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Research Roundup: Upping Your Digital Storytelling Game
No full textIn the spring 2021 issue, we discussed the benefits of Vivian Paley’s storytelling practice on language and literacy skills, social emotional development, creativity, and motivation. Traditional storytelling is powerful in its own right, but we would be remiss if we did not also mention the benefits of digital storytelling—the process of using multimedia tools to tell a story. A digital story can be something as simple as narrating a story over a single photo or as complex as a movie with audio and visual effects. Allowing children to use technology to tell stories can generate interest and motivation in content creation, ignite creativity, and support the development of twenty-first century literacy skills. Here’s a look at some storytelling tools that can be used to elevate the voices of children and families across settings
School Age Programs and Services Committee: Challenges Are Escalating: How to Prepare for Program Challenges
No full textBook bans have garnered national attention this past year with a surge of challenges in both school and public libraries. But books aren’t the only front in the so-called culture wars. Library staff increasingly need to respond to challenges to programming, as well.The number of program challenges reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has grown over the past ten years from one or none each year to a peak of sixty-nine challenges in 2019. And these are just the instances that have been reported to the OIF. Most challenges go unreported.Programs related to LGBTQ+ themes are the most likely to be challenged. Of the forty-two reported challenges in 2022, 81 percent were in response to LGBTQ+ events
Weeping Bitterly: Death and Grief in the Baldwin Library’s Collection
No full textIn autumn 2021, months after the vaccine had proven to be effective in combating the novel coronavirus outbreak and as the Delta variant was picking up speed, I found myself thinking about the catastrophic loss our nation had experienced and was continuing to endure. Mostly, though, my attention kept turning to the losses weathered by our nation’s children. I thought of the grieving families and of the children who suddenly found themselves orphans.The losses were indeed calamitous—an estimated two hundred thousand children in this country are now orphans because of the coronavirus. In fact, as of 2022, the pandemic alone was responsible for a little less than a tenth of all orphans under the age of 18.1 As new variants emerge and as both resistance to and lack of access to vaccines continue to be societal barriers, that number will likely grow
In Brief
No full textSome cases of censorship are only reported briefly via social media or board meeting minutes. When substantive media reporting regarding a challenge is lacking, the case will be reported here
Contesting Obscenity: Book Challengers and Criminalizing Literature
No full textBook challenges have long been a regular part of library and school operations. “Book challenges are requests by members of the public to remove, relocate, or restrict books from or within institutions” (Knox 2015, 3). At base, the book challenger sees some information contained in a book as dangerous and seeks to make it harder to access. In recent years book challenges have exploded in frequency, escalating rapidly in 2021. This was driven increasingly by national conservative activist groups attempting to purge what they perceived as dangerous information from the public sphere
For the Record
No full textNationwideAlabamaArizonaFloridaGeorgiaIowaMississippiOklahomaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVirginiaManhattan Beach, CaliforniaOrange County, CaliforniaGreeley, ColoradoProvidence, Rhode IslandCampbell County, VirginiaMclean, Virgini
The Role of Multidimensional Library Neutrality in Advancing Social Justice: Adapting Theoretical Foundations from Political Science and Urban Planning
No full textThere is an ongoing, polarizing debate in the library profession and scholarship regarding the perceived incompatibility between library neutrality (embedded in the profession through the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights), and social justice goals. This article asserts that the growing antipathy on the part of some library practitioners and scholars towards neutrality and intellectual freedom is owed at least in part to the profession and scholarship having never articulated an adequate definition of what is meant by neutrality. As a result, the profession lacks a theoretical framework situating the library and library staff as political actors within a multicultural and largely urban society. We argue that such a framework may be drawn from the literatures of political science and urban planning. By positioning libraries and library workers within the context of liberal-democratic institutions – as is the case for urban planners in their theoretical literature – LIS theory can find more durable foundations for its core values. Stressing planning’s commitments to the participation of multiple publics, to dialogue, mediation and to consensus-building through liberal institutions, we develop a multidimensional understanding of neutrality premised on values, stakeholders, processes and goals which we then apply to these planning modes. Finally, we propose a model of “Communicative Librarianship” as best exemplifying these four dimensions of neutrality and their attendant democratic commitments
Book Censorship in the United States: A Government Documents Story
No full textIn recent years, book bans and censorship have been serious topics of conversation in the United States. The American Library Association has been compiling data regarding censorship in libraries for more than twenty years. An announcement on March 22nd, 2023, reported 1,269 book censorship demands in 2022, the highest number yet recorded.According to the announcement, this data is compiled through reports given to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and challenges covered in the press. However, many censorship attempts are not reported, so this annual data is an incomplete overview of yearly trends. “Challenge” is defined as a complaint or attempt at removal; some challenges are resolved without removing the item from collections, while others do result in restriction or removal. Despite continual reports of challenges, ALA finds that most Americans are against book censorship and believe librarians make good decisions when building collections
David W. Rozkuska Scholarship
No full textThe David Rozkuszka Scholarship provides financial assistance to an individual who is currently working with or in government information/documents in a library and is trying to complete a masters’ degree in library science.This $3,000 scholarship was created in memory of David Rozkuszka, former Documents Librarian at Stanford University
The Relationship Between Government Documents and Black People Through the Coverage of the Black Panther Party
No full textThe Black Panther Party (BPP) was a political organization rooted in Marxist-Leninist ideologies. This paper uses the BPP as a case study to examine how government documents cover Black people. This paper will only look at government documents from the period when the BPP was active, between 1966 and 1982. A distinction should be made between coverage of Black people through government documents through a government organization such as the US Census Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The US Census Bureau does cover Black people and represents information on Black people in the United States. This information could include but is not limited to, how many Black people there are in a specific area or how many Black people there are by gender. In comparison, the FBI might have a biased agenda regarding why records were collected on Black people. While government organizations such as the US Census Bureau are valuable resources to examine how government documents cover or represent Black people, this paper will focus on government organizations that have the latter or a biased agenda. Bias typically has a negative connotation. However, in the case of the FBI, their mission is to protect the United States. Some FBI officials may have a bias in how this mission could be accomplished. This bias is not negative on its own, yet it could negatively affect certain people or groups. This paper intentionally argues that the coverage in official government documents of the Black Panther Party reflects how government documents cover Black people. While not all Black organizations represent all Black people, government officials use Black organizations as a method to provide their opinions on Black people through government documents