American Library Association Journals
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Responding with Policy
No full textHow many ways can you say unprecedented? Unequaled? Unmatched? When the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom released its data for book challenges in 2022 the headlines were glaring. “A record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship, a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color” (American Library Association, 2023). When I give interviews, I am often asked, “When will it end?” My answer: “I don’t know. All we can do is be prepared, gather our allies, and respond appropriately.
Researcher and Academic Library Roles and User Beliefs in the Pandemic: Designing the Open-Access and Library Usage Scale (OALU)
No full textWe investigated whether individuals believe they have a right to information during a crisis, and whether attitudes about crisis-related information sharing differ by age and one’s role in providing or consuming information. We measured attitudes about aspects of data sharing related to COVID-19: researchers’ obligation to share data, publishers’ obligation to share information, and libraries’ responsibility to provide them. We predicted younger individuals, especially students as consumers of information, would report stronger preference for open access to pandemic-related information. A principal components analysis was performed, and two predicted factors emerged: information-sharing obligations and libraries’ responsibility to provide resources. Age was not significantly correlated with attitudes about libraries or information-sharing. Planned analyses comparing students, faculty, and community members unaffiliated with the university revealed no differences in their attitudes regarding library resources or information-sharing. A lack of age and university affiliation-related differences can be explained by universally strong attitudes in favor of both information-sharing and library resources, with a greater desire for information-sharing. Knowing that individuals demonstrate a strong preference for open access to information and that these attitudes do not differ between those who are providing (faculty), and consuming information (students/community) can contribute to funding for these resources. This research is innovative and timely, as attitudes about access when information is urgently and globally needed, as during a pandemic, is likely to differ from those observed under different circumstances
Privacy of Staff Biometric Data in Vulnerable Population Outreach
No full textIn restoring Outreach services following COVID-19, Mobile Servcies staff at King County Library System (KCLS) have encountered a growing concern for staff data privacy. A significant number of facilities have begun replacing paper sign-in logs with automated kiosks that record, store, and share a large amount of staff personal, medical, and biometric data. This article provides an example that demonstrates the widespread implications for outreach staff data privacy, and explores broader considerations related to this trend. It shares principles that may assist other libraries in developing guidelines for staff data privacy during outreach visits
Who’s Reading Who? Exploring the State of Third-Party Tracking Technology in Open Access Journal Content
No full textThe shift in scholarly communication from print to electronic format—and from ownership to access-based delivery models—has changed the dynamics of control related to library collections (Breeding 2019; Singley 2020). External providers now deliver most scholarly content to users, reducing library control to primarily print collections. User data gained through tracking technology, which often collects information without a user’s knowledge or agency, is a product of this shift that has been identified by previous studies (Hinchliffe, Zimmerman, and Altman 2018; Hanson 2019). This tracking data, aggregated by third parties who use it to form user profiles that can then be commodified, “challenges libraries’ historical assumptions about privacy and anonymity” (Hanson 2019, under “Aggregated Identities”)
Get to Know . . . Jesse Silva
No full textJesse Silva has long been a familiar face at FDLP conferences. He is the Scholarly Resources Strategy and Federal Government Information Librarian at the UC Berkeley Library, a position he has held for about four years. He is responsible for policy development, implementation, and budgeting for scholarly resources and collections. Jesse has been at Berkeley for about sixteen years and, in his previous position, had liaison responsibilities for legal studies, political science, and public policy in addition to federal government information
Editor's Corner: House Speaker Shuffle: McCarthy Departs, Congress Seeks New Leader
No full textIn a stunning turn of events, the United States witnessed a political earthquake that has sent shockwaves across the nation. The ousting of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has left many of us wondering what’s next in the turbulent world of American politics
From the Chair
No full textDocuments to the People is coming up on the 5th anniversary of going open access, trying to live up to the meaning of our name, actually delivering documents to the people. In honor of that anniversary, we are looking to take an additional step in that journey and I want to talk a bit about why and what open access should mean to collection philosophy in the government documents world
Beyond the Page: Pairing Children’s Literature with Video Games
No full textA patron walks in and asks for the latest Minecraft book—luckily a copy was just checked in! Like other media reinforcement books, popular video game books often demand multiple copies and frequent replacements. A satisfied patron might walk out with a target book and a stack of other titles.But what if the model were flipped, and instead of reinforcing a single franchise, connections among games and books represented the library’s wider book and media collection? We introduce recent narrative video games for tweens, encouraging exploration of themes and topical connections between games and the children’s literature collection
Research Roundup: Thinking Outside the Square: Cultivating Adult and Youth Creativity
No full textAlthough we have experienced great advances in scientific and technological knowledge over the decades, research suggests that the pace of innovation is slowing down. Creativity is “the process of having original ideas that have value,” yet a recent article surveying decades worth of data and patents reports that innovative papers and patents in science and technology are becoming less disruptive over time.Since 1990, children have experienced compelling losses in scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). In 2010, educational psychologist, Kyung Hee Kim coined the term “creativity crisis” to refer to this steady decline.Having a creative thought and following it through with action is what has enabled humans to evolve. Without creativity, we would not have vaccines to combat illnesses, we would not have flush toilets, and we would not have libraries with electronic check-out systems. Creativity gives us the ability to face new problems and the courage to envision and try different solutions until we find the right one