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Artificial intelligence and smart automation are streamlining workflows and transforming key processes across a wide range of industries. Even libraries are now benefitting from the rapid advancements in automation and AI.

In January, the HBCU Library Alliance announced the award of a $1,000,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support its multipart program “Empowering HBCU Libraries with Civil Rights Preservation, Digital Innovation, and Transformative Professional Development.”

Featuring herb gardens, encyclopedias, container gardening, and more, these are the 20 gardening titles that library patrons are seeking.

The Penguin, a Gladiator, and Godzilla feature in the big and not-to-miss views of March.

Library displays highlight the collection and aid readers as they browse and find their next read, view, or listen. To help prompt display ideas and find titles to keep them stocked, LJ offers Display Shelf. Use this list to generate a quick display on the circulation desk or to fill an end-cap. The suggestions also offer RA librarians a handy list of popular titles on a range of high-interest genres and subjects. This list features books that reimagine and incorporate myth and folklore from around the world into captivating new tales.

Lethal Prey by John Sandford is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.

Fiona McFarlane wins the Story Prize for Highway Thirteen: Stories. Ann Regan wins the Kay Sexton Award, and Gustavo Bondoni wins the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award. The shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction and recipients of the Writing Freedom Fellowship are announced. April’s Read with Jenna pick is Heartwood by Amity Gaige. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Lethal Prey by John Sandford. Interviews arrive with Tess Gerritsen, Abby Jimenez, Gregory Maguire, John Green, Graydon Carter, and Brian Goldstone. Plus, NYPL opens the Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne archive today.

A motorcycle designer, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and Indigenous journalists feature in these excellent documentaries not to miss.

Criminals, siblings, and a portrait of an independent woman gather in some of the top films to screen this month.

The winners of the Windham-Campbell Prize and longlists for the PEN America Literary Awards are announced. NYT reports how library advocates are rallying to the defense of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Jonas Brothers update fans on their previously announced forthcoming memoir. Interviews arrive with Krysten Ritter, James Whitfield Thomson, and Elie Mystal. Plus, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels will be adapted as a TV series.

The National Museum and Library Services Board, which serves in an advisory capacity to the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), pens a letter to new Acting Director Keith Sonderling outlining which functions it considers essential obligations of the organization.

Alan Inouye has led advocacy and public policy for the American Library Association (ALA) since 2007, where he’s touched everything from E-Rate to copyright to ebook access, securing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for libraries. His retirement from ALA this month marks a crucial moment for the association, which has weathered significant challenges in recent years and cannot afford to lose ground with relationships in Washington, DC, and across the broader library landscape.

Lethal Prey by John Sandford leads holds this week. Also in demand are titles by Harlan Coben, John Scalzi, Ashley Winstead, Alex Aster, and Emma Pattee. People’s book of the week is Firstborn: A Memoir by Lauren Christensen. The West Passage by Jared Pechacek wins the Crawford Award. Plus, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s forthcoming book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, will publish September 9.

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the shortlists for the British Science Fiction Association Awards are announced. The 2025 Canada Reads winner is A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, written with Mary Louisa Plummer. The Guardian reports how Sarah Wynn-Williams’s Facebook exposé, Careless People, came to top the NYT bestsellers list this week, despite Meta’s attempt to stifle its author. Rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot will publish a memoir in Jan. 2026. President Trump has appointed Keith E. Sonderling as the new acting director of the IMLS. Plus, Page to Screen and booklists from V.E. Schwab and David Szalay.

In the evolving world of libraries, creating programs that support your community and secure essential funding is both an art and a science. Before her retirement in late 2024, after 30 years of service, Karen Beach, deputy director of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation, NC, and an expert grant writer, shared invaluable insights with members of the Library Support Network on how development professionals can serve as thought partners to library staff. Her guidance emphasized creating more compelling and competitive grant applications to improve funding success rates.