Lisa Peet

Award-winning American author, editor, and professor Toni Morrison died after a brief illness on August 5, at the age of 88. Morrison was the author of a number of celebrated novels centering the experiences of African Americans—most often women—including The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1997), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2015).

When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries issued the final report on its Grand Challenges Summit in January, one of the key findings was the need for libraries and archives to play the role of advocates and collaborators on research into open, equitable, and sustainable knowledge systems. At the time, director Chris Bourg referred to a MIT Libraries–based research initiative in the works that would use the Grand Challenges Summit white paper’s call to action as a jumping-off point.

Held on Friday, May 3, LJ’s Design Institute: Columbia, SC, was infused with Southern hospitality from start to finish. The host, Columbia’s Richland Library, went the extra mile—from holding over an art exhibit at the Main Library for those touring the branches on May 2 to bringing attendees out to the citywide First Thursday party on Main Street.

The Leander Public Library (LPL), TX, has drawn criticism for proposed changes to meeting room and speaker policies—instituted not by the library, but by city government of this suburb north of Austin. LPL has been run by private library administrators Library Systems and Services since it was established as a city department in 2005. In the wake of several recent instances of programming deemed “controversial” by city leadership, amendments to library policy have drawn the attention of residents, city council members, and library and civil rights associations.

The Obama Foundation selected the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, at New York’s Columbia University, to produce the official oral history of Barack Obama’s eight-year presidency. Working in collaboration with the University of Hawai’i’s Center for Oral History and the University of Chicago, the Columbia Center for Oral History will conduct the Obama Presidency Oral History Project over the next five years

The eighth annual Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction ceremony and reception, held during the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, DC, at the Renaissance Hotel, celebrated winning authors Rebecca Makkai (The Great Believers, Viking) and Kiese Laymon (Heavy: An American Memoir, Scribner).

Library legislation news has been tentatively positive, according to the panel discussion “173 Days of Congress: An Examination” at the 2019 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Congress in Washington, DC. Representatives from ALA’s Washington Office and the U.S. Copyright Office looked at the successes and challenges libraries have confronted during the first six months of the 116th Congress, and identified a number of upcoming issues that advocates will want to keep an eye on.

Sonia Sotomayor, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, opened the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference’s auditorium speaker series on Saturday, June 22, in Washington, DC. Sotomayor, who grew up in the Bronx, NY, credited her local branch—the tiny Parkchester Library—as a refuge from the sadness of her household after her father died when she was nine.