Lisa Peet

Librarians and other library staff, especially part-time workers and those who have been laid off or forced to take pay cuts or personal leave, are often struggling to pay their bills, the promised $1,200 stimulus check notwithstanding. To address that need, the EveryLibrary Institute has launched the Help a Library Worker Out (HALO) Fund.

UPDATE: The $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed by President Trump on March 27, and included $50 million for IMLS. This infusion of funds for digital inclusion projects will help support libraries that have had to pivot quickly in their services, ALA stated. 

COVID-19 causes construction delays for Flint Public Library, MI, and Carroll Public Library, IA; Saskatoon PL purchases property for new Central Library; Eden Prairie Branch of Hennepin County Library, MN, and Felton Branch of Santa Cruz Public Library, CA, see grand reopenings before library closures.

Whether lobbying legislators for funding libraries or a foundation for new shelving, public library leaders, communications staff, and even frontline workers need to be efficient and nimble when articulating their impacts to outside stakeholders. Crucially, they need to approach the question from the vantage of how the library’s outcomes align with that particular stakeholder’s mission.

Despite many other activities being on hold this month, voting for the American Library Association (ALA) 2021–22 presidential campaign opened on March 9, and ALA members in good standing can cast their ballots through April 1. LJ invited candidates Patricia “Patty” M. Wong, city librarian at Santa Monica Public Library, CA, and Steven Yates, assistant director of the University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies, Tuscaloosa, to weigh in on some key issues pertaining to ALA and librarianship.

On the evening of March 24, the American Library Association (ALA) announced that the 2020 ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition, scheduled for June 25–30 in Chicago, has been canceled because of concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be the first time the Annual conference has not been held in 75 years; the last cancellation was in 1945, during World War II.

On March 17, the American Library Association (ALA) released a statement recommending that libraries be closed to the public, after considerable outcry on social media at earlier statements that failed to take a position on the issue. Days before, Alison Macrina—librarian and founder of the Library Freedom Project—had begun work organizing the Library COVID-19 Solidarity Network, bringing together public and academic library staff to advocate for full library closure throughout the United States. 

On March 11, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Christine Wolff-Eisenberg, Ithaka S+R, deployed a survey, “Academic Library Response to COVID-19.” The survey garnered 213 responses the first day it was up.

A bill filed this week in Missouri would give a specially appointed parental board oversight over public library materials deemed inappropriate for minors and proposes legal ramifications for librarians who don’t comply—leaving library leadership, workers, and supporters up in arms.

UPDATE: A similar bill in Tennessee, the Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act (H.B. 2721), was killed in the House Cities and Counties subcommittee on March 11. The Senate companion bill, S.B. 2896, is expected to die as well.