The extent of any cuts at the agency, and potential legal challenges to them, remain unclear. But Paula Krebs, executive director of the Modern Language Association, the largest association of teachers and researchers in the humanities, said the move was part of the administration’s “larger attack on education,” including an executive order aimed at shuttering the Department of Education.

Museums and libraries, Ms. Krebs said, are the main places where members of the public engage in lifelong learning, outside of any formal school.

“I worry this is an attack on the idea that you should have an educated electorate,” she said. “It’s just terrifying.”

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is located between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont. It was built deliberately to straddle the frontier between the two countries – a symbol of cooperation and friendship between Canada and the US.

The library’s entrance is on the Vermont side. Previously, Canadian visitors were able to enter using the sidewalk and entrance on the American side but were encouraged to bring documentation, according to the library’s website.
Inside, a line of electrical tape demarcates the international boundary. About 60% of the building, including the books, is located in Canada. Upstairs, in the opera house, the audience sits in the US while the performers are in Canada.

Under the new rules, Canadians will need to go through a formal border crossing before entering the library.

Support Fairhope Public Library

From the fundlibraries.org page:

Months of targeted attacks, stacking the APLS board, and conspiring with ALGOP chair John Wahl finally paid off for Moms for Liberty and Clean Up Alabama.  Under Chairman Wahl’s leadership, state funding has been stripped from the Fairhope library for shelving age-appropriate sex education materials in the young adult section.

State funding is critical for the library to continue providing vital resources. Let’s do what the APLS chair refuses to do, and protect the First Amendment rights of the Fairhope community from anti-library extremists and fill in the gap for funding.

The library needs to raise $40,000 to meet its budget shortfall. Donate here: https://www.fundlibraries.org/campaign/243/support-fairhope-public-library

Without the federal funding provided by IMLS, the valuable programs and services that libraries deliver to their communities are at risk. As for current IMLS staff, the future is uncertain. The Executive Order directs the agency to “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”

ALA President Cindy Hohl weighed in shortly after the EO was ordered with ALA’s call to action. “This is a time for unity. As a community of library and information professionals, we must face these threats by showing up together—library workers, friends, trustees and public supporters—to advocate for our patrons, our profession, and our core values. The existential threats we’re facing now call us to draw on our greatest power: library stories that touch hearts and change minds, especially for decisionmakers. We ask you to call members of Congress to tell those powerful stories that show the true importance of our libraries.”

The Trump administration may be trying to erase Black history, but it remains an essential element of any library collection.

As AI tools make it increasingly easier to generate misinformation, public libraries will need to be prepared to help patrons navigate this new frontier of information literacy.

Love Bergdorf Goodman’s homage to the New York Public Library in its #holidaywindows. #nyc

This year’s theme, Toast of the Town, is a dazzling ode to the energy and glamour of New York City and a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Fifth Avenue, the legendary thoroughfare that we call home.

Here: “The New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue” showcases the famous lions bathed in a rich red glow, alongside literary iconography.
Photo: @rickyzehav

ACRL has established a discussion group to provide a forum for discussing the impact of AI on libraries.

But I do think that part of why books and librarians in particular were targeted is that, unlike teachers groups, we didn’t have this massive political infrastructure to create consequences, so to speak, for those targeting us. So we are a relatively easy punching bag. We do see so much movement happening in the last few years, everyone moving in a million different directions trying to fight back against this. But I think this was a group, an industry, that was not used to being the target of this kind of coordinated attack.

Since launching Books Unbanned in April 2022, the Brooklyn Public Library has given 8,200 teens and young adults aged 13 to 21, from all 50 U.S. states, full access to its extensive catalog of ebooks, e-audiobooks, and online learning database collections. These cardholders, all of whom have written personal emails explaining their need for access to the library’s collection, have checked out over 270,000 books.

The first half of 2024 has been full of astronomical events—the eclipse, the northern lights, and sublime images of space. Here on Earth, LJ reviewers have discovered 490+ stars of their own, with books that have earned the magazine’s highest accolade, a starred review. To celebrate these dazzling reads, we have gathered their constellation of reviews, with an accompanying downloadable spreadsheet, sortable by subject/genre and BISAC heading (bit.ly/4eED0RS).

For three long-tenured, nationally recognized directors—Pat Losinski of Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), OH; Vailey Oehlke of Multnomah County Library (MCL), OR; and Ramiro Salazar of San Antonio Public Library (SAPL), TX—this year marks their retirements from a combined 56 years in their most recent roles. From weathering the Great Recession to the launch of Kindle ebook borrowing via OverDrive, their time leading three major public library systems overlapped with advancements in the profession and change in American culture. The jobs they exit are different from the jobs they entered in the early ’00s.