Sifting through catalogs and websites, listening to podcasts and Internet chatter, reading blurbs, and more, our staff searched for the big titles of fall.

Ideally, we inform ourselves about health by listening to physicians and other scientists. We monitor our activity and health using wearable technology. Still, when a fix is required, we rely on technology. These 29 resources will help keep our collections robust.

According to a new analysis by researchers at New York University, violence has fallen in nearly all major U.S. cities since 1991. AmericanViolence.org, supported with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is based at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management and currently provides city-level figures on murder rates in more than 80 of the 100 largest U.S. cities.

Legislation to be put forward in January, 2019 proposes a $50 million permanent state fund to provide some $50,000 per year for more than 40 rural community libraries across New Mexico.

In my last column, I shared a conversation I had with Sally Pewhairangi, a New Zealand librarian working on a new website called The Library Boss. We explored how confidence in our abilities is just as important as competence. We finish our discussion this time with a deep dive into qualities that should be part of the information professional’s skill set.

During the week of March 19–23 MIT Libraries convened experts from across disciplines and domains to identify and address grand challenges in the scholarly communication and information science landscape.

Suppose a librarian receives an email from a man named Greg Walsh, wanting to become a cardholder or simply inquiring about the open hours. Would the librarian reply? And, if so, would the reply be polite, including for instance some form of salutation, such as “Hello” or “Good morning”? Does your answer change if the guy is called Tyrone Washington? Is a librarian treating Jake Mueller differently from DeShawn Jackson?

A detailed look at pain management implementing the use of medical cannabis rather than opioids; A complex look at the issue of opioid abuse backed up with research and first hand stories; A valuable addition to the conversation about addiction filled with case studies illustrating the complexities of the disease

Editor Sarah Janssen discusses editing The World Almanac in an age where being attuned to "fake news" is especially vital.

A photo spurred Marian Fragola to create the Making Space series at North Carolina State University (NCSU). As part of a study on the library’s gaming spaces, a student snapped a picture of herself looking into one of the rooms, her body reflected in the glass. “[It] captured her feelings of not being welcomed,” says Fragola, director of program planning and outreach. The photo brought home to Fragola and her colleagues the issue of women’s underrepresentation in the Maker movement and tech.

As director of archives and special collections at Columbia University’s Barnard Library, Shannon O’Neill practices “radical empathy,” both in the materials she selects and in the way she interacts with colleagues. The concept of radical empathy in archival practice comes from Michelle Caswell and Marika Cifor’s “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives,” explains O’Neill. In practice, she says, “we allow ourselves to be open to and affected by one another, and we acknowledge and actively confront oppressive structures—ones that are colonial, carceral, and racist—in archives.”

When a prospective date asked Kiara Garrett to recommend a book, she suggested Junot Díaz’s This Is How You Lose Her. He mistakenly thought the collection offered relationship advice. Garrett told him, “If you liked Jay-Z’s album 4:44, then you would like this book.”

In November 2017, a few months after she became Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library’s (EVPL) civic data scientist—one of the few in the country at a public library—Jerica Copeny volunteered at the inaugural conference of Data for Black Lives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab.

This year, our ears were graced by many great albums—even a few brilliant ones. But two stood out from the crowd: Nicole Mitchell’s Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds—my pick for album of the year—and ­Thundercat’s Drunk.

An intimate view of the difficulties in mitigating the effects of severe trauma—highly recommended for adult audiences; valuable to those on the spectrum and their caretakers and all who work with and love them; a worthy view of the emotional impact of sexual abuse even years after the event

The year's best databases include resources on congressional research and the ACLU

Another year, another wealth of award-worthy documentaries to consider. A few Netflix-exclusives were unavailable for preview, but we've got two features and a short film that seem perfect for most library video collections. Weigh in with your thoughts, and see which way the academy goes when the ceremony airs on Sunday, March 4