Crafting has always been around, but over the course of the pandemic, these creative outlets have taken on more importance. Here are tips on getting started.

Even after Pride month, it’s important to ensure that your library’s collection includes titles that feature LGBTQ characters. Additionally, as manga’s popularity skyrockets and demand increases, so too will the need for inclusive books in the genre. Here are six manga that star characters of diverse sexualities.

The Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) President's Program at the 2021 American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference continued the theme of social justice prevalent in many of the conference offerings. The session’s title, Community Driven Justice in Our Work: Library and Archival Workers of Color Advocating for Self-Preservation, Solidarity, Change, and Justice in Communities, Workplace, and in the Profession at Large, proposed a wide cross-section of work; panelists kept the focus on their own advocacy efforts within their libraries.

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) is a $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress on March 10. It includes targeted funding for various sectors of the economy and government impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from agriculture to small businesses to education—and libraries. Here are the ins and outs of how new federal funds will reach public libraries and how they can be spent.

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.

From the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Complete News Release): All seventeen U.S. national laboratories and many prominent publishers, journals, and other organizations in scientific publishing announced today the beginning of a partnership to support name change requests from researchers on past published papers. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is coordinating the effort. This agreement […]

From Brigham Young University: A single bottle of tonic to cure diabetes, cancer, ulcers and dizziness. Raisins and currants for Christmas mince meat pies. Midwifery courses taught by a certified female doctor, $30 a term. A souvenir stone from the Hill Cumorah, “guaranteed genuine,” mailed from New York for 25 cents. This list represents just […]

FCC Enrolls Over 4 Million Households in Emergency Broadband Benefit Program and Continues with Additional Program Outreach (via FCC) Jisc to Manage Central Licensing and Invoicing for Direct to Open From the MIT Press (via MIT Press) Maryland Libraries Work with Publishers to Set “Reasonable Terms” (via MD Library Association) New Zealand: Controlled Digital Lending […]

The following article was published today by Scientific Data. Title Data Sharing Practices and Data Availability Upon Request Differ Across Scientific Disciplines Authors Leho Tedersoo Estonian Young Academy of Sciences Rainer Küngas Ester Oras Kajar Köster Helen Eenmaa Äli Leijen Margus Pedaste Marju Raju Anastasiya Astapova Heli Lukner Karin Kogermann Tuul Sepp Source Scientific Data […]

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.

The Ned Kelly Awards 2021 shortlists announced. August book club picks include Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford, Wayward by Dana Spiotta, and We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz. Read-alikes arrive for Devil in Disguise. The August Loan Stars list is out with #1 pick The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny. Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires by Jaime Lowe and The Great Peace by Mena Suvari get coverage. Interviews arrive with Dana Spiotta, Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray, Sandra Cisneros, David Steinberg, and Andrés Cerpa. Molly Shannon will release a new memoir, Hello, Molly! in April 2022. 

 

 

While most of the art world has had to cope with the complications of museum closures and re-openings over the past 15 months, patrons have been growing hungrier for arts and culture. “We’ve seen an uptick in our audience getting their art fix—and a connection to beauty—via books,” says Thames & Hudson assistant editor Elizabeth Keene. “

LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas.

COVID-19 added new urgency and faculty awareness to the equity and access issues Open Educational Resources are designed to address.