American Libraries

It's difficult to estimate how many library workers have actually been laid off this year. Many libraries have been able to keep layoffs to a minimum, while scrambling for other ways to cope with shriveling state and local funding. Children's librarian...

If the many goals of our profession--equity of funding, unfettered access to information, service to diverse communities, intellectual freedom, literacy--are to be realized, they must be translated into policy and supported by members of the community;...

The newly expanded materials-review committee of the Montgomery County (Tex.) Library System decided in March not to pull Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block and Desire Lines by jack Gantos, both of which had been challenged over what was deemed the...

The Florida House voted April 4 to reject Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to transfer the state library's circulating collection from Tallahassee to Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale and eliminate 55 of the library's 120 positions. Since the Senate's...

"The time for thinkers has come; the place for thinkers is now open," said Virginia Harris last September at the dedication of the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity in Boston (AL, Nov. 2002, p. 26). As the chair of the library...

A young friend asked me if Gulf War 11 is worse than the Vietnam War. The simple answer, and the one that's especially germane to the train wreck that is occurring with the nation's libraries today, is that libraries in the '60s and '70s were not among...

Libraries are directly and immediately involved in the conflict which divides our world, and for two reasons: first, because they are essential to the functioning of a democratic society; second, because the contemporary conflict touches the integrity...

National Library Legislative Day events to be held May 11-13 in Washington, D.C., will offer an opportunity for librarians, trustees, library friends, library-school faculty and students, and other library advocates to speak to congressional members...

In the wake of continuing controversy about the library provisions of the USA Patriot Act--bath the efforts to overturn it through legislation as well as suggestions by congressional Republicans in early April that it be made permanent--librarians...

At a March 24 city council hearing, the heads of New York City's three public library systems warned that planned budget cuts (AL, Apr., p. 25-26) may force them to sharply curtail services, raising the possibility of reducing hours to four days a...

An April 2 rally outside the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, by some 350 library staff and supporters who chanted 'Ohio loves libraries" beneath the office windows of state legislators apparently had the desired effect. House leaders had announced earlier...

In September 2002, one of the most successful publishing ventures in history celebrated its special anniversary. It's taken just two decades for USA Today to sign up more than 2.3 million subscribers and become the largest circulating newspaper in...

On April 2, the St. Paul, Minnesota, city council approved an ordinance reorganizing the public library into an entity whose revenues are raised through a dedicated property tax instead of being supported through the city's general fund. "This is a...

During a frigid winter weekend in Philadelphia, 10 librarians met during the 2003 ALA Midwinter Meeting to identify newly released reference works of distinction that would comprise this year's Outstanding Reference Sources. These dedicated and knowledgeable...

These are certainly trying days for many librarians, especially in reference. It seems to be both the best of times and the worst. We are still in the midst of absorbing and making sense of the information revolution. New technologies are seen to...

It happens every spring. The guys at the office are always one man short for the rotisserie baseball league so they come knocking on my door. They seek me out reluctantly because come October I always win the league championship and the prize money...