Indeed, embedded librarianship and partnerships have led to much success for the business center, citizens, and city government. It is important to meet with as many different business organizations as possible in order to publicize what libraries can do for the community.
Reading for pleasure is at an all-time low in America. Librarians need to extol the merits of reading wherever we go. We need to champion the importance of reading to turn the tide on declines.
Neal Bascomb brings the harrowing escape from Holzminden prison to thrilling life in The Escape Artists: A Band of Daredevil Pilots and the Greatest Prison Break of the Great War. Holzminden prison was Gemany’s seemingly inescapable POW prison, run by the tyrannical commandant Karl Niemeyer. Yet through meticulous planning and ingenious subterfuge, nearly a dozen […]
The New Jersey State Library has prioritized business outreach and services throughout the state for over a decade. Through contracts for statewide database access to business resources and a dedicated consultant to work with public libraries, the State Library has leveraged its assets to support New Jersey’s business community and has attempted to communicate this to key business stakeholders.
While the series is on the topic of religion, we are not engaging in religious programming, but theological programming. That is, we are pursuing an academic discourse on the nature of belief in the divine and the various rituals that might display this belief for particular groups.
The opioid crisis in our country is no longer confined to dark alleys or areas beneath bridges and overpasses. This unfortunate tragedy has found its way into public libraries and many public librarians across the country are now trained to administer Naloxone, “a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose.” Make no mistake about it, the library staff at the McPherson library is saving lives and they are proud of their lifesaving work and dedication to their community.
The Feminist Library wants to be a force for good, a living breathing space with a growing collection of work that reflects the diversity of the movement we serve. We want feminists to support the library, and use it, thereby contributing to a movement as determined as ever to bring about total liberation from the forces of oppression, exploitation and hierarchy. We want feminists to send us their work so that ideas can be shared freely with the whole movement; and to use our space. We need feminists to rally behind the library and actively support us, so that together we can ensure that the Feminist Library continues to thrive, and so that we can preserve a vibrant network of feminist publishing and activism long into the future.
On October 7, 2017, the Huntington City-Township Public Library became the first public library in the United States to host a Fun Palace. During the weekend, the library was filled with activities led by community members. At different stations inside and outside the library building, you could learn how to start your family tree, paint like Jackson Pollock, discover Dungeons & Dragons, ballet, ride a bike, cross-stritch, hula dance, stretch your body, decorate cakes, paint rocks, and much, much more. According to Devon Henderson, the library “ended up with 68 volunteers, 24 unique activity stations and over 500 in attendance.”
The idea of monthly reports may conjure an image of long blocks of dry text and enough numbers to make your head spin. Equally boring for both the reader and the writer, these serious, lengthy reports often do little to convey your organization’s successes; the more dense they are, the less trustees and other stakeholders are likely to read them. If no one is reading them, is your library’s story really being told?
The idea is to lend things that people need, so they won’t have to buy them. A Library of Things helps to reduce consumption and waste while providing access to many items people may not be able to purchase.
When Hope and Eden’s father forgets to pick them up for one of their weekend custody visits, the two teenagers accept a ride from a stranger who soon proves to be far more dangerous than he appears. Twenty years later, Hope is an adrift playwright in New York when she finds out that her abductor is up for parole. Hope sets off to find the now estranged Eden in hopes of convincing her to testify against him, and the resulting quest not only exposes painful truths from her past, but also uncovers insights into her present. Andrea Kleine’s Eden is a riveting character study that has been met with rave reviews. Vanity Fair stated “the mystery of Eden unfolds across America with humor and some clever detective work, combining a page-turner with a moving meditation on the limitations of family amidst trauma” and NYLON hailed it as “a devastating, revelatory examination of trauma, memory, creation, and the ways in which we define ourselves according to our experiences.”
Keith O’Brien’s Fly Girls uncovers an overlooked period of aviation, exploring the lives of five disparate female pilots from the 1920s and 30s. Through exhaustive research and sweeping prose, O’Brien brings these remarkable stories to life, recounting the risks these women faced on and off the airfield. Critics have heaped praise upon the book, with The New York Times noting that “O’Brien’s prose reverberates with fiery crashes, then stings with the tragedy of lives lost in the cockpit and sometimes, equally heartbreaking, on the ground” and The Wall Street Journal stating that “O’Brien has recovered a fascinating chapter not just in feminism and aviation but in 20th-century American history.”
Libraries around the country have incorporated fitness into their collections and programming offerings, and these programs are often met with enthusiasm from patrons. However, it’s not always easy to get a fitness program off the ground.
Our Friends president was very good. She gave us a year’s notice and immediately started setting up meetings and making lists. But it has still been a difficult transition and one from which I have taken several lessons, not only about future Friends, but things to aid in what will inevitably be my own transition.
Refugees seek a safe and welcoming space to call home. Public libraries can offer support for transition to a new country. Libraries Serve Refugees and Project Welcome are two online spaces where librarians share information and best practices to meet these unique needs.
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