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UPDATE: On May 6, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. issued a preliminary injunction in Rhode Island vs. Trump, stating that the actions of the executive order fall under the definition of “arbitrary and capricious,” as “IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS have not provided a rational connection between the sweeping actions they have taken and the vague, conclusory justifications they have provided,” and that the recision of IMLS grants is in violation of Constitutional law.

Brittani Sterling had planned on going into social work, but when she realized she could help people through librarianship, she chose that path and never looked back. 

When Library Director Natalie Draper started at the Northfield Public Library, she discovered ideas for supporting the community through public engagement sessions. “Something we heard in the engagement that we put into our strategic plan was people needing to feel that sense of belonging in a space,” she says. “A library services community best when the staff reflect the diversity of their community.”

After a $14.9 million bond library expansion referendum failed, Lisa Kropp knew she also needed a way to keep staff morale up. She proposed that the library take on the Sustainable Libraries Initiative certification program, an idea enthusiastically accepted by staff and the library board. Lindenhurst became the third U.S. library to earn the certification. 

He calls himself an “accidental librarian,” but little of Shamichael Hallman’s work is done without intention. He began his career in ministry and found his way into libraries after discovering the fields had a great deal of overlap. While Senior Library Manager of Memphis Public Libraries’ Cossitt Library, he oversaw a significant building renovation that expanded his thinking about the opportunities public spaces provide in fostering civic engagement. 

On March 26, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) announced its dissolution, following a unanimous vote by 2025 SLA Board members. The SLA Board is currently developing a plan for the dissolution process, which they anticipate should be complete by April 2026.

Gale recently debuted new personalization and visualization features for its Digital Scholar Lab—a cloud-based research environment designed to facilitate the access and analysis of Gale primary source materials and a researcher’s local humanities and social sciences collections.

The second Independent Publisher and Librarian Forum—IndieLib for short—was held on April 16 in downtown Manhattan, at New York University’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy. The event brought together public and academic librarians, representatives from indie publishers and their distributors, and others across the field to learn more about one another’s work and concerns and imagine new ways to move forward.

While those in favor of book bans believe children should be protected from content perceived as inappropriate or abusive, those opposed worry about the societal consequences of censoring information and ideas, the infringement of First Amendment rights, and the negative impacts on authors and publishers. Researchers Uttara M. Ananthakrishnan, Naveen Basavaraj, Sabari Rajan Karmegam, Ananya Sen, and Michael D. Smith set out to examine how bans at the district level affect consumption at the national level.