National Library Week is celebrated during April, and these multitalented authors have also worked in libraries. Recognize them with a display!

Library entertainment platforms offering movies and TV shows gain on commercial streaming services as consumers balk at subscription costs. With “subscription fatigue” on the rise, libraries are seeing a growing popularity in streaming services—and deciding how best to provide them.

It’s April, which means that in addition to celebrating spring’s arrival, I’ll be joining libraries across the nation in celebrating National Library Week.

This superbly executed open-access database offers an unprecedented gateway to different versions of Shakespeare’s First Folios. AM’s powerful search tools and thoughtfully selected tips and pointers allow for exciting research opportunities.

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 NYU Tandon: Can artificial intelligence (AI) match human skills for finding obscure connections between words? Researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering turned to the daily Connections puzzle from The New York Times to find out. [Clip] With Julian Togelius, NYU Tandon Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and Director of the […]

From Inside Higher Education: The U.S. Department of Education’s plan to drop data on libraries as part of its main postsecondary data system has generated intense blowback from academic librarians. The federal government’s collection of data about the nearly 3,700 academic libraries as part of its longitudinal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is “critical to understanding […]

UPDATED POST (May 10, 2024): Statement: “EveryLibrary Supports Plaintiffs in Autauga-Prattville Lawsuit Against Discriminatory Library Policies” —-End Update—- From the Alabama Reflector Groups critical of restrictive library policies at the Autauga-Prattville Public Library filed suit Thursday against the library, alleging the policies violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit was […]

From a UC Davis Announcement: William Garrity, deputy university librarian and the library’s chief operating officer, has been selected as the next university librarian and vice provost of digital scholarship for UC Davis. Garrity, who has served as interim university librarian since July 2023, will officially start on May 15. “UC Davis has a highly […]

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.

Patricia Evangelista’s Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country wins NYPL’s Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. Winners of the American Book Fest’s American Legacy Book Awards and the Vermont Book Awards are announced. Finalists for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and shortlists for the British Booksellers Association’s Indie Book Awards are released. Plus Page to Screen and interviews with Judi Dench, Serj Tankian, Christina Cooke, and Marissa Higgins.

Ben Fountain wins the Joyce Carol Oates Prize for mid-career fiction writers. The winners of the Minnesota Book Awards are announced. Shortlists for the Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Awards are released. The longlist for the Kraszna-Krausz Photography and Moving Image Book Awards is revealed. Plus new title bestsellers and interviews with Abir Mukherjee, Michael McDonald, and Lucas Mann.

To celebrate the launch of this new collection we are offering free to access extracts from some of the best known works of Medieval Literature. For a limited time only, explore the free content brought together below and bring the language and culture of the global Middle Ages to life.

John Vaillant wins the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing for Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World. The Minnesota Book Awards are announced. Marina Endicott wins book of the year at the 2024 Saskatchewan Book Awards. May book club picks arrive. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune, which also tops May’s Loanstars list. Earlyword’s May GalleyChat spreadsheet is out now. This month’s Costco Connection highlights Long Island by Colm Toíbín, which is also the Oprah book club pick.