TILT # 59 — Families Belong Together in Summer, in Libraries, in General
Hello from Summertime! I am approaching summer reading with a vengeance this year. I’ve made it my goal to read, among other things, all the graphic novels I haven’t read in the Westport (MA) Free Public Library and the UMass Dartmouth Library. Unfortunately, neither library has much of a collection so I’ll be ILLing the summer away. Suggestions welcome.
I’ve finished these as well as John Lewis’s March series which feels particularly timely nowadays. Ongoing reading list is here. Booklist code is open source, though ancient, if you want to roll your own.
I waited to send this newsletter until people were back from the ALA conference. 2018 was one of the first years where I’ve felt really able to follow along from home, and was happy for it. Things of note from my #ALALeftBehind perspective:
- Council unanimously passed a resolution acknowledging the fundamental cruelty of segregated libraries, commending those who fought against them and apologizing to African Americans who had to endure them. (facebook text, ALA document)
- Laura Ingalls Wilder Award renamed the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. Despite ALSC’s incredibly clear and cogent statement of why it’s past time to do this, internet people freak out anyhow.
- ALA’s Graphic Novel & Comics Membership Interest Group is going to become the Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. This bodes well for my reading projects.
- ALA Council doesn’t quite pass a resolution requiring 100% of conference bathrooms to be gender-inclusive and there were some reports about security doing their own inappropriate bathroom policing. The passed resolution requires a “sufficient mix” of gender-inclusive and gender-specific bathrooms, with the specific mix overseen by the GLBT Round Table. While I’m in favor of having the odd gender-specific bathroom available for those who really require one, this resolution seems like not the best way to do that.
Other left-behinders can catch up via the ALAAC18 hashtag
Summer is also a time for library book sales. While I was at the Tiverton (RI) Public Library sale, I spotted this neat idea: laminated cards full of topic-based app suggestions. I know a lot of people in my drop-in time would have appreciated these.
The repealing of Net Neutrality took place on June 11th. It’s worth knowing that 35 US states have some sort of Net Neutrality protection either in the works or in effect (Yay Vermont!). If yours isn’t one of them, mention it to your rep the next time you have them on the phone.
I spent some of my frustrated energy this week making a Wikipedia page for the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a non-profit that works on this and other digital divide and access issues. Being on their mailing list has given me access to a lot of good information and ideas including:
- Digital Skills Toolkit (16MB pdf) by the International Telecommunications Union of Switzerland
- 2016’s Worst Connected Cities — not who has access to broadband, but who is actually connected to it
- More libraries in laundromats: From Availability to Accessibility: Why the Detroit Public Library Began Partnering with Coin Laundromats
- Eighteen Blind Library Users’ Experiences with Library Websites and Search Tools in U.S. Academic Libraries: A Qualitative Study by Adina Mulliken at CUNY
- Guidelines from the Smithsonian about Accessible Exhibition Design
- ADA Regulations and Design guidelines for signage (2MB pdf) — presented in a clear visual format. Are your signage fonts compliant?
Links lightning round!
- Poetry reading is UP!
- Readers’ Advisory to the Grieving and Bereaved
- Community-Driven Archives and their Archivist in a Backpack project
- These branded camera cover kits from MIT
I know we’re all working to figure out our roles in this grim political climate. I was inspired by the Torn Apart project which collates massive amounts of publicly available information to show us visually “how immigration enforcement reaches into every part of America.” I wish you luck finding a way to participate and resist that you find meaningful. See you on June 30th.
Today in Librarian Tabs is written irregularly by Jessamyn West who also maintains librarian.net. It’s available in more-accessible format your inbox via TinyLetter. Thanks for reading.
