LJ interviewed Baker & Taylor President and CEO Amandeep Kochar about his leading a private investment group’s recent acquisition of the company from its previous owner, Follett, on November 4.

From the American Library Association: Due to a dramatic uptick in book challenges and outright removal of books from libraries, ALA’s Executive Board and the Boards of Directors for all of ALA’s eight divisions have released the following joint statement regarding attempts to remove materials that focus on LGBTQIA+ issues and books by Black authors or that document the Black experience or the experiences of other BIPOC individuals.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in partnership with Reinvestment Fund, recently released “Understanding the Social Wellbeing Impacts of the Nation’s Libraries and Museums,” a report on the ways that libraries and museums promote social inclusion and well-being. The study, conducted between 2018 and 2020, looked at measures that included community health, school effectiveness, institutional connection, and cultural opportunity.

In the beginning of October, the Department of Education announced temporary changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) that are projected to help 22,000 borrowers with consolidated loans without further action, and another 27,000 may be able to qualify with additional certification. The DOE expects the changes will help over 555,000 borrowers who previously consolidated their loans and may get an additional two years of qualifying payments. The new program stands to help out librarians in particular.

COVID shifts drove falling print circ and rising ebooks. But will it last? LJ's 2021 Materials Survey looks at some of the last year's trends.

This is the 13th year of the LJ Index of Public Library Service and Star Library ratings. The 2020 scores and ratings are based on FY18 data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Public Library Survey (PLS). Because of that delay, they don’t reflect the impact of the coronavirus; that won’t be reflected in the data until 2022. The big news in this year’s edition is that successful retrievals of electronic information (e-retrievals)—measuring usage of online content, such as databases, other than by title checkout—joins the six other measures that determine the LJ Index.

Whether librarians are providing services in-person or virtually, reference has changed with the pandemic.

Library Journal’s annual Placements & Salaries survey reports on the experiences of LIS students who graduated and sought their first librarian jobs in the previous year: in this case, 2019. Salaries and full-time employment are up, but so are unemployment and the gender gap; 2019 graduates faced a mixed job market even before the pandemic.

arXiv Executive director Eleonora Presani to Step Down (via arXiv) Note: Presani was Appointed as arXiv’s First Exec. Director on March  16 2020 Announcing the Results of ORCID’s 2022 Board Election (via ORCID) Eight Open GLAM Case Studies Selected: Discover the Successful Projects and Their Leaders! (via Creative Commons) Textbook Publishers Sue Shopify Over Alleged […]

From the National Library of Medicine Technical Bulletin: As part of the efforts of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to transform and accelerate biomedical discovery and improve health and health care, we are transitioning to automated MeSH indexing of MEDLINE citations in PubMed. Automated indexing will provide users with timely access to MeSH indexed […]

From a Joint News Release: Global research and education leader Wiley today announced the acquisition of Knowledge Unlatched, an innovator in online open access solutions. The open access movement promises to make more research broadly available to democratize information and to accelerate academic discovery. As the market for open access publishing grows, libraries and publishers […]

From Ithaka S+R: As “big data” has moved from the margins to the center of a growing number of academic disciplines, how well are universities, funders, and publishers supporting researchers? To better understand how big data research is pursued in academic contexts, Ithaka S+R partnered with librarians at more than 20 colleges and universities, interviewing […]

When the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccines began to roll out in mid-December 2020, their distribution was immediately complicated by a shortage of doses and widespread uncertainty about who would be given priority. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued suggested guidelines for phased allocation. When it was not yet clear who would be next, many library workers, leaders, and associations began advocating for public facing library workers to be vaccinated as soon as feasible.

In the messy middle of the pandemic, library leaders share how things have changed since March 2020, their takeways, and continuing challenges.

Whether librarians are providing services in-person or virtually, reference has changed with the pandemic.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of books on the subject has been increasing exponentially. This introductory list, which will be updated regularly, is meant to help collection development librarians get started on determining which books work best for their collections.

Nicole Perlroth wins the 2021 Financial Times McKinsey & Co. Business Book of the Year for This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. The best sellers lists feature Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon, The Becoming by Nora Roberts, Fear No Evil by James Patterson and God Bless This Mess: Learning to Live and Love Through Life’s Best (and Worst) Moments by Hannah Brown. Adaptation news arrives for Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches book series and Stan Lee’s works of horror.

Scribner pulls Alice Sebold's memoir, Lucky, following Anthony Broadwater's exoneration. ALA opposes widespread efforts to censor books in U.S. schools and libraries. AudioFile releases its Best Audiobooks of 2021 list, along with the December 2021 Earphones Award Winners. December's Costco Connection features Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon and Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for Picoult's buzzy new book. Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult by Faith Jones gets a 4 star review from USA Today. Interviews arrive with Ian Williams, Meg Waite Clayton, Faith Jones, Jodi Picoult Tiya Miles, and filmmaker Rebecca Hall. Plus, an overdue book is returned in pristine condition after 110 years.

Book challenges are, of course, nothing new to libraries. But they are ramping up in both frequency and intensity, and will take teamwork to resist.

Central Arkansas Library System is the winner of the 2021 Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize. Honorable mentions go to Gail Borden Public Library District, Elgin, IL, and Sharpsburg Community Library, Pittsburgh, PA.