I was really struck by the 25th anniversary of German Reunification (called the Day of German Unity or Tag der Deutschen Einheit) falling during Banned Books Week last week. Growing up during part of the Cold War, I certainly remember textbooks and other nonfiction titles that gave us not-very-favorable messages about East Germany and even recall being told that kids there weren’t allowed to pick the books they wanted to read on their own. During my visits to libraries in Germany and Poland this past month I thought and talked a lot about the freedom to read and the future of library service to children with some of our international colleagues. In Berlin, librarians Heidrun Huebner-Gepp and Sarah Tscholl welcomed me to their Bibliothek am Luisenbad and shared a tour of their building, which was built in 1888 and is filled with Smart Boards, engaging face-out collections, programming spaces, and a diverse…
Category: Blogger Andrew Medlar
Libraries: The “in” place to be in!
“September is the January in fashion” –Candy Pratts Price, The September Issue (Lionsgate Films, 2009) Just as while no matter how the fashions in the pages of GQ and Vogue may change we all still need a shirt to put on every morning, so too do library design trends evolve even as ALSC’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal of libraries being recognized as vital to all children and the communities that support them remains timelessly true. One community that clearly does recognize this and loves its library is Chicago’s Chinatown. On August 29th, thousands of neighbors came together to celebrate their Chicago Public Library that replaced a very well-used storefront facility. This new 16,000-square-foot feng shui-influenced building is phenomenal, and was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the firm responsible for the Sears (oops, I mean Willis) Tower, One World Trade Center, and the tallest buildings in Singapore, Beijing, and Dubai….
Send ALSC to SXSWedu!
A sure sign of the approaching end-of-warm-weather in my office is the farewell party for our summer interns. (While that’s bitter in several ways, it’s especially sweet when my colleague Michelle makes her amazing cookies for the occasion.) This year about half a dozen high school students joined us and, of course, we have asked them what they learned while working here the last couple of months and how their perceptions of libraries have changed. And it’s been interesting/fascinating/frightening to see how even among this group of engaged young people with library cards most had arrived without full awareness of everything libraries have to offer. This is another reminder of how important it is for us to advocate and tell our story to all ages, and so, looking to reach out to new audiences, ALSC has submitted a program proposal, Library Media Mentors Transform, for SXSWedu, an educational innovation conference…
A Notable Summer
“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot . . . These are strange and breathless days, the dog days.” —Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting Odds are that at least one of your Facebook friends will post the above quote this week—and for good reason, as this is, IMO, one of the best descriptions of summer ever to come from an ALSC Notable Children’s Book. Tuck Everlasting was named a Notable Children’s Book after its 1975 publication and is now widely hailed as a classic. Announced each year after Midwinter, the Notables…
A is for Annual
What a conference! ALA’s 2015 Annual Conference was full of more energy, enthusiasm, equality, and engagement than any I’ve ever witnessed, and whether you were one of the tens of thousands attending in San Francisco, were following from elsewhere in the world on social media (#alaac15 & #alaleftbehind), or are just now taking a quick breather from summer reading to catch up here on the ALSC Blog, I hope you can see that the future of library service to children is an exciting one! In addition to learning and connecting, Annual is also a time of business when Board, staff, committees, and task forces work hard to move our association forward. There are two ALSC Board meetings at Annual and you can peruse the Board’s documents here and find updates on Twitter (#alscboard). I’d like to bring you up to speed, as well. FYI, this past week, the ALSC Board:…