategic thinking through a literacy lens.
The 2017 conferences held by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L), in March and April respectively, covered trends ranging from diversity to emerging technology.
With content divided into seven distinct tracks—Managing e-Resources & Licensing, Collection Development & Assessment, Organizational Strategies, External Relationships, User Experience & Promotion, Scholarly Communications & Library Publishing, and Emerging Technologies & Trends—the annual ER&L conference in Austin, TX, offers attendees deep-dive presentations, case studies, and panel discussions on every aspect of electronic resource management (ERM).
We know it’s critical in library work to connect to community priorities—and that extends to all library types, with the community in question shifting accordingly. But just how do we put a finger on the pulse of those needs? A new offering takes a unique and useful approach to answering that question.
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) convenes in Baltimore, March 22–25, 2017. This year's ACRL conference highlights themes of leadership and change, but a closer look also shows a healthy—and hopeful—regard for the well-being of the academic library system from top to bottom.
The LITA Top Tech Trends panel at ALA Midwinter covered augmented reality, virtual reality, trends in teaching and technology, gamification, community driven technology innovation, and more.
Library Journal’s 2016 Video Reviewer of the Year Douglas Rednour made his first appearance at an American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting this January. He has reviewed dozens of horror films for us since mid-2015. How scary could this conference have been?
On January 22, RUSA's Reading List Council announced the 2017 selections of the annual best-of Reading List, comprised of eight different fiction genres for adult readers. Check out below LJ's full reviews of the winners and look for the complete reviews of the short list titles in BookVerdict.
In spite of intermittent rain, the mild temperatures of Atlanta, GA, made it a welcome destination for the 2017 American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting, held January 20–24. Current events—notably the inauguration on Friday of Donald Trump as the 45th president—drove a series of offerings that were definitely not business as usual.
For its 2016 Next Wave conference, scholarly nonprofit organization ITHAKA brought together nearly 200 academic librarians, publishers, technology partners, and scholars at New York’s Roosevelt Hotel on November 30 to take a look at what may lie ahead for academia. “The Bigger Picture: How Macro Changes in Higher Education Should Shape Your Strategy” condensed what had previously been spread over two days into one all-day session, with a strong focus on academic professionals’ take on the landscape.
From the opening session with political comedian W. Kamau Bell through the closing keynote by actor Neil Patrick Harris, the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting sets an ambitious agenda, tackling timely political issues such as how to work with the new presidential administration and Congress; ongoing social concerns like equity and inclusion; and how best to drive the continuing technological transformation of libraries on the one hand and accurately assess our successes—and learn from our failures—on the other.
At this year’s Charleston Conference, held as always in lovely Charleston, SC, in early November, attendees seemed in a mood to focus on practical, incremental progress, with sessions on assessment packed with standing room only audiences while questions of where the field is going failed to pull the crowds.
The fifth annual Designing Libraries for the 21st Century conference, held at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, spotlighted “Innovations with Impact,” and featured voices from the design, library, and education worlds. The conference brought together about 250 practitioners from across the world.
Drawing an exuberant crowd, the panel "Race & Sexuality: A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tee "Vixen" Franklin & Steve Orlando," moderated by comics scholar Jonathan W. Gray featured veteran comics writers and newcomers alike.
This year’s Charleston Conference, with its on-the-nose subtitle of “Roll with the Times or the Times Roll Over You,” will return as always to the Francis Marion Hotel (and surrounding venues) October 31–November 5. This year’s schedule (still tentative at press time) naturally hits many of the topics of perennial interest to librarians, particularly academic ones: discovery, the Big Journal Deal and its frequently forecast demise, working with vendors, and ebook acquisition models. Newer returnees such as MOOCs, open educational resources, assessment, the role of the subject specialist and/or department liaison, and research data management also make appearances.
Over 400 librarians from across the U.S. and Canada came together at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on August 10–13 for the National Diversity in Libraries Conference (NDLC), organized around the theme “Bridges to Inclusion.” Co-presented by the UCLA Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), this year’s conference was a jam-packed four days of learning, listening, sharing, growing, and strategic planning, providing opportunities for much-needed support and connections among librarians committed to doing diversity work.
At “Taking Our Seat at the Table: How Academic Librarians Can Help Shape the Future of Higher Education,” sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries University Libraries Section (ACRL ULS), library administrators spoke up on how their institutions are looking ahead—both within and outside of the library.
As always, the American Library Association's 2016 annual convention included many announcements and product launches from library vendors. Here's a roundup of some of the news from this year's show floor.
The discussion at this year’s Library Information Technology Association’s (LITA) Top Technology Trends panel at the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual conference in Orlando, FL spanned topics ranging from online privacy to “superfast application development” on the near horizon. LITA revamped the session format this year to be more interactive: rather than offering individual trend presentations each panelist quickly summarized one trend they’ve been following, and then participated in discussions sparked by questions from moderator Maurice Coleman, technical trainer, Harford County Public Library, MD, and host of the long-running “T is for Training” podcast, with debates emerging on how long libraries should support old devices, and which tech trends may be overhyped within the library field.
On Saturday, June 25, at the American Library Association (ALA) Conference in Orlando, the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were given to two winners originally announced at the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Book & Media Awards Ceremony & Reception at ALA Midwinter. Viet Thanh Nguyen won the fiction medal for his debut novel, The Sympathizer (Grove), a visceral account of a South Vietnamese double agent posted to America after Saigon’s fall, and Sally Mann won the nonfiction medal for her formally ambitious Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs (Little, Brown).
A key point that led off—and was reiterated several times throughout—“Strategies and Partnerships: Tailoring Data Services for Your Institutional Needs,” the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) President’s Program at the recent American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Orlando, FL, was the importance of establishing a common understanding of what exactly “data services” means. The term is a catch-all for a diverse set of activities; using it without defining its scope can become problematic for everyone involved.
With a slew of superheroes getting the big screen treatment in recent years, comic books are gaining even more cachet as a cultural touchstone. Big-budget blockbusters and critically acclaimed TV spin-offs have helped to spawn a new generation of comic book fans and reignited the spark in former readers, while alternative titles bring in fans who aren’t the superhero type (see “Picture the Possibilities,” LJ 6/15/16, p. 30ff.). Meanwhile, sf has long since gained mainstream acceptance without losing its ability to stir deep devotion (witness the plethora of Doctor Who merchandise), and anime and manga are reaching ever-larger portions of the American populace, particularly among teens and new adults. Board and card games, too, are seeing a dramatic resurgence in popularity alongside their high-tech counterparts, and once under-the-radar fanfiction and fan art are now far more widely known and accepted.
"How many of you would be prepared to handle an active shooter in your library? How many of you have an active shooter policy?" Few hands were raised when BreAnne Meier from the North Dakota State Library asked these relevant questions at the Active Shooter Policies in Libraries Program at the American Library Association (ALA)'s recent Annual Conference in Orlando, FL. Meier described active shooter situations as ones where someone is actively engaged in killing, has access to a confined area or population, and is sometimes motivated by revenge. As a result, she explained, these situations are unpredictable and can change quickly, often lasting for such a short time as ten to 15 minutes.
A number of higher education–focused sessions at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference touched on issues surrounding student retention and completion—and with the costs of tuition, housing, and materials constantly rising, saving students money is a major consideration. When the conversation includes state and community colleges, and a student body that may have less access to financial resources, finding strategies to cut costs becomes more important than ever. Open educational resources (OER)—freely accessible texts and media that faculty can assemble, repurpose, and package under open access agreements for teaching and research—are a rapidly growing option.
In a June 25 session at the ALA Annual conference in Orlando, John Bracken, VP of media innovation for the Knight Foundation, said that the foundation has been focused on three key questions when working with libraries: What can be done to foster cross-discipline collaboration, possibly learning from projects in other civic sectors such as Code for America, 18F, or the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews collaboration; how can community be put “even more robustly” at the center of the foundation’s work; and how can the foundation help libraries tell their stories to wider audiences? “To succeed, particularly in a time of reduced public investment, it is vital to tell our stories in ways that people can understand the breadth of our work, and on platforms” where the public is present and listening, Bracken said.
The American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference ran June 23-28 at Orlando, FL’s Orange County Convention Center and nearby venues. The mass shooting at Latin night at Orlando’s Pulse, an LGBT nightclub, a couple of weeks before the ALA Annual was top of mind for conferencegoers, leading to displays of solidarity both practical and symbolic. Attendance was considerably down relative to last year. Nonetheless, exhibitors were happy with the crowds on the show floor. The Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC) reported, “The Association is still a financially strong and sound organization.”
Update: ALA is planning a planning a memorial gathering at the Annual Conference on Saturday, June 25, 8–8:30 a.m. in the OCCC Auditorium, and a special conference Read Out co-sponsored by GLBTRT and OIF. Details on other support activities during the conference can be found here. In the wake of the shooting in Orlando’s Pulse nightclub on the night of June 12, which killed 49 people and injured 53 others, library administration and staff, organizations and vendors have stepped up with statements of solidarity, offers of help, and opportunities to join forces with the GLBT and Latinx communities—the shooting occurred during Pulse's Latin night—to mourn those killed and wounded.
Directors and library leaders from around Ohio and Pennsylvania met for a half-day workshop to share best practices and discuss ideas for impacting literacy and education throughout their communities. The interactive workshop was sponsored and attended by EnvisionWare and featured presentations by The Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, Akron-Summit County Public Library and Stark County District Library.
Kvetching about the location of the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference is practically a rite of passage. While the meeting has been held in many unquestionably great American cities, the association’s quest for affordable conference and hotel space in quantity tends to drive it to cold places in winter and hot in summer, and a certain amount of transit snafus and frayed tempers inevitably result. Objections to the location of this year’s ALA, running June 23–28 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL, however, are on a completely different level.
For library leaders, trustees, Friends, and foundation members headed to the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference in Orlando, June 23–28, there will be a number of sessions on offer with content of specific interest to trustees.
The 2016 one-day conference of the Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY), “Race Matters: Libraries, Racism, and Antiracism,” held May 20 at Brooklyn College, was ambitious in scope and informative in practice. Speakers, panel discussions, facilitated dialogs, and round tables took a broad look at academic librarianship through a lens of critical race theory, examining issues of race as they exist in the larger system of social and economic control, and—with the enthusiastic participation of attendees from across the United States and Canada—investigating ways to effect change in ways both large and small.
Members of the American Library Association (ALA) RUSA-CODES Reading List Council, which annually presents its picks for the best in genre fiction, are pleased to share their top summer reads.
After seven years in New York, BookExpo America (BEA) heads to Chicago’s McCormick Place, where it will run from Wednesday though Friday, May 11–13. With a focus on BEA’s new partnership with the American Library Association (ALA), the Library Insights track will feature sessions by Libraries Transform: ALA@BEA, which is sponsored by Libraries Transform, ALA’s national public awareness campaign, and digital provider OverDrive. Also added to the 2016 schedule are tracks on children’s publishing and self-publishing, two of the hottest segments in the industry today. And, of course, there will be plenty of books to pick up and author signings to attend.
The 11th annual 2016 Electronic Resources and Libraries (ER&L) conference featured dozens of sessions and workshops on topics including emerging technologies, e-resource management, collection development and assessment, user experience, and organizational strategies. This summary includes just a few of the sessions that LJ had the opportunity to attend.
On Thursday, April 7, at the Public Library Association conference in Denver, several hundred librarians gathered at the session “Extraordinarily Engaged: How Three Libraries Are Transforming Their Communities” to hear strong endorsements of the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC) initiative. The initiative, created in partnership with the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, a […]