American Libraries

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) promotes the improvement and extension of library media services in elementary and secondary schools as a means of strengthening the total education program. Its mission is to advocate excellence,...

MORIAL CONVENTION CENTER NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA JUNE 22-29, 2006 OPENING GENERAL SESSION FEATURING MADELEINE ALBRIGHT Saturday, June 24, 2006 5:30-7:30 pm ALA is thrilled to welcome former Secretary of State and bestselling author...

Brett Allen became director of Fairfield (Mont.) Public Library November 22. * William Anderson has joined the University of Connecticut in Storrs as catalog librarian. * Gladys Smiley Bell has become director of Hampton (Va.) University's Harvey Library...

How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared to what we spend on our horses? ... If public libraries were half so costly as public dinners ... even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was...

BEST-SELLING AUTHOR FORUM Friday, January 20, 4:00-5:15 pm Gonzalez Convention Center Room 217A Mark Gimenez is author of the debut novel The Color of Law, a legal thriller with brilliant pacing, a conflicted protagonist searching for redemption,...

Following two parents' complaints, the superintendent of the University Place (Wash.) School District ordered the removal of the gay teen novel Geography Club from the junior and senior high school library collections in November. However, superintendent...

WHEN THE TELEPHONE CALL CAME, MICHAEL KOSZALKA WAS STUNNED. Director of the West Allis (Wis.) Public Library, Koszalka had just been notified that the library would receive $1.3 million from the estate of local resident Irv Terchak, a modest, unassuming...

What if all Ohio librarians read one book? And what if that book was The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition (AL, Mar. 2004, p. 14)? And what if the Scan had librarians thinking like sharks? Some of my students, for whom the Environmental...

The Library of Congress announced November 22 that a $3-million gift from Google will enable LC to begin building the World Digital Library, a project to digitize significant primary materials from national and other major research libraries around...

People are using libraries less and read less since they began using the internet, according to a June 2005 survey commissioned by OCLC of 3,300 English-speaking residents of the United States and five other countries. Borrowing printed books is the...

Two days after the House approved 251-174 a compromise bill reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act, a bipartisan threat to filibuster the same bill prevailed in the Senate December 16 (AL, Dec., p. 11), as the bill's supporters there could get only 52 of...

Whether library measures passed or failed in 2005, residents who supported their local facilities did so with passion. In the notable case of Salinas, California, voters resoundingly passed a referendum November 8 to restore funding to keep the city's...

Library leaders across the country are strategizing how best to safeguard media-center budgets in the wake of a new funding-formula proposal that calls for all 50 states to require that their school districts spend at least 65% of their budgets on...

Academic libraries across the nation face declining budgets and increased demand for digital services. To overcome budget shortfalls and enhance the electronic environment, here's how one visionary library developed a stratoplegic plan, based on subjective...

The impact of establishing a library in an underserved community is priceless. After helping to establish a library in Bolivia, Peace Corps volunteer Marcus Gaudet said, "The major success of this project [is] kids playing with puzzles or didactic...

Little one, you have been buzzing in the books," begins one of Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems. When this year's Urban Library Council conference convened December 2-3 at the Chicago Public Library, the buzz was about neighborhoods, youth, and connections....

Sometimes I think I should have my home phone disconnected. About a year ago, it dawned on me that whenever my home phone rang I simply assumed that it was a telemarketer. While I realized it was possible that it could be a family member, coworker,...