Downloads Including a Calendar to Assist in Creating Year-Round Took a Redesign of the Advocacy Tools on the Site

March/April 2019

THE MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION -

REACTION Libraries and the future of secure, distributed databases p. 26

Top Tech Trends p. 34 LC’s New Digital Direction p. 38

PLUS: Melinda Gates, VR for Seniors, Game of Thrones Ephemera WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN? What does it have to do with libraries?

BLOCKCHAIN Edited by Susan Alman and Sandra Hirsh

Technology experts and editors Alman and Hirsh build on their ongoing research to discuss how blockchain’s potential use as a convenient system for recordkeeping could lead to more government documents, historical records, and other pieces of information migrating to such a system. They and their contributors also examine its possible consequences for academic, public, school, and special libraries, as well as the information professionals who sustain those institutions, making this book an exciting read for everyone interested in the future of librarianship.

-- -- | so cover | pp | ” x ” . | Members: .

LIBRARY FUTURES SERIES

   , ,       The Library Futures Series brings together library experts and innovators to explore the profession’s many futures by focusing on emerging trends.

) Additional trends in the LIBRARY FUTURES SERIES

www.alastore.ala.org/library-futures March/April 2019

American Libraries | Volume 50 #3/4 | ISSN 0002-9769 BLOCCOVER STORYKCHAIN REACTION

How library professionals are approaching blockchain technology and its potential impact p. 26 BY Carrie Smith

FEATURES 34 Tech Trends Library tech leaders recommend their favorite tips and tools 34 BY Alison Marcotte

38 A New Digital Strategy for America’s Library The Library of Congress expands its online 42 offerings through letters, maps, and colors BY Greg Landgraf

42 Copyright for Creators How we built an arts- focused program 38 at our library BY Carla-Mae Crookendale, Hillary Miller, and Sue Robinson 20 22 18

UP FRONT TRENDS PERSPECTIVES 3 From the 16 Ditching the Gender Data IN PRACTICE Editor Why “male” and “female” are vanishing 46 Unintentional Inequity A Digital Discourse from some library card applications BY Meredith Farkas BY Sanhita SinhaRoy BY Anne Ford DISPATCHES 6 From Our 18 What’s in a Building Name? 47 AI and Machine Learning Readers University librarians and BY Jason Griffey archivists contribute to reviews of contentious namesakes YOUTH MATTERS ALA BY Timothy Inklebarger 48 Spreading ‘Bookjoy’ BY Maricela Leon-Barrera 4 From the 20 Libations in the Library President Alcohol-friendly events draw ON MY MIND Exploring AI new, younger faces 49 Transform the High School Library BY Loida Garcia-Febo BY Anne Ford BY Chiquita Toure

8 Update SPOTLIGHT LIBRARIAN’S LIBRARY What’s happening 22 It’s Not Such a Small World After All 50 Become Future Ready at ALA Introducing older adults to virtual reality BY Karen Muller 12 From the BY Anne Ford SOLUTIONS Candidates NEWSMAKER Campaign statements 24 Melinda Gates 52 Ebooks Made Easy from the candidates Philanthropist pens book on lifting up Budget-friendly acquisition models for 2020–2021 ALA women to save the world president and 2019– PEOPLE 2022 ALA treasurer PLUS 54 Announcements BY Julius C. Jefferson Jr., 17 By the Numbers Lance Werner, Maggie 23 Global Reach Farrell, and Andrew THE BOOKEND K. Pace 25 Noted & Quoted 56 An Archive of Ice and Fire

Address: 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611 Website: americanlibrariesmagazine.org A Digital Discourse Email: [email protected] Phone: 800-545-2433 plus extension Career Ads: JobLIST.ala.org lockchain’s practical applications are still being EDITOR AND PUBLISHER A vintage explored—not least by library professionals. In Sanhita SinhaRoy What is your [email protected] | x4219 typewriter our cover story (p. 26), Carrie Smith asks five nerdiest MANAGING EDITOR 1970s Doritos librarians and information professionals about possession? Terra Dankowski B sleeping bag [email protected] | x5282 this emerging technology and its likely impact. We hope you find the discussion as intriguing as we did. SENIOR EDITORS A Russian Amy Carlton For tech that’s more accessible in the here and now, [email protected] | x5105 copy of Paul McCartney’s read our feature on some of the latest trends (p. 34) Santa Claus George M. Eberhart Conquers the [email protected] | x4212 CHOBA B popping up in libraries across the country. Alison Martians LP Phil Morehart CCCP album Marcotte talks with several members of ALA’s Library [email protected] | x4218 Sanhita SinhaRoy A Sting action and Information Technology Association about digital EDITOR-AT-LARGE figure from Plastic shirt- Anne Ford citizenship, translation apps, and virtual reality (VR), the movie Dune folding board [email protected] | x4213 among other burgeoning tools. For instance, some library EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING ASSISTANT workers are using VR to foster empathy by presenting Carrie Smith Fanny pack [email protected] | x4216 Ten years patrons with the opportunity to experience a tornado or collection of comic walk through a refugee camp. As Joyce Kasman Valenza ART DIRECTOR and anime First cellphone, Rebecca Lomax of Rutgers University School of Communication and [email protected] | x4217 convention a Motorola lanyards Information says in the story, this new technology can DynaTAC—massive! ADVERTISING Michael Stack [email protected] | 847-367-7120 help “patrons go well beyond the four walls of the library.” Acceptance of advertising does not constitute endorsement. Similarly, in our Spotlight (p. 22), some older patrons ALA reserves the right to refuse advertising. of Arlington Heights (Ill.) Memorial Library are bene- PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT Mary Mackay Old-school fitting from a VR program that takes them on virtual The Harry Associate Executive Director geometry Potter books vacations. It’s an especially heartwarming story, as many Mary Jo Bolduc set and Rights, Permissions, Reprints | x5416 slide of these seniors are typically homebound by physical or MEMBERSHIP rule from cognitive limitations. One patron said he never thought middle Lorelle Swader he’d see the beach again until the library brought a VR school Associate Executive Director VR is being viewer to his memory-care facility. ADVISORY COMMITTEE Weighing in on artificial intelligence and machine Susan H. Polos (Chair), Salvador Avila, Joseph M. Eagan, used to foster Sonja Eyler, Mary L. Hastler, Ben Allen Hunter, Jasmina Jusic, learning are ALA President Loida Garcia-Febo (p. 4) Sigrid Kelsey. Intern: Lisa Anne Romano empathy, and librarian Jason Griffey (p. 47). We also profile the Editorial policy: ALA Policy Manual, section A.8.2 Library of Congress’s new five-year digital strategy INDEXED presenting Available full text from ProQuest, EBSCO Publishing, (p. 38) as well as offer an interview with philanthropist H. W. Wilson, LexisNexis, Information Access, JSTOR. patrons with Melinda Gates (p. 24), who speaks about empowering SUBSCRIBE the chance women and the vital role libraries play in providing Libraries and other institutions: $74/year, 6 issues, US, Canada, equal access to information. Gates is this year’s honor- and Mexico; foreign: $84. Subscription price for individuals included in ALA membership dues. 800-545-2433 x5108, email to experience ary chair of National Library Week, in April. [email protected], or visit ala.org. Claim missing issues: If all this digital discourse has you craving analog, ALA Member and Customer Service. Allow six weeks. Single a tornado or issues $7.50, with 30% discount for five or more; contact Carrie you may delight in our Bookend (p. 56), which show- Smith, 800-545-2433 x4216 or [email protected] walk through cases Texas A&M’s collection of items donated by best- PUBLISHED selling author George R. R. Martin. The photo comes American Libraries (ISSN 0002-9769) is published 6 times a refugee yearly with occasional supplements by the American Library complete with a sword and dragon figurine. Association (ALA). Printed in USA. Periodicals postage paid at camp. You can’t get more analog than that. Chicago, Illinois, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Personal members: Send address changes to American Libraries, c/o Membership Records, ALA, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. ©2019 American Library Association. All rights reserved. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced or republished without written permission from the publisher.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 3 from the PRESIDENT

Exploring AI How libraries are starting to apply artiﬁcial intelligence in their work

have recently started to hear more phrases such by AI. As Bourg says, it is important for academic as, “I don’t have to visit a library; I just ask Alexa libraries to make their collections accessible to [or Siri or Google Assistant] and it tells me AI tools like Alexa so that when someone asks Ieverything I need to know. I speak to it all day.” a voice assistant for information, reputable The impact of even this early wave of artificial scholarly literature is available. To make this intelligence (AI)—including voice assistants and successful, libraries will have to work to ensure machine learning (ML)—is still uncertain in many scholarly information is openly accessible, not fields, but it is time to include AI on our profes- locked behind paywalls. sional agenda and in our national conversation. All this may be a lot of new information to In talking with librarians working in this area, process. But Catherine Nicole Coleman, digital Loida Garcia-Febo it’s clear that while AI can be useful, it also raises research architect at Stanford Libraries in Palo familiar concerns about privacy, intellectual free- Alto, California, has a good approach: Last year, dom, authority, and access. And there are diver- Coleman conducted “Library AI Conversations” to sity considerations, as well, including access for help library workers familiarize themselves with people with different linguistic styles or abilities. the latest research and issues. She also worked Fortunately, librarians are looking at AI from mostly with bibliographers, archivists, and several perspectives. Some are using it to teach catalogers to explore the possibilities of AI for information literacy and critical-thinking skills to metadata and collection development. Addition- help patrons formulate questions for these devices ally, they are collaborating with computer science and learn how to evaluate responses. University of faculty and faculty in the humanities and social Rhode Island, for example, is housing its collabo- sciences to explore human–machine collabora- rative efforts around AI in the library. tion, interaction, and interface (bit.ly/stanfordAI). Cambridge (Mass.) Public Library (CPL) part- At ALA, we have resources to help library nered with MIT Libraries and Harvard metaLAB to workers understand AI, these new devices, and Library host the installation “Laughing Room,” in which the role of libraries. The Center for the Future of participants enter an artificially intelligent room Libraries has written about voice-control devices professionals that plays a laugh track whenever something is (bit.ly/CFLvoice); the January issue of Library will need to said that the room’s algorithm deems funny. CPL Technology Reports (bit.ly/LibTechAI) explores AI Director Maria McCauley says this helped people and ML; and many of our conferences—including continue to to consider the impact of surveillance and AI on the Library and Information Technology Associ- be at the their lives. To further engage library users with ation’s forum and the Association of College and big issues in science and technology shaping our Research Libraries national conference—include forefront society, the library will host a public dialogue sessions on AI. to support about humor, culture, and AI with Harvard Law My fellow library workers, the future of libraries School’s Cyberlaw Clinic this spring. will continue to be about the communities we communities At MIT, Chris Bourg, director of libraries, is serve. Librarians and library professionals will as emerging focusing on building a technical infrastructure so need to be at the forefront to support communities its collections are accessible by APIs and there- as these technologies transform our world. Let’s technologies fore can be used by machine-learning algorithms. continue the conversation and learn together. transform MIT Libraries is working with AI/ML researchers at the university to analyze various library LOIDA GARCIA-FEBO is an international library our world. tasks and workflows that might be enhanced consultant.

4 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org CELEBRATE NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK APRIL 7–13, 2019

This April, celebrate your library and its staff for the work they do to respond to and build strong communities.

Libraries = Strong Communities Mini Poster

Melinda Gates 2019 National Library Week Honorary Chair 2019 National Library Week Poster

2019 National Library Week Bookmark

Order National Library Week materials at alastore.ala.org by March 20, 2019 to receive your order in time using standard shipping. from our READERS

I’m just now Not Representative getting around of School Librarians to reading the I was disheartened by your Nov./Dec. issue of inclusion of Amanda Oliver as @amlibraries and the sole representative of school librarians in “Other Duties as it’s alerted me to Assigned” (Jan./Feb., p. 40). the existence of While I have no doubt her expe- the Brewchive. rience sheltering 2nd-graders I have never during a suspected active shooter scenario was terrifying, would’ve highlighted the strug- Bravo to our ALA presidents heard of anything by her own admission she’d gles and rewards of a different for their efforts! We are rooting cooler. #librarylife “been wanting to leave for a school librarian in your article. for you on behalf of the children Susie Isaac @MEGHAN1943 in while, but that sealed the deal.” and adults who depend on our Denver response to “Tapping There are many of us in the public libraries. into Beer History” school librarianship role who Connie Estedes (Nov./Dec., p. 22) persist despite the ways in which E-Content Advocates San Juan, Puerto Rico we’re pulled. Yes, such a position On behalf of San Juan (P.R.) Com- often demands we “come early munity Library, we wish to salute Living Our Mission and stay late,” but it is our American Library Association As an early career librarian and dedication to the children and (ALA) President Loida Garcia- an African-American woman, teachers we serve that drives Febo and former ALA President it is beyond disheartening to us to make these choices. You Sari Feldman for meeting with read news stories about African- would be hard-pressed to find a major publishers regarding American students—many whom classroom teacher who does not ebook and e-content acquisitions are studying library and infor- also make these sacrifices. (“E-Content Challenges Ahead,” mation science, no less—being As a teacher–librarian in a The Scoop, Dec. 14). We hope treated in discriminatory ways by Title I school, I very much feel that they can be the agents of library staffers. Every employee the pressure of being pulled positive change that our libraries represents and shapes people’s in multiple directions—from a so desperately need. perceptions of librarians and the full-time teaching schedule to While we all love digital library, so I cannot stress enough applying for grants, from running content, it is unjust that it often how incredibly vital it is for all after-school reading clubs to costs public libraries three library staffers to adhere to the acting as the teacher in charge to five times more than the values of the profession and the in administrators’ absence, from consumer retail price to acquire purpose of the institution. We making calls to social services on ebooks and digital content. In must implement our mission on behalf of students to organizing addition, we strongly object to a daily basis and behave in a way book sales and author and illus- metered-access titles. It makes that does not turn library students trator events. The list could go acquisitions both challenging and away from entering librarianship. on. While it is challenging work, a misnomer, as we are really rent- It is hard enough to recruit and it is highly rewarding. ing metered titles and spending retain library students of color There are reasons we decide exorbitant sums on current or without calling the police on to stay with this career. I wish you popular titles. them. Library professionals must

FOLLOW US: @amlibraries facebook.com/amlibraries pinterest.com/amlibraries WRITE US: The editors welcome comments about recent content, online stories, and matters of professional interest. Submissions should be limited to 300 words and are subject to editing for clarity, style, and length. Send to [email protected] or American Libraries, From Our Readers, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795.

6 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org create a space for everyone. And imperative that we, stewards of must recruit and retain African- This set yet, a universal and inviting space the great institutions that libraries American librarians and librarians was not what Ashly Horace, are, communicate better. I believe of color so that library profes- of interviews a graduate student studying that both these situations would sionals reflect the patrons they was great. library science, experienced in not have resulted in police offi- serve. Negative interactions with @KCROWE in November while visiting the cers being called if the students library professionals do nothing response to “Other West University branch of Harris were white. I also believe that to inspire future librarians. Duties as Assigned” County Public Library in Houston each situation could have had a Jina DuVernay (Jan./Feb., p. 40) to observe storytime as part of different outcome if the library Atlanta her graduate work. professional decided to listen and Nor is it what Juán-Pabló talk rationally to these students. CORRECTION González, who is also studying The main concern that I had The as-told-to piece “Other library science, experienced at the when I read about these students’ Duties as Assigned” (Jan./Feb., Catholic University of America’s interactions with library personnel p. 40) incorrectly asserted that a law library in Washington, D.C., was that it might dissuade them manager at an unnamed branch on October 10. In both incidents, from becoming librarians. I whole- of D.C. Public Library declined police officers were called to the heartedly hope that they continue to take the position unless a library to remove these students. to study library and information full-time police officer was hired It is shameful for me to read science, as they are critically also. The manager never made these types of stories. It is needed in this profession. We such a statement.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 7 ALA Launches New Advocacy Storytelling Resources n January 25 the American Library Association (ALA) released new and updated advocacy tools O and a redesigned ALA Advocacy web page (ala.org/ advocacy) to help libraries better tell their stories. The new site features the first in a series of short videos on advocacy, in which ALA member Tom Brooks, communications specialist at Cobb County (Ga.) Public Library System, highlights how he built strong relationships with local news media to promote his library. Resources on the site also show step by The new advocacy resources were commissioned as part step how to contact journalists and leverage social media to of the campaign Libraries = Strong Communities by ALA spread your message. President Loida Garcia-Febo, whose presidential advisory The site provides plug-and-play resources and self-serve committee provided guidance and feedback as ALA under- downloads including a calendar to assist in creating year-round took a redesign of the advocacy tools on the site. “The advocacy plans, template letters, a congressional calendar, time is ripe for fresh resources to inspire and challenge social media graphics, one-pagers, and policy briefs. These our advocacy,” Garcia-Febo said in the statement. “We all examples of storytelling, relationship building, and year-round agree on the need to tell our library stories. ALA wants to advocacy have been designed to empower ALA members and give members specific tools and guidance for how to do library advocates to reach community influencers and decision that effectively.” makers at all levels and encourage them to engage with ALA will continue to add new resources, including two libraries, according to the January 25 news release. more advocacy storytelling videos, in the coming months. •

Moniz receives YALSA’s provides participants with an opportu- within library and information science. 2019 Innovation Award nity to build healthy relationships with Proposals are currently being accepted The Young Adult Library Services peers while enhancing interpersonal for one-year research projects that will Association (YALSA) has selected Ryan skills and reducing social isolation for an be undertaken July 1, 2019, through Moniz, learning and growth librarian at-risk population. June 30, 2020. at Markham Public Library in Ontario, For more information about the A jury of ALA members will evaluate Canada, as the recipient of its 2019 award, visit bit.ly/YALSAInnovative. proposals and select up to three awards, Innovation Award for his Essential Skills with grant recipients announced prior program. Moniz will receive a $500 ODLOS Seeks Diversity to the 2019 ALA Annual Conference and award, funded by Friends of YALSA. Research Grant Proposals Exhibition in Washington, D.C. Moniz’s Essential Skills program The Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Proposals are due by midnight Pacific is a free workshop series designed to Outreach Services (ODLOS) is solicit- time on April 15. support teens on the autism spectrum ing proposals for the diversity research For examples of past projects and a and those living with intellectual or grant program, a one-time $2,500 award complete list of criteria and proposal cognitive impairments. It teaches digital for original research. Applications may instructions, visit bit.ly/ALADiversityRG. literacy skills that can help to improve focus on any diversity-related topic that For more information or to inquire quality of life for the learners. Through addresses critical gaps in the knowledge about possible research topics, email group activities, the program also of diversity, equity, and outreach issues [email protected].

8 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org MAR. 25–29 Public Library Association MLSA Reauthorized Leadership Academy | Chicago bit.ly/PLALeadership2019

Through 2023 MAR. 30–APR. 6 Money Smart Week n December 31 the Museum and Library Services Act (MLSA), which moneysmartweek.org

reauthorizes the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services APR. O(IMLS), was signed by President Trump. School Library Month The new legislation authorizes IMLS through fiscal year 2023 and contains ala.org/aasl/slm improvements to enable more libraries on tribal lands to participate in IMLS APR. 7–13 grant programs, permit use of IMLS funding for disaster preparedness and assis- National Library Week tance, and encourage greater use of data-driven tools to measure the impact bit.ly/ALAnatlibweek and maximize the effectiveness of library services. The bill passed despite threats to stall it in December, in part thanks to APR. 9 persistent advocacy by ALA members, including extra efforts of advocates in National Library then–House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) district, who made calls and wrote Workers Day ala-apa.org/nlwd letters to the editor to raise awareness of MLSA’s importance to libraries and their communities. APR. 10 The ALA Washington Office encourages members to thank Congress for pass- National Bookmobile Day ing MLSA through ALA’s legislative action center (bit.ly/ALAActionCenter). • bit.ly/ALABookmobileDay APR. 10–13 Association of College and Research Libraries United for Libraries The contest jury awarded the $1,000 Conference | Cleveland Office Goes Virtual first prize to Mim Eichmann for her story conference.acrl.org

The United for Libraries office is now “Slomp.” The jury also awarded $500 APR. 21–27 virtual. United staff will both telecom- honorable mentions to R. L. Burke’s “The Preservation Week mute from home and work onsite at Invitation” and Donald Ryan’s “Call It ala.org/preservationweek Regus Business Centers in the Phila- What You Will.” All three juried winners APR. 30 delphia area. The change was made to will be given the opportunity to have El día de los niños/ save on rent, utilities, and other related their stories published in Short Édition’s El día de los libros expenses, and to improve efficiency by Short Story Dispensers. dia.ala.org eliminating the need for staff to perform Three readers’ choice winners were maintenance tasks. also announced: “The Ship” by Jasmine MAY 1–7 United for Libraries staff members’ Wheeler, “Bread Crumbs” by Jessica Choose Privacy Week chooseprivacyeveryday.org email addresses and phone extensions Normile, and “Quest” by Unoma Nguemo will remain the same. Its new mailing Azuah. All 606 qualifying short story JUNE address is 600 Eagleview Blvd., Suite submissions can be viewed on the contest GLBT Book Month 300, Exton, PA 19341. site (bit.ly/PLAshortstories2018). ala.org/glbtbookmonth

JUNE 20–25 PLA Short Fiction Contest ALSC Awards 14 Strengthening ALA Annual Conference and Winners Announced Communities Grants Exhibition | Washington, D.C. Six writers have been recognized for The Association for Library Service 2019.alaannual.org their entries in the Public Library Asso- to Children (ALSC) has awarded 14 AUG. 24–30 ciation’s (PLA) National Short Fiction $5,000 Strengthening Communities IFLA World Library and Contest. More than 600 writers from through Libraries mini-grants to support Information Congress across the US submitted short stories on STEAM learning in libraries during out- Athens, Greece the theme of courage. of-school time. ifla.org/annual-conference

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 9 UPDATE

The grantee libraries range in size and location and represent ALSC members from 11 different states. A Celebrate the CSK Book full list of grantees is available at bit.ly/ ALSCsctl2018. For more information Awards’ 50th Anniversary about the grants, visit bit.ly/ALSCGrants. DLOS and the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round PLA Offers Regional Table are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King EDISJ Symposia O(CSK) Book Awards in 2019. The awards serve as a guide for parents, Social Justice and Public Libraries: Equity librarians, and caregivers, for the most outstanding books for youth by African- Starts with Us, PLA’s symposium on American authors and illustrators that demonstrate an appreciation of and equity, diversity, inclusion, and social jus- affirm African-American culture and universal human values. The CSK tice (EDISJ) will be offered three times in Book Award titles promote understanding and apprecia- 2019: February 25–26 in Denver; August tion of the culture of all peoples and their contribu- 12–13 in Charleston, South Carolina; tion to the realization of the American dream of a and October 28–29 in Chicago. pluralistic society. Mia Henry—a facilitator and educator A 50th anniversary celebration toolkit with who teaches self-reflection, relationship- program ideas, templates, and artwork is building, and understanding social available at bit.ly/CSK50. movement history—will lead the sympo- ALA Graphics is marking the anniversary sium. Members of the PLA Task Force on with a new limited-edition T-shirt, available in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion will also black or yellow, and a gold-plated anniversary pin, help guide each session. available at the ALA Store (bit.ly/CSK50th). • Participants will build a shared understanding of core EDISJ concepts; develop strategies to address their own biases and learn how to share this knowledge; The grantees represent 46 public in 2019. More information on upcoming develop regional connections; and use libraries, 13 school libraries, five com- opportunities and the program itself is case studies and equity tools to create an munity college libraries, four academic available at bit.ly/ALA-TRHTGSC. action plan for strengthening EDISJ prac- libraries, one prison library, and one cul- tices in their libraries and communities. tural center library. Additionally, 50 com- 2019 Leadership Institute Registration for each symposium is munity partner organizations including Applications Open limited to 100, and attendance on both alternative schools, youth detention cen- Applications for the 2019 “Leading to the days is required. The symposium is $150 ters, and other organizations that serve Future” ALA Leadership Institute, to be for PLA personal members and $250 for youth, are participating in the project. held August 5–8 at the Hilton Chicago/ nonmembers. Limited financial support Participating libraries will receive Oak Brook Hills Resort and Conference for staff from small and rural libraries 11 copies of up to four books on the Center in Oak Brook, Illinois, will be may be available. TRHT Great Stories Club reading list; accepted through March 8. The four- For more information, including regis- a programming grant of up to $1,200; day immersive leadership development tration instructions and lodging options, travel and accommodation expenses paid program for 40 mid-career librarians will visit bit.ly/EDISJSymposia. for attendance at a two-day orientation be led by former ALA President Maureen workshop in Chicago; and additional Sullivan and library and leadership con- 70 Libraries Named for resources, training, and support from the sultant Kathryn Deiss. Great Stories Club Public Programs Office and ODLOS. Now in its seventh year, the institute Seventy libraries have been selected to The libraries will work with small helps future library leaders develop and participate in ALA’s Great Stories Club groups of teens in 2019 to read and practice their leadership skills through series on Truth, Racial Healing, and discuss book titles on the themes “Deeper reflective and active learning. It offers Transformation (TRHT), a thematic Than Our Skins: The Present Is a Conver- participants an opportunity to delve into reading and discussion program series sation with the Past” and “Finding Your leadership practices, concepts, and frame- engaging underserved teens through Voice: Speaking Truth to Power.” works, and to shape their own sustainable literature-based library outreach pro- A final round of Great Stories Club leadership vision and ethos while build- grams and racial healing work. grants for the TRHT series will be offered ing a learning community and network.

10 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org UPDATE

The application form and guide- of equity, diversity, and inclusion. The using the #ReadGraphic hashtag featur- lines are at bit.ly/ALALeadershipInst. grants provide up to $3,000 for research, ing authors and illustrators. Applicants may nominate themselves with successful recipients eligible to Booklist will partner with select or be nominated by their employer. apply for up to $1,500 in additional fund- libraries to help bring authors and illus- Participants also receive a free one-year ing for dissemination of their findings. trators to comics-related library events. membership to the Library Leadership Applications are due April 25. More and Management Association. information is available at bit.ly/ACRL New Workshop on impactgrants. Mental Health Academic Library Impact ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions Research Grant Applications Booklist Announces Graphic will host a new workshop, “Dealing The Association of College and Research Novels in Libraries Month with Mental Health on the Front Lines,” Libraries invites practicing librarians In July 2019 Booklist will host Graphic with Loren Mc Clain, in two 90-minute and information professionals employed Novels in Libraries Month, which will sessions on March 7 and 14. in academic and research libraries to foster partnerships between libraries The workshop will cover how identify- apply for funding for research on library and publishers and provide librarians ing mental illnesses and disorders in the contributions to student learning and with tools to select, curate, and promote workplace and in the community lead success through Academic Library Impact graphic titles for patrons of all ages. to a better understanding of how library Research Grants. Proposed projects The program will begin at the ALA policies and procedures come into play, should aim to build on the foundations of Annual Conference and Exhibition in and how you can create a more positive the 2017 Academic Library Impact report Washington, D.C., with a panel and and supportive environment for your and fill gaps in existing literature. meet-and-greets with authors and employees and the public. In this round of grants, the committee illustrators. Throughout July, Booklist Registration is available at bit.ly/ALA welcomes proposals related to issues will share original videos on social media mhwebinar19.

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americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 11 from the CANDIDATES

Julius C. Jefferson Jr. Section head, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. | jeﬀersonforalapresident.com CANDIDATE FOR ALA PRESIDENT

ibraries are not just where we to be recognized as technologically development and leadership work; they are sentinels of savvy, inclusive, innovative, passion- opportunities, using a communi- our democracy, where lives ate, and diverse. Building that brand ties of practice model Lare affected and our country’s means strengthening relationships 5. build a culture of inclusion by ideals are upheld. I am reminded within our complex organizational strengthening relationships with of this every day as I traverse the structure. divisions, round tables, affiliates, entrance of the Library of Congress’s As president, I will address and member initiative groups James Madison Memorial Build- internal and external concerns that 6. build and strengthen relationships ing, where this inspiring quote is face ALA, focusing on supporting our with our chapters inscribed: Knowledge will forever strategic directions by advocating for 7. lead our Association through the govern ignorance: And a people policies that reflect our core values. on-boarding of a new executive who mean to be their own gover- I will strive to: director nours, must arm themselves with 1. help increase funding by building 8. lead ALA in our conversation the power which knowledge gives. on the grassroots approach about better governance, ensuring It is an exciting time to be a 2. strengthen equity, diversity, and all voices are heard member of the American Library inclusion in our Association and in 9. provide fiscal guidance as we seek Association (ALA). ALA can and the libraries where we work to ensure concrete benefits to will play an important role at this 3. defend and protect privacy and members critical juncture in the history of our intellectual freedom 10. recruit the next generation by profession and our country, and it 4. champion the careers of library introducing K–12 students to a must stand united to speak with one workers by providing professional career in librarianship voice: to advocate for the education My commitment to libraries and of an informed citizenry; to promote my ability to serve and lead ALA freedom of expression and privacy; to members is reflected in my active fight the constant threat of reduced ALA can and will participation within our Association. funding for library programs; to sup- play an important I have served on the ALA Executive port information policies that seek to Board, chaired ALA committees, unite our country, rather than poli- role at this critical served and led affiliate organizations, cies that divide, such as the repeal of and served at the local level. I cur- net neutrality. juncture in the rently serve on ALA Council. As ALA president, my focus will history of our I stand prepared to serve the mem- be to build the Association’s brand. bers of ALA, providing leadership for What is that brand? It is the 57,866 profession and a modern library association. committed members—librarians and I ask for your vote for ALA presi- library workers—who are and need our country. dent.

ALA ELECTION VOTE: March 11–April 3. More information at bit.ly/ALAelection19

12 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org from the CANDIDATES

Lance Werner Executive director, Kent District Library, Comstock Park, Michigan | lancewerner.com CANDIDATE FOR ALA PRESIDENT

e’re living in an partner, ALA’s future focus will help This is precisely what ALA can accom- increasingly divided libraries with far-reaching goals and plish on a national and international world that needs to be accomplishments. level. In doing so, our Association can Wbrought together and Step two: Help members gain a help libraries do the same locally. where intellectual freedom must be seat at the table by leveraging their Too often, libraries may be staunchly defended. greatest assets: kindness, empathy, invited to the party but not asked to The American Library Association and love. Everything libraries do dance. To turn this around, we need (ALA) and libraries are in a unique stems from those three traits and to make the first move by learning position to help, heal, and lead. We values. These are the dance moves where the missions of other stake- must bring more civility and critical that businesses want to learn. holders align, turning up the music, thought into the world through Think about how kindness, empa- and asking them to dance! kindness, empathy, and love. thy, and love apply to client service, As president of ALA, I will imple- Libraries are on the front line, organizational culture, emotional ment this shoes-on-the-dance-floor doing an outstanding job of serving engagement, and delivering real strategy. I’m ready to take the lead the underserved. But there is also an value. These are the tenets that and inspire others to do the same. opportunity to bring all stakeholders attract customers, investors, and I’ll accomplish this by: closer together through engagement prosperity. In exchange for helping ■ expanding ALA training to help and advocacy. This is where ALA has teach these dance moves, libraries people employ advocacy and the greatest opportunity to deliver can enjoy stronger alliances and inclusion for themselves and their significant value for members, advocacy for furthering their mission. profession helping with strategic engagement ■ developing apprenticeship pro- and advocacy. grams for real-world, on-the-job To accomplish this, changes are ALA and libraries experience due. Our rapidly evolving world ■ guiding others in fast-track cre- outpaces the old mode of merely can help, heal, and ation and implementation of ideas promoting library service and lead. Let’s bring ■ seeking input from ALA members librarianship. It’s not enough to to explore answers to tough ques- simply focus on our craft—we need more civility and tions about the future of libraries new dance steps for change. Change can happen only if we Step one: Ensure member voices critical thought are willing to change and willing to are heard in updating the ALA into the world take charge. mission so it’s focused on the future As ALA president, I will focus rather than focused inward. Just as with kindness, on this for the benefit of libraries a lead dancer looks in the direc- everywhere. tion that he or she plans to take a empathy, and love. Let’s dance!

ALA ELECTION VOTE: March 11–April 3. More information at bit.ly/ALAelection19

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 13 from the CANDIDATES

Maggie Farrell Dean of university libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas | maggieforalatreasurer.com CANDIDATE FOR ALA TREASURER

am greatly honored to stand for critical importance is process: ensuring divisions and round tables. We need election for American Library that we follow ALA policies, respond to use simple and clear language in Association (ALA) treasurer and to to ALA Council referrals, and provide understanding and describing our Iserve our profession by providing direction to the Finance office. As budget. Although ALA has many units leadership for the financial well-being BARC chair, I have established the with revenue and nonrevenue activ- of our Association. goals of transparency, clarity, and com- ities, our processes should be under- ALA is at a critical time with munication as we focus on immediate stood by members. Transparency changes in Association leadership and long-term goals. and clarity are at the foundation of positions, increased operational As ALA treasurer, I will continue communication regarding Association costs, flat-to-decreasing membership, this service with similar goals. Trans- finances. I will facilitate regular com- and declining revenue. Librarians parency in our budget processes is munication to ALA leadership, includ- and library workers have a variety of necessary as we consider not only the ing division and round table leaders. choices for professional development, current financial state but how we As treasurer, I will continue this service, and engagement, so ALA strategically invest in our infrastruc- pattern to provide regular and direct needs to adapt to the changing expec- ture to modernize our work. As we communication for ALA members. tations of the library profession if it is consider real estate options, we need In addition to my service on BARC, to remain relevant and vibrant. This transparency in the financial details I have served on Council, on the will require critical examination of in order to make an informed decision Association of College and Research our conferences, activities, publishing, that will impact ALA for many years. Libraries executive board, and as chair operations, and structure in order to I will strive to bring clarity to the of various committees and task forces. meet the needs of our contemporary budget process. Clarity is essential for I have also held leadership posi- profession. As your treasurer, I will making informed decisions with an tions in state and regional library diligently work to provide analysis, understanding of processes through- associations and consortia. As library support, and financial details that out the organization, including dean of three universities, I have facilitate decisions on how we move broad budget experience and finan- forward as an association. To remain cial expertise that complement my Currently I am chair of the Budget MLS and master’s of public adminis- Analysis and Review Committee relevant, ALA tration degree. My skills in facilitation (BARC). In this role, I lead a team of and management will contribute to members, working closely with the needs to adapt the dialogue of examining the finan- ALA treasurer and Finance office to to the changing cial infrastructure required to mod- provide oversight for the Association’s ernize our Association’s operations. finances. This experience has provided expectations of Thank you for considering me for me with insights into the financial and this critical leadership position, and I organizational structures of ALA. Of the profession. ask for your vote.

ALA ELECTION VOTE: March 11–April 3. More information at bit.ly/ALAelection19

14 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org from the CANDIDATES

Andrew K. Pace Executive director, technical research, OCLC, Dublin, Ohio | pacefortreasurer.org CANDIDATE FOR ALA TREASURER

am honored to stand for election as Library and Information Technology the current ALA treasurer, Budget treasurer of the American Library Association and its former president, Analysis and Review Committee, Association (ALA), and I ask for I consulted with the division’s board and ALA Finance staff to ensure that Iyour support. regarding its financial future, urged its budgets and investments align with ALA’s treasurer does what you might merger with other divisions, and helped organizational strategy and aren’t expect, but there’s more to the job than create its budget review committee. simply numbers on a page. While ALA many realize, especially in the coming Managing finances requires a level of invests in its future, it’s important to three years. Of course, I will dedicate trust that I have worked hard to earn. have a leader with an eye toward fiscal myself to ALA’s financial success. But Trust is also earned by devoting oneself responsibility as well as wise invest- I will also help make sure ALA invests to creating a more inclusive environment. As treasurer, I will work hard its assets to align with key priorities: ment, both at our places of work and to ensure that the profession’s core advocacy; information policy; profes- within the Association. I am commit- values are never compromised. sional and leadership development; ted to viewing ALA’s initiatives through ALA faces an interesting paradox. and equity, diversity, and inclusion. the required lens of social justice. On the one hand, it has suffered I will do this by stressing the same Transformation. ALA mem- budget deficits in the wake of financial three principles I used as an ALA coun- bership, governance, finances, IT crisis, de-professionalization from cilor and Executive Board member: infrastructure, staff work spaces, and outside forces, and an organizational transparency, trust, and transformation. conferences are in a state of major structure that is rooted in 19th- and Transparency. Previous treasurers transformation. As an Executive Board 20th-century governance models. On have helped make the financial work- member, I’ve been a key player in the other hand, its outstanding balance ings of ALA more understandable— strategic discussions and the finan- sheet reflects the value libraries bring from annual budgets and balance cial impact that comes with them. As to society and the profession, and a sheets to the role of endowment trust- a member of the Finance and Audit devoted membership that embraces a ees and relationships with divisions, Committee, I have worked closely with 21st-century focus and direction. chapters, round tables, committees, I firmly believe ALA can leverage and affiliates. My excellent working Trust is earned by its balance sheet to invest in financial relationship with Council, the Exec- development, IT, and advocacy— utive Board, and ALA leadership and devoting oneself the heart, body, and soul of the finance staff will make ALA’s finances Association—to ensure both short-term even more transparent. Members can to creating a relevance and long-term viability. I will always expect an open mind, direct more inclusive lead ALA’s embrace of a transparent communication, and candor. realism in its financial planning and Trust. Professionally, I have environment at reporting that supports a shared com- managed revenue budgets as high mitment to libraries, library workers, as $30 million. As a member of the work and at ALA. and the future of the Association.

ALA ELECTION VOTE: March 11–April 3. More information at bit.ly/ALAelection19

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 15 “self-identified,” or write something else on the line provided. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) has since 2015 recommended that libraries refrain from collecting information about patrons’ gender identities if that information is not truly needed to provide service. Four years later, some libraries have followed this recommendation, others haven’t, and still others have never collected gender information to begin with. At the 2019 Midwinter Meeting in January, ALA Council passed a resolution to address the proposed definition of sex under Title IX by the US Department of Health and Ditching the Gender Data Human Services and the Justice Department, and to affirm the Asso- Why “male” and “female” are vanishing ciation’s support of civil rights pro- from some library card applications tections for people of diverse gender identities. “ALA is committed to diminishing social exclusion, stig- BY Anne Ford hat do we use ‘gender’ name, birth date, address, phone matization, and underrepresenta- for?” number, and email address—and tion within the communities served W That might sound nothing else. by libraries through an increased like the opening volley of a Just two states away, Joel Nich- understanding of gender,” the gender-studies lecture. But when ols, administrator for data strategy Erin Shea, supervisor of Ferguson and evaluation at Free Library of Library’s Harry Bennett and Weed Philadelphia, had a very different “I expected to Memorial and Hollander branches experience when advocating for in Stamford, Connecticut, won- a gender-free library card appli- hear that we used dered it aloud at a staff meeting last cation a couple of years ago. “My October, she was waxing practical, department was saying, ‘We’re [gender data] not theoretical. never going to use this gender for statistics. But Specifically, she was question- information,’” he says. “But there ing a common procedure followed were strong objections from other the answer was: by her library and many others: people” based on “the notion that requiring patrons to specify their this data might somehow, someday ‘Huh. We don’t gender on library card applications. be worth something.” really use it.’ ” “I expected to hear that we used Though it’s the official policy [gender data] for statistics,” she of Free Library of Philadelphia to ERIN SHEA, supervisor of Ferguson Library’s Harry Bennett says. “But the answer was: ‘Huh. process any library card application and Weed Memorial and Hollander We don’t really use it.’” Ever since, where the gender field is left blank, branches in Stamford, Connecticut applying for a library card at Fer- the paper form still asks appli- guson has meant submitting one’s cants to choose “male,” “female,” Illustration: Tom Deja Tom Illustration:

16 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org resolution states. “[ALA] encour- be specified or collected. “It was ages libraries to create welcoming easy to see how that was part of and inclusive spaces to meet the our strategic plan—to promote the information needs of people of library as a welcoming and safe diverse gender identities.” space where all are included,” she Money Smart Week Advocates say having a data says. “I feel very grateful to work field for gender at best singles out here, because everyone was like, transgender patrons and signals ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great idea.’” 1,000 that they are not welcome in the Since gender has disappeared Approximate number of libraries that participated library, and at worst can lead to from the library’s card applications, in Money Smart Week activities in 2018. This harassment or physical violence if she adds, the only feedback she’s year it will be observed March 30–April 6 and will patrons are forced to disclose their gotten has been positive: After the include thousands of free programs and events transgender status. Stamford Advocate newspaper ran a across the country to help educate consumers on “I see gender on the library card story about the library’s decision, a how to better manage their personal finances. as a barrier to access that I person- local mom called to say thanks. ally am working to undo,” Nichols Shea believes the change is says. “It is slowly changing.” having additional positive effects, 2002 even if they’re not immediately Year the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago ‘A welcoming and apparent. “Lots of people are not started Money Smart Week. The American safe space’ going to notice the change, but the Library Association has been a national Removing gender from library people it matters to will notice, and partner of the event since 2011. card applications was not the even if they don’t comment on it, first step that Ferguson Library those are the people we made the took to help transgender patrons change for,” she says. 3 feel more welcome. That pro- Age at which kids begin understanding the cess began in 2016, when Shea Approaches to avoid concepts of saving and spending, according converted the Weed Memorial and misgendering to Beth Kobliner, author of Make Your Kid Hollander branch’s existing single- Conversely, some libraries are a Money Genius (Even If You’re Not). user restrooms into all-gender adding—rather than subtracting—a restrooms. “I was like, ‘This is low- particular data field from their hanging fruit,’” she recalls. “We applications in hopes of making all 30% just had to buy new signs.” patrons feel more welcome. Percentage of US adults—or approximately Afterward, “we did get push- “We are adding ‘preferred name,’” 73 million people—who report that they back [from patrons], but it wasn’t explains Deb Sica, deputy county are just getting by financially or are strug- coming from a place of hate. It was librarian for Alameda County gling, according to a 2017 Federal Reserve coming from a place of ignorance,” (Calif.) Library. The change, which Board report. she says. “I hadn’t really taken time is under way, will allow any to educate the staff about why this patrons—not just trans- was happening, and the staff in gender ones—to indicate 44% turn are the ones who educate the the name by which they Percentage of Americans public.” So she invited a presenter wish to be addressed by who don’t have enough from Norwalk, Connecticut–based library staff. cash to cover a $400 Triangle Community Center, a “It’s always a little off- emergency. provider of LGBTQ programs and putting when you have services, to speak to her staff about a specific name [you like ways to be more gender inclusive. to be called], and you’re $37,000 It was the presenter, a transgender called your official name Average dollar amount that man, who introduced the idea a student borrower owes that gender seldom truly needs to upon graduating college. Photo: © igorkol_ter/Adobe Stock © igorkol_ter/Adobe Photo: Continued on page 19 •

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 17 T ENDS

Columns Society members at Univer- sity of Mississippi tell visitors about the Committee on History and Context plaque placed at Barnard Observatory.

and whether or not the individual’s exclusionary beliefs changed over his lifetime. In fall 2017, the university hosted six community engagement forums led by trained facilitators that asked alumni, faculty, students, and members of the public to weigh in on questions like “What do you think the difference is between remembering history and revering history?” and “What does reconciliation mean to you?” What’s in a Building Name? Fernández says in the early stages of the review, archivists University librarians and archivists contribute began preparing information to reviews of contentious namesakes for researchers—institutional records from the boards of trust- ees and regents, news articles, BY Timothy hat should be done Research Center (SCARC) and photographs, oral histories, and Inklebarger about university archivist of the Oregon Multicul- memorabilia—which was used and W buildings named after tural Archives and OSU Queer cited as a basis for dialogue in the controversial historical figures? Archives. To help answer this forums’ small-group discussions. With the goal of reconciliation question, she says, archivists and “I felt it was important to have and justice, institutions across the special collections librarians should archivists as part of the community US are increasingly undertaking be called upon to provide historical engagement sessions because we formal measures to review who context. “We also have the oppor- are able to connect the conver- they’ve memorialized—evaluating tunity to engage our communities sation to historical information,” names of buildings and monu- in productive and transformative Fernández says. Archivists also ments to determine connections to discourses,” she adds. created a LibGuide to help contex- white supremacy and other forms Fernández and SCARC Director tualize the information. of discrimination. Unsurprisingly, Larry Landis participated in OSU’s Ultimately, the university chose university librarians and archivists nearly two-year review, which to rename the buildings named are finding a role in these discus- involved developing a name- after Joseph Avery, who was con- sions, providing historical materials evaluation process, carrying out nected to a proslavery newspaper on the buildings and individuals in research, and holding public meet- in the 1850s, and Thomas Hart question, and in many cases taking ings before deciding the fate of the Benton, a proslavery US senator their involvement a step further names of five buildings on OSU’s from Missouri. Avery Lodge is now by creating LibGuides, supporting Corvallis campus: Arnold Dining Champinefu Lodge—champinefu community forums, and helping Center, Avery Lodge, Benton Annex, meaning “at the place of the blue develop evaluation criteria. Benton Hall, and Gill Coliseum. elderberry”—to honor the language “What does it mean for Oregon In 2016, a committee that and historic contributions of the State University to value equity and included Fernández and Landis local Kalapuya tribe. Benton Hall is inclusion if individuals after whom drafted evaluation criteria that now Community Hall, while Benton its buildings are named did not?” examined such factors as bigoted Annex is now the Hattie Redmond asks Natalia Fernández, curator at actions taken by a commemo- Women and Gender Center, named Oregon State University’s (OSU) rated individual, the individual’s for an African-American and Orego-

Special Collections and Archives public versus private persona, nian women’s suffrage leader. Digital Imaging Services Miss Bain/Ole Kevin Photo:

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At University of Michigan, Ter- Continued from page 17 rence McDonald, history professor “It’s a tremendous and director of the Bentley Historical during a library transaction. There’s Library (the campus archive), says he opportunity to think carefully an instant divide, for everyone,” was among a group of faculty mem- about the good and bad Sica says. bers asked by University President The change came out of a desire Mark Schlissel in 2016 to reflect on parts of American history.” to support the transgender com- the topic of building names. TERRENCE MCDONALD, history professor and director of munity and to enhance the overall “[The review of building names] the Bentley Historical Library at University of Michigan patron experience. “Our library is happening all across the country,” wants to become less transactional McDonald says. “The one commonal- and more personal,” Sica explains, ity is, it’s always a historical ques- “and this is part of that initiative.” tion, and that’s what’s great about Collections in 1993, says students At San Antonio Public Library, the current moment. It’s a tremen- frequently request research papers patrons whose preferred names dous opportunity to think carefully and other materials on Confederate don’t match the name on their about the good and bad parts of symbols connected to the university. IDs aren’t questioned about it. “It American history.” “I have often described it as the doesn’t matter,” says Assistant In 2018, with input from the longest-running dialogue on Confed- Director for Public Service Dale committee, the university’s board of erate symbols in the nation,” she told McNeill. “If they fill out an applica- regents voted to change the names of the Society of American Archivists at tion and it says ‘Julia,’ and we look two structures on campus: a science a presentation last August. at their ID and it says ‘John,’ we tell building named after Clarence Cook Though the discussion on histor- them, ‘I have to put in your record Little, a former university president ical objects has long been part of the name that’s on your ID. How- who called for eugenics practices the campus culture, it wasn’t until ever, whatever name you prefer, and anti-miscegenation laws, and 2017 that the Chancellor’s Advisory we’ll put that in the alias field, and a portion of a residence hall named Committee on History and Context when we speak to you, we’ll use after Alexander Winchell, a former recommended renaming Vardaman that name.’ And when the person university professor who published Hall, a building named after former picks up holds, they’ll be under racist theories about the origins Mississippi Gov. James K. Vardaman, that name. I think most people feel of mankind. The names have been a known white supremacist. Rather like that makes sense.” removed but the buildings have not than rename eight other statues, In addition, he urges staff yet been renamed. memorials, and structures, the members to refrain from using McDonald says the committee committee recommended installing “sir” or “ma’am” when speaking requested a “vast amount of infor- plaques on campus to contextualize to patrons, particularly over the mation” to assist in the investigation the individuals memorialized. phone, because it can be easy to of the two figures, and the Bentley McWhite says that advisory com- misgender someone—whether the Historical Library committed two mittee members came to the archives person is transgender or not. “What employees to the task. to use resources for historical I tell staff is, ‘No matter what your He says the evaluation process also research, which provided the basis for grandma told you, try really hard prompted archivists and historians to recommendations. Also made avail- not to say ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ Find a ask who is not being commemorated. able to the committee in its review way to say, “It’s really been a plea- The archive is now tracking the of building names was a LibGuide sure to speak with you,” and then history of African-American students created by McWhite and librarian just place your lips together.’ ” at the university between 1853 and Amy Gibson, “Contextualization at He tells staffers, too: “I’m not 1960. “Once it’s done, it will be a the University of Mississippi.” asking you to do something special tremendous resource for teaching,” “The library tries to stay on top because this person is transgender. McDonald says. of what is [being discussed],” says I’m asking you to just be a nice At University of Mississippi, McWhite. “This is a topic we could person. Nobody likes to be mis- a historical reckoning has been contribute to.” gendered.” ongoing for decades. Leigh McWhite, an archivist who began working at TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER is a writer ANNE FORD is American Libraries the University Archives and Special living in Chicago. editor-at-large.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 19 An attendee samples craft beer at a 2018 “Stouts and Stories, Ales and Tales” event hosted by Jefferson County (Colo.) Library Foundation.

The library did hear from at least one patron who expressed disap- pointment in the foundation’s decision to serve alcohol. Still, “I’d say the response was overwhelmingly positive,” James says. “It attracted a little bit of news and a different patron base. It was really nice on social media, too; we had 26-year- old guys commenting.”

Libations in the Library Intoxicating concerns Alcohol-friendly events draw new, younger faces Whenever alcohol is served, wor- ries around overserving—that is, the possibility of a patron becoming BY Anne Ford ipping in the stacks. Boozing county regulations prohibit alcohol inebriated—will arise. So far, that amid the books. Whatever from being served within the hasn’t been an issue at the events S you call it, libraries and library itself, the program’s kickoff she’s overseen, says Leia Droll, Friends groups are doing it: serving fundraiser took place at a local executive director of development alcohol after hours, usually as part event venue. But that didn’t deter at North Carolina State University of a fundraiser, and usually with about 150 attendees from paying Libraries in Raleigh. The libraries’ great success. $15–$25 to sample craft beer from Friends group holds regular onsite The idea of alcohol at a library- local brewers, play games such as programs called Library Libations, sponsored event may strike some giant beer pong, enjoy live music at which members enjoy hors as unusual. But supporters say that and a photo booth, sample food- d’oeuvres and alcoholic beverages serving alcohol increases event truck fare, and listen to informative while learning more about the attendance, particularly among talks about the brewing process. library’s offerings. younger adults, and cultivates a Participants also received “beer tour “We hire professional bartend- public image of the library as a hip, passports” that could be stamped at ers. It’s not like people are serving up-to-date social setting. local breweries in the weeks follow- themselves,” she points out. “Very “People are used to relaxing ing the kickoff event and used to few attendees drink a lot. We’ve with a beer or a glass of wine,” says access discounts and prizes. never had anything go wrong.” It Marcy James, programming coordi- For Cindy Matthews, the helps that, per university regula- nator for Jefferson County (Colo.) library’s promotions and marketing tions, only beer and wine (no hard Public Library (JCPL). “When was manager, the event was not just liquor) are served. It may also help the last time you went to a big fund- about attracting new patrons to that students are not permitted at raiser or a wedding without alcohol? the library or even raising money, the events. I think people see libraries as a place but also about increasing accessi- Still, the notion of someone to take your child for storytime, bility. “Colorado hosts the Great wandering through a library while which is wonderful, but not as a American Beer Festival, which brandishing a glass of Chianti place to kick back with other adults. brings in thousands of people who or Cabernet may inspire mental If we’re going to change that view, pay $85 and up to learn about images of wine-soaked books or I think alcohol is part of that.” beer. Not everyone can afford to stained carpeting. But Droll says Last fall, the Jefferson County attend a program like that,” she a few commonsense precautions Library Foundation hosted a six- says. “With this kind of program, have warded off those issues. “Our week program titled “Stouts and we’re able to make it accessible to staff is pretty careful,” she says, Stories, Ales and Tales.” Because the community.” “and we don’t let people touch Photo: Steve Hostetler Steve Photo:

20 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org T ENDS anything that’s valuable or rare. pay $35–$45 for samples from “There’s an appreciation of They typically say, ‘If you come to nearby breweries, food donated by this particular area, you put down local restaurants, a silent auction, the disconnect: ‘Oh my gosh, your drink,’ and we have staff and a jazz combo, and a trivia con- volunteers monitoring that.’” test. The first time it was held, I’m having a beer in the library.’ ” In her view, all the regulations recalls Director of Community LISA FULLER, director of community engagement, and precautions have been worth Engagement Lisa Fuller, one of Worthington (Ohio) Libraries it: Serving alcohol has helped her colleagues came up to her and attract many younger alumni to the said, “Look, Lisa! Young people in Friends group. “It’s just had a really the library!” incredible reach,” Droll says of the Like Droll, Fuller has not encoun- the delight that comes from inter- program, which typically sells out. tered any instances of intoxication acting with a familiar environment “One of the things we’ve heard is: at the event. “It’s not as if you have in an unusual way: “What we’ve ‘It’s so great to see young people an unlimited supply of alcohol heard is that it’s really fun to be and new faces here.’” available,” she points out. “You’re in the library after hours. I think not even getting a full beer from there’s an appreciation of the dis- Limiting the liquor any one brewery.” And if someone connect: ‘Oh my gosh, I’m having a Worthington (Ohio) Libraries does become impaired, well, “it’s a beer in the library.’ A couple people has seen similar success with its neighborhood event; a lot of people have said, ‘If only we could check Friends’ annual Books and Brews walk here,” she says. “Nobody has out books at the same time!’” fundraiser. Now in its fourth year, to worry about driving home.” the evening event attracts about At least part of the fundraiser’s ANNE FORD is American Libraries 225 patrons ages 21 and up, who popularity, she adds, stems from editor-at-large.

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americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 21 T ENDS

Residents of The Highlands at the Moorings of Arling- ton Heights assisted-living facility in Illinois enjoy a virtual tour of Monticello.

the local senior center in May 2017. It’s Not Such a Small The response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. “When I saw how people reacted, I realized, ‘Oh, World After All there’s a lot more potential here,’” she recalls. “I just wanted to do it Introducing older adults to virtual reality over and over again.” Since then, she’s held Google Expeditions programs at nearly two any seniors are prevented from traveling the world—or even just taking a stroll dozen sites in the community, such outside—by limited physical or cognitive abilities. But now, thanks to virtual real- as nursing homes and assisted-living Mity, older patrons of Arlington Heights (Ill.) Memorial Library don’t have to feel facilities. Each program accommo- homebound: The world is coming to them. dates up to 30 participants; the only requirement is that they be physi- cally able to hold one of the viewers. BY Anne Ford t first glance, the virtual- give students the feeling of, say, More-mobile participants can stand reality (VR) viewers at walking up to the Eiffel Tower, up and move around while using A Arlington Heights Memo- tromping through the forests of a viewer if they like, while the less rial Library look like old-school Borneo, or even swimming in the mobile can stay seated at a table, View-Masters, the kind that let kids ocean with sharks. But Lepo saw resting their arm or taking a break in decades past insert a cardboard other possibilities. whenever necessary. disk to stare at scenes of Scooby-Doo “We are always looking for new or The Beverly Hillbillies. But though ways to do programming with the VR viewers operate on the same seniors,” she says—especially “It’s helped people basic principle as a View-Master— innovative, creative programming. look at the kinds hold to face, marvel at what you The Google Expeditions technol- see—they provide much more than ogy seemed perfect in that it lets of programs that a few minutes of fun. They can open an “expedition leader” (teacher, up the world. librarian, or the like) set up the VR can be offered Mary Jo Lepo, the library’s senior viewers ahead of time, meaning to seniors in a and accessible services manager, users don’t have to do anything first purchased the viewers in 2016 except hold the viewers to their faces different way.” as part of a Google Expeditions kit. and enjoy the experience. In other MARY JO LEPO, senior and accessible Google Expeditions is a VR tool words, it makes high-tech low-tech. services manager, Arlington Heights that allows users to lead or join Lepo piloted the technology by (Ill.) Memorial Library virtual trips to world locations; it’s offering a “virtual vacation” as part sometimes used in classrooms to of a health and wellness program at Photo: Arlington Heights Memorial Library Heights Arlington Photo:

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“One of the most rewarding ones for me was one of the first that we did in a memory-care facility,” Lepo says. “I know one of the gentlemen there because we’ve been visiting Urban Farming in Hanoi him with library materials for a while. He’s not terribly verbal. We VIETNAM The new VAC Library in Hanoi were doing a visit to Brazil, and we is teeming with koi and greenery. Vietnamese were on the beach, and I said, ‘Hey, firm Farming Architects built the new open-air Jim, how’s it going? How are you library —whose name is an acronym of the Viet- enjoying our trip?’ And he said, ‘I namese words for garden, pond, and cage —with never thought this would happen an impressive aquaponics system to teach kids to me again.’ He meant he hadn’t about urban farming. The library is an immense seen a beach in a long time. It was structure made of wooden frames with various very moving.” cubicles filled with books. However, within its Other popular excursions have nearly 600 square feet is a production system included Monticello (home of designed to teach kids about sustainable food Thomas Jefferson) and a trip under production.—Inhabitat, Jan. 14. the sea. Sometimes Lepo and the hosting community partner make CUBA The University of Florida is working the experience more authentic by with the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí serving themed food, making and (BNCJM) in Havana to register Cuban materials in distributing excursion “tickets,” and The new VAC WorldCat. Through a partnership between the BNCJM, the University handing out souvenirs. “I always Library in of Florida, and OCLC, 133,000 Cuban titles have been registered. tell them, ‘It wouldn’t really be a Hanoi, Vietnam More than 97,000 are unique. The materials appear as part of the trip if you didn’t get a souvenir,’” University of Florida Libraries collection with the holding designation she says. In the works are trips to “University of Florida BNCJM.”—OCLC, Jan. 10. Bristol, England; the Great Barrier Reef; and the Louvre in Paris. LEBANON The National Library in Beirut reopened to the public “As easy as it sounds, you do December 4 after 40 years, having shut its doors during the Leba- have to plan,” Lepo cautions. nese civil war. Its collection of more than 300,000 volumes is now “You’ve got to rehearse each tour, housed in a red-tiled complex built between 1905 and 1907. Although you’ve got to know how to set up the library is understaffed and underfunded, Executive Director the equipment, and you do have to Gelnar Atoui Saad said her staff is focusing on completing an inven- augment it with other things like tory and restoring some of the older books and manuscripts.—Daily music for ambiance, and talk about Star (Beirut), Jan. 15. some fun facts for each location you’re visiting.” And then there’s ISRAEL A little green booklet whose cover features a cartoon the cost: A Google Expeditions kit of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin is one of the millions of that accommodates up to 10 partic- items held by the National Library of Israel. But until now, it was one ipants runs nearly $5,000. of many items the library did not earmark for digitization because But Lepo says the money and it is an “orphan work” whose copyright holders cannot be located. time have been more than worth Now, following an amendment to the Copyright Law passed in the it. “It’s helped people look at the Knesset on January 1, the library will have greater freedom to digitize kinds of programs that can be its vast holdings without fear of lawsuits.—Jerusalem Post, Jan. 15. offered to seniors in a different way,” she says. “And it’s increased CANADA Libraries are running into barriers in accessing both awareness of the scope of things ebooks and digital audiobooks for their patrons. Sharon Day, who that the library can do.” chairs an e-content working group for the Canadian Urban Library Council, says major ebook publishers are charging unfair prices, ANNE FORD is American Libraries while Audible, the company that owns the rights to many digital editor-at-large. audiobooks, is declining to share them at all.—CTV News, Dec. 17. Photo: Thai Thach and Viet Dung An/Farming Architects Dung An/Farming and Viet Thach Thai Photo: •

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front row, all the positions of power Melinda Gates are held by men. It’s not easy to be the only woman in that forum. But Philanthropist pens book on lifting it’s important for me to be there up women to save the world and use my voice to be a role model for other girls; to let them know that you can have the courage and elinda Gates is one of the most influential people in the should have the courage, and that if world. As cofounder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda- you make it to these positions, you Mtion with her husband, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, she should use it on behalf of every- has helped steer more than $45 billion to causes that range from body else. global poverty to library funding. In her new book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (Flatiron Books, 2019), Gates offers raw You’re the honorary chair of data and anecdotes from her life and travels to demonstrate that women’s prosperity National Library Week this year. and health are intrinsically linked to the health and prosperity of the world at large. Why is it important to celebrate Gates spoke with American Libraries at the 2019 American Library Association libraries that week and through- Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits—where it was revealed that she would serve as this year’s out the year? We should celebrate honorary chair of National Library Week. libraries because they are where the community gathers. They are the place where we provide equal The Moment of Lift is about lifting with their full voice and that they’re access to information. I was at up women and girls. What do actually lifting themselves up and Seattle Public Library recently, and you mean by lift, and why is it so able to completely thrive and reach what I love about it is that all walks important? I feel like we’re in a their potential? of life are there. Sitting between moment, and I use this metaphor the shelves or at a table or at the in the book, that reminds me of You talk in the book about your computers getting information— the Apollo launches that I watched initial reluctance to be a public face it’s where we come together. We

when I was a little girl. The engines for the foundation. Has it gotten learn and grow from that. Jason Bell Photo: have been ignited, the Earth is any easier? When I started the foun- shaking and rumbling, and we have dation, I never saw myself being a this moment, because of #MeToo, public advocate for issues. I’m a very where we can lift up all women private person. But as I got deeper and really change the course of in the foundation’s work, I realized I humanity. had so much to say. I’ve met so many women You mention myriad ways that around the world who’ve had we can do this. Can you expound the courage to step out and on that? We can do it by using our speak to me and share their voice, our advocacy, our time, our stories. I feel like those sto- money, our energy. We can start ries deserve to be told, and by looking in our own homes and when I started to learn saying, “Do we have full equality how important gender within our partnership at home? equality is in the world Do we have full equality in our and how much it changes communities? Are we using our everything, I realized I voice on behalf of women?” In our needed to use my voice on workplace, are we speaking up if a behalf of it. woman’s voice is cut off at the table It’s gotten somewhat or if we see gender discrimination easier over time, but I or if we don’t see equal pay? Are we still walk in halls, even making sure all women can come just this past week, forward and participate in society where sitting in the

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“We will give exactly the same book to everybody on exactly the same terms with exactly the same conditions. You can’t come in and buy a better version of the library. There’s no gold-plated service. You can’t jump the queue. With the exceptions where we know that you need additional help, but we won’t advantage anybody. We’ll just do our best to make sure that nobody is disadvantaged.” TONY AGEH, chief digital officer of New York Public Library (NYPL), in “NYPL’s Chief Digital Officer Says Public Is Better Off When Libraries Are ‘Risk Averse’ about Tech,” GeekWire, December 26.

“It’s an award-winning book. It’s “The trio had talked about their shared received national attention. Of course fantasy of creating a bookmobile and taking there are ideas in the book that people it on the road, especially around their local will not agree to, but I think that’s also community. With the Durham (N.C.) Public a reason why it makes for a good one to Library under renovation until 2020 and consider and discuss.” the selections at local stores lacking, [Alexis ROD WAGNER, director of the Nebraska Library Commis- sion, in “ ‘One Nebraska’ Book [This Blessed Earth, by Ted Pauline] Gumbs and her counterparts decided Genoways] on Farm Family Is Divisive, Won’t Get Proclama- to take action: The trio is transforming an tion, Ricketts Says; Author Calls Move ‘Shocking,’ ” Omaha World-Herald, January 8. Airstream trailer into what Gumbs called ‘a tiny, black feminist nerd utopia.’” LAST YEAR IN A LIBRARY IN ERIC GINSBURG, “These Heroes Are Saving Black Feminist Classics by Putting Them on Wheels,” Teen Vogue, January 9. ALASKA I READ A FOLK TALE IN A RANDOM BOOK ON A RANDOM SHELF & HAVE BEEN THINKING “This was my home for that ABOUT IT SINCE & TODAY I WROTE year, and I felt like I belonged. THE LIBRARIAN W/ NO BOOK TITLE I belonged, and I was safe here. OR AUTHOR & IN 2 HRS I HAD A And I believe that was partially SCAN OF THE STORY & COVER IN MY INBOX—LIBRARIANS SHOULD due to your influence, for me.” BE RUNNING EVERYTHING. LYDIA SIGWARTH, to Debra Stephenson, former children’s librarian at Carnegie-Stout Public Library in Dubuque, Iowa, in

Photo: Jonathan Blanc Jonathan Photo: JON KLASSEN, @burstofbeaden, Twitter, January 9. “The Room of Requirement,” This American Life, December 28.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 25 How library professionals are approaching blockchain technology and its potential impact

BY Carrie Smith

26 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org usan Alman and Sandra Hirsh—like many people—couldn’t avoid news about blockchain in 2017. But it wasn’t all about Bitcoin. “There were interesting applications across numerous industries that piqued our interest,” says Hirsh, director of the SSan José State University (SJSU) School of Information. That year, Alman, a lecturer at SJSU, and Hirsh secured an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to facilitate a national conversation on blockchain’s potential in libraries. By the time they hosted a national forum in summer 2018, cryptocurrency markets had soared and then tumbled, and the news had shifted to “crypto winter.” But outside the cryptocurrency boom and bust, blockchain—the distributed, secure database structure CRYPTO- underlying many cryptocurrencies—could prove useful for CURRENCIES libraries, they thought. “There are credible examples of blockchain use for interlibrary loan, scholarly publishing, Digital currencies that credentialing, and the development of a universal library use encryption to verify card,” says Alman. “However, there is a need for model and secure transactions projects to be set up for beta testing, and that is the focus of the path forward.” and manage the amount In order to get there, “there is a real need for training of currency in circulation information professionals on what blockchain is, how it without centralized works, and how it could be applied in libraries,” says Hirsh. control. Most (but not all) So what is blockchain? “A blockchain is basically a cryptocurrencies operate distributed database where lots of different parties can on blockchain read and write transactions to the database,” says Darra technology. L. Hofman, a PhD candidate at University of British Colum- bia and researcher on archival applications of blockchain. “Instead of a third party checking those transactions, the blockchain has a built-in consensus mechanism that checks transactions to make sure they’re good (that I have HASH the $20 I just tried to spend, for example).” Transactions that pass get hashed—in other words, An algorithmically assigned assigned a digital fingerprint that identifies the trans- key that identifies a piece action. Those validated transactions then get grouped of data but cannot be together into a block, which is assigned its own hash. used to reproduce it. Hash That hash becomes the first hash of the next block of trans- algorithms are frequently actions, linking them together in a chain. “If everything works as it should,” says Hofman, “block- used to verify the integrity chains can theoretically give us a trustworthy database of of files, check passwords, good transactions without a human being or institution and identify files. having to intervene to verify those transactions.”

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 27 American Libraries talked with five librarians and information profes- What should librarians and library workers sionals who are at the forefront of understand about blockchain technology? How blockchain technology about what will you train staff on blockchain concepts? library workers need to know about blockchain, the role libraries can HOFMAN: What a particular librarian or library worker needs play in educating the public, and to know about blockchain technology is incredibly context- the ways this emerging technology dependent; answering reference questions about Bitcoin could affect libraries themselves. requires an entirely different breadth and depth of knowledge from making decisions about a blockchain implementation to Caroline manage interlibrary loans. That said, as information profes- Coward sionals, everyone in the library world should have familiarity Library group supervisor, NASA with what blockchain is because it’s likely to become increas- Jet Propulsion ingly common in spaces where parties have low trust but Laboratory in Pas- still want to cooperate. Perhaps the most important thing to adena, California know is that no one’s word in the blockchain space is gospel. M Ryan Hess Because this is such a new, evolving technology, we haven’t Library services even agreed on what a blockchain is yet. manager, digital initiatives, Palo Alto (Calif.) City KIM: The decentralized nature of blockchain and the com- Library bination of transparency, security, and privacy that it offers without involving any third-party authority means it can Darra L. Hofman impact many industries, ranging from educational creden- Blockchain@UBC tialing to supply chain management. A deeper understanding researcher, Uni- can guide librarians and library workers toward seeing the versity of British Columbia iSchool potential of blockchain in librarianship and the information in Vancouver management industry. The easiest way to start engaging library staff would be to share introductory reading materials Bohyun Kim and have a group discussion about what each person found Chief technology interesting and potentially useful. The discussion then can officer and associ- move into how blockchain could be used to benefit libraries. ate professor, Uni- versity of Rhode Island Libraries in Kingston What role can libraries play in educating their communities about this new technology? Annie Norman State librarian, HESS: At Palo Alto City Library, we are planning to embed Delaware Division of Libraries in blockchain into programs that have nothing to do with Dover blockchain. We will teach about it by inadvertently solving a practical problem using blockchain, say, in a maker workshop where people need a way to share a digital object with a friend when no server is available to host the file.

HOFMAN: While there’s a lot of technological and mathe- matical complexity underlying blockchain, helping patrons learn about it is 100% within our capacity as information professionals. After all, not every librarian knows about diesel engines or TCP/IP protocols, but every librarian knows

28 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org SMART CONTRACT how to help patrons define their information needs and find the right sources to meet those A piece of executable code on the blockchain. Can function needs. At the “intro to blockchain” level, libraries like a simple program, sending payments when certain can bring in guest speakers, put together recom- conditions are met, or perform more complicated functions mended reading lists, and integrate blockchain like managing agreements between users. Ethereum, the discussion into information literacy work. For libraries that blockchain platform that powers the cryptocurrency Ether, is have the resources and inclination, blockchain is also a good fit for lab- and makerspace-type initiatives, like walking designed for executing smart contracts. people through coding a smart contract. A lot of education will also happen at the one-to-one reference interview level.

KIM: Blockchain technology can be introduced in multiple CONSENSUS MECHANISMS contexts depending on the interests of the community. At places where there are many senior citizens, the applica- How a blockchain’s rules are enforced and how a block gets tion of blockchain technology to electronic health records written to the chain. Proof-of-work is a common consensus may draw attention. Blockchain can also be introduced as a mechanism for the largest cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ether). technology that is driving a lot of tech start-ups, a field where It relies on computers doing complicated calculations in order more job opportunities are likely to appear. In a community to secure the right to write to the chain and receive a small where there’s interest in Bitcoin, libraries can explain how cryptocurrency reward. Many other consensus mechanisms blockchain powers a cryptocurrency, show other digital currencies, and discuss how things would change if digital exist, including proof-of-stake, proof-of-asset, and proof-of- currencies become more common. For hands-on experience, storage, along with more centralized mechanisms with named a library can put together a class showing people how to set approvers, which are more common in private blockchains. up and use a Bitcoin wallet.

Even those who own cryptocurrency may not KIM: Nowadays, a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin can be pur- fully understand how blockchains work. What chased from an ATM at a convenience store. Therefore, it is resources can libraries use to introduce staff and likely that more and more people will end up purchasing a patrons to blockchain concepts? type of cryptocurrency without understanding exactly how it HESS: The best approach is to explain the concepts at the works. For this reason, the more widely a cryptocurrency is highest levels. People already understand concepts like ledgers, purchased and circulated, the more education about block- peer-to-peer networks, crowdsourced truth (like Wikipedia), chain technology will be needed. A good general introduc- and shared documents (like Google Docs). These are good met- tion to the concept of blockchain that I recommend is “The aphors to use when getting blockchain concepts across. Once Great Chain of Being Sure about Things” in The Economist people understand how all these ideas come together, they are from 2015 (bit.ly/BlockchainBriefing). in pretty good shape to explore blockchain-related services like the distributed web or blockchain identity management apps. These are easy to use in a standard browser or on a phone. Many people are skeptical about blockchain. How do you navigate a healthy skepticism amid HOFMAN: For libraries with nearby universities, research- the blockchain buzz? ers love talking about their work. I’m always thrilled when one of the local public libraries asks me to come talk about HOFMAN: My work on blockchain isn’t about the really blockchain. There are also a number of popular-press books cool math underlying the cryptography or developing that might be useful for people looking for an “intro to block- neat consensus mechanisms. My work is about understand- chain” beyond cryptocurrency, such as Blockchain Revolution, ing blockchain as a recordkeeping technology: How does this by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott (Portfolio, 2016). technology help protect (or conversely, undermine) people’s

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 29 rights? How will we pre- capabilities of the technology. Many believe it’s a fad, a flash serve these records in their in the pan. Once the fervor dies down, technologists and context to ensure their Learn More enthusiasts will continue to put blockchain to use where it is ongoing availability for a most effective and transformational. ■ SJSU will be hosting a six- variety of societal needs week MOOC, “Blockchain and purposes? What can and Decentralization for While blockchain is most commonly associated blockchains help people the Information Indus- do? What’s missing? These with cryptocurrency, applications have been tries,” March 11–April 21 proposed for rights management, fighting fake questions are prompted by (ischool.sjsu.edu/ the technology, but they’re blockchain-mooc). news, and managing health records. How might fundamentally questions ■ ALA Editions will release blockchain technology be used to solve problems about people and informa- Blockchain, the third book libraries are facing today? What applications are tion that we’ve been grap- in its Library Futures libraries working on? pling with for millennia. series, this spring. When you look at block- HESS: One area I am exploring is how blockchain can be chain, or really any technology, through that humanistic lens, used to enable community members to share things beyond then the naive techno-optimism that fuels the hype is a lot the library walls. Conceptually, such a distributed, autono- less powerful. The focus shifts from the super-cool technol- mous service could run on blockchain. People would interact ogy to how we can really use this technology to help people. with it as a distributed app on their devices, but underneath, it would be blockchain. This might seem threatening to many KIM: Libraries are not here to convert people into blockchain librarians, but it is a huge opportunity. In a sense, what we enthusiasts or make them blockchain skeptics. They are here are talking about is infecting the internet with library values. to equip people with sufficient knowledge and capability How can that be bad? to tell useful and nonbiased information from a marketing or sales pitch. A library’s role in educating the public about NORMAN: Currently, library data is locked in various silos by blockchain is to help people understand both what it is vendors and by governance. Blockchain represents, in part, a capable of and what it cannot do, in order to empower people shift to distributed recordkeeping and person-centered port- to make informed decisions should blockchain get adopted folios. Person-centered recordkeeping will provide benefits to more widely in the future. These efforts ought to be com- individuals and allow the entities that serve them to quantify bined with libraries’ ongoing mission of educating the public the cumulative value that is obtained from services for indi- about information literacy. viduals and at scale across all users. The goal is to view library data seamlessly to gain more insights into library value. A COWARD: Admittedly, blockchain is being touted blockchain-based distributed data management solution as the new panacea, mostly because so few would perhaps enable us to access data more easily across the people understand the limitations as well as the library landscape.

“Managing digital rights, preserving historic documents and records accurately without corruption, and securing sensitive, private, or credential-related information are areas … where blockchain can bring benefits.”

BOHYUN KIM, chief technology officer and associate professor at University of Rhode Island Libraries in Kingston

30 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org DECENTRALIZED/DISTRIBUTED APPLICATION (DAPP) HOFMAN: Some of the library-specific applications being explored include interlibrary loan, identity management, Blockchain-enabled software systems that provide a user and institutional repositories and research workflows. In interface, often websites. Instead of running on other words, cases where parties who don’t necessarily have a single server, dapps run on multiple nodes an established relationship all need to be able to read and on the blockchain using smart contracts. write related transactions on a database and to be able to trust those transactions. Blockchains’ affordances, including tamper-resistance, disintermediation, and distributed archi- tecture and redundancy, point to similar problems in both INTERPLANETARY the archives and library spaces: those thorny cases where FILE SYSTEM (IPFS) you have low trust between parties who nonetheless want to interact but where you would like to avoid the costs and A file transfer protocol (like HTTP) designed delays of a third-party intermediary. for peer-to-peer sharing of content. It uses the KIM: Managing digital rights, preserving historic documents Ethereum blockchain to store unalterable information. and records accurately without corruption, and securing sen- Plus, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, Filecoin, is being sitive, private, or credential-related information are areas of created to incentivize hosting IPFS content. interest to many libraries. These are also areas where blockchain can bring benefits, such as increased security, privacy, or efficiency, and blockchain applications are currently being developed and tested in these areas outside of libraries. It is NORMAN: Delaware is a small state and we depend on our possible that some of those blockchain applications will also vendors to develop new technologies for us. The library meet the needs of and be used by libraries. profession generally is also small, with a limited amount of value for vendors to invest and innovate on our behalf. For COWARD: In academic libraries, blockchain technology is us to innovate ourselves would take a lot more resources, directly applicable to the peer-review process and for chain of time, attention, and expertise than we have. Libraries should custody for digital repositories. In corporate, government, or agree on what’s needed and speak with one voice to ven- other special libraries where security is paramount, block- dors. Blockchain solutions for data alignment might be more chain is applicable in a wide variety of information-sharing affordable and faster to implement and help ensure patron scenarios within an organization, especially if that informa- access and privacy over time. tion is restricted or classified. KIM: Blockchain is not the only way to keep private or sensitive data securely and transparently. Blockchain’s decentral- What factors should libraries consider before ized mechanisms also make it slow and costly to implement implementing a blockchain project internally? and maintain. There are many other solutions that are faster and cheaper. If achieving data integrity, transparency, and HESS: To build blockchain services, you need program- long-term preservation by virtue of technical implementation mers, solid project management teams, and well-paid alone—without relying on any third-party authority—is of visionaries on your staff. Many libraries, even big systems, paramount importance for a project, then blockchain would do not do software development well. For this reason, most be a great fit. Embarking on an internal blockchain project libraries would be better served approaching blockchain would be an investment for libraries, so they need to carefully in one of three ways. The first option is to enter this space examine if a given project requires decentralization as a higher through existing services others have built for you, like priority than speed or implementation cost. the InterPlanetary File System. Another option is to delegate your project to a grant-funded nonprofit. The third is to COWARD: I would go through a series of questions. First, stick to introducing blockchain concepts in tech programs, what problem is the library trying to solve? Second, is lectures, and community conversations. blockchain really the right technology to solve the problem?

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 31 51% ATTACK Third, do you have someone already on staff with the technical know-how to create and upload to a block? And If more than half of the parties verifying a transaction fourth, do you have someone on staff who’s able to maintain are controlled by the same entity (or group of entities the system? If the answers to two, three, or four are no, then with a common interest), they can rewrite parts of the reconsider your approach. Any technology should facilitate blockchain and hijack transactions. and make a process more efficient.

What are some of the potential drawbacks of PRIVATE AND PUBLIC KEYS using blockchain technology?

HESS: Early on, many blockchain solutions will be attempted Private keys and public keys together identify a user’s for problems that can be done just as well with standard soft- cryptocurrency wallet. The private key acts as a kind of ware. Blockchain has some limitations that, if not considered, password, and the public key acts as an address. The could mean wasted money and projects that do not pan out. private key cannot be changed and, if lost, renders the The blockchain story is a long-term journey. Many lessons currency in the wallet unusable. need to be learned still.

HOFMAN: One of the biggest drawbacks of blockchain technology is that it’s still very high up in the hype cycle, so it KIM: Blockchain has a real potential to bring more efficiency requires a good bit of thought and time investment to deter- and security. At the same time, if one party or individual gains mine if a solution can actually deliver what an organization control of more than half of a blockchain’s verifiers, they can needs. Blockchain also heightens problems of “never forget- rig the consensus mechanism, called a “51% attack.” This will ting” that the internet has brought to the fore. Transactions completely undermine the promised security of a blockchain recorded on the blockchain are supposed to be immutable. system. Currently, running a blockchain also requires a huge What happens when that immutable data is wrong and needs amount of computing power, which is a real environmental to be corrected? How do we square that immutability with and economic concern. In addition, data stored in a block- things like the General Data Protection Regulation, which chain is permanently inaccessible if the owner forgets her or provides for a right to erasure? When you consider how quickly his private key, because the system operates without any “anonymized” data is becoming identifiable (or re-identifiable) third-party authority to restore the key. The lack of interoper- with things like Big Data analytics and the ever-growing cache ability between different blockchain systems and the difficulty of auxiliary information being collected, then the idea of an in scaling with large amounts of data are other potential draw- immutable cache of personal information is obviously prob- backs, although these may be solved in the near future. lematic. How to manage that problem is less a technological question and more a question of values, priorities, and needs. COWARD: It’s a specific tool for a specific job, so carefully consider your resources before diving headlong into a project. Don’t assume it will be easy to create and maintain. It’s like any open source technology: You need staff with technol- “In a sense, what we are ogy skills to keep this thing afloat. talking about is infecting the internet with library values. Do you foresee blockchain technology— particularly its ability to facilitate transactions How can that be bad?” without third parties—changing the role of

M RYAN HESS, library services manager, digital initiatives libraries? How so? at Palo Alto (Calif.) City Library HOFMAN: I’m not convinced that blockchain will change what we do so much as how we do it. While librarians and archivists

32 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org have always required an array of technical skills, our work lies or scientific peer review; chain of custody for medical, at the intersection of information and people. Ultimately, the legal, or other sensitive information; and perhaps interna- thing that makes one a professional is judgment. While block- tional interlibrary loan borrowing and fee payments. It will chains might automate some of what we do, I would argue definitely show administrators and the public at large that that the work that makes us library professionals or archival libraries continue to embrace cutting-edge technologies that professionals is that messy, fraught, contingent work that make patron and user lives easier and more enriched. relies on judgment, wisdom, understanding, and, ultimately, our humanity, and that work should never be automated. HESS: One of the killer applications of blockchain is how it revolutionizes trust. It enables total strangers to exchange KIM: Libraries do handle transactions, such as circulation, things without trusting one another. You do not need an room bookings, workshop registrations, payments of fines, and intermediary referee, like a library, to govern the sharing of so on, that could be facilitated on a blockchain. However, these things like books, tools, or services. It could greatly limit the are only a small part of what libraries do. Public education and role of integrated library systems or revolutionize how cata- community outreach, support, and advocacy take up a larger loging works. There is the potential for some very disruptive role than any of these transactions. I don’t think blockchain changes to the way libraries operate. technology will change the role of libraries. CARRIE SMITH is editorial and advertising assis- COWARD: It may enable certain libraries to expand their tant for American Libraries. service offerings to include anything that involves the secure porting of information or other assets in a linear fashion in a distributed network: passport and visa processing; academic BEGIN YOUR NEXT CHAPTER

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americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 33 T C E H T E D R N S Library tech leaders recommend their favorite tips and tools

BY Alison Marcotte

34 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org uilding prototypes with apps. Building bridges with translat- ing tools. Building empathy with virtual reality. Librarians are Bexperimenting with the latest technology to construct a better world—and help patrons access it. American Libraries spoke with three library tech leaders—panelists from the Library and Information Technology Association’s Top Tech Trends panel at the 2019 Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits—about what apps, devices, software, and best practices their libraries have imple- mented and how others can, too.

Explore immersive Valenza says VR, AR, and MR could be technologies used at the library for immersive virtual field trips, such as a walk through the solar Libraries haven’t fully explored the poten- system, the experience of a tornado, or a tial of virtual reality (VR), augmented walk around a refugee camp; a science lab reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), says with the opportunity to fully explore, rotate, Joyce Kasman Valenza, assistant teaching and dissect a 3D model of the human body; professor of library and information science previewing a college campus or vacation spot; at Rutgers University School of Communi- or test-driving a new car. cation and Information. “It’s cool, but it’s more than cool,” she says. VR completely immerses users in a 360- “These are collaborative experiences, and degree digital world through devices such as they’re also experiences that really can help HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Google Cardboard. our patrons go well beyond the four walls of AR enhances what users see by layering 3D the library, go well beyond their personal, objects over the real world (think Snapchat cultural experience, to present opportunities filters and Pokémon GO). MR to expand empathy.” allows real-world and digital The MERGE Cube (mergevr.com/cube) is objects to interact, combin- an affordable ($10–$15) AR STEM toy that ing elements of AR and VR. works with a smartphone app and optional An example of MR tech- goggles. Pointing the phone at the cube nology is Microsoft’s Holo- transforms it into a handheld hologram that Lens (bit.ly/ALHoloLens). allows patrons to explore topics such as math, “We’ve seen [VR and AR] science, anatomy, and engineering. with gamers, and we’ve seen it as kind of a novelty,” says Valenza. The MERGE Bring your calendar Cube AR STEM But new forms of narrative into the future toy works with a are being created for VR—such smartphone. as through Google Spotlight Suzanne Wulf, head of digital services at Niles- Stories (bit.ly/ALSpotlight), Maine (Ill.) District Library (NMDL), stresses Storyfab (bit.ly/ALStoryfab), and Metaverse the importance of libraries having updated (gometa. io)—and librarians will want to point online calendar systems. “We want patrons to these collections, Valenza says. to be seen as this place for inno- “All these knowledge experiences become vation and technology and what a library is obligated to collect,” she run a makerspace, but then says. “It’s just a translation of collection we have a calendar that and access, and learning is all a part of our looks like it came from library core values.” the 1990s,” she says.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 35 She recently upgraded NMDL’s website with class and get people in, but we were also able to Communico (communico.co), an integrated suite of promote this resource that we pay for already.” cloud-based applications for libraries. A few of her Wulf also recommends DigitalLearn.org, a free favorite features include an intuitive interface that Public Library Association website that offers courses allows staff to easily book rooms, create programs, on internet privacy, understanding cloud storage, search for events, and edit reservations; the ability and more. She says it’s a great place to direct to replicate the user interface of your library website users who are trying to get comfortable when building your Communico site; customizable with technology. DigitalLearn. org also reports; and individual user logins with customized offers resources for librarians, like permission levels. templates and documents for learning how to design a class. Use Creative Commons Zero photos Demonstrate When photos have a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) digital citizenship license (bit.ly/ALCC0), users are allowed to copy, Tech that was ostensibly designed to make modify, and distribute them, even for commercial our lives safer, easier, and more connected can purposes, without permission. CC0 photos are have some unexpected consequences. available on Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and “You might not think about how a security other free photo sites. camera on your front door or voice commands on “It really has changed a lot for users,” your lights can be used in a way that can really Valenza says. “Imagine the guy who impact emotional health,” says Cynthia M. Duden- has a barbershop and just wants to hoffer, associate professor and director of informa- put out a flier. Now that makes it so tion resources and assessment at Central Methodist much easier.” She says it’s important University (CMU) in Fayette, Missouri. She notes that librarians educate patrons about a rise in domestic violence tied to home monitor- intellectual property and the wealth of ing systems like Google Nest (bit.ly/ALGaslight). content offered through CC0. Dudenhoffer calls this effect “digital gaslighting.” CMU’s digital citizenship course teaches stu- Teach online classes dents the importance of being good citizens when in person Treehouse (teamtreehouse.com) provides video- DigitalLearn.org offers based courses for technology and computer science free courses geared skills, but the courses offered through NMDL toward users new to computers. (screenshot) DigitalLearn.org (photo); Stock © fizkes/Adobe illustration: Photo didn’t have many takers, Wulf says. Then in 2018, NMDL began offering Tree- house’s coding workshops, such as Python/ HTML and CSS, in a flipped-classroom learning environment at the library. Instructors introduced students to the interface and watched the videos together, and students took coding challenges and quizzes. Usage nearly tripled in one month and quadrupled in another month. “We found that this made students feel more comfortable using Treehouse on their own,” Wulf says. “In fact, after the last series, our usage remained incredibly high. It’s one of those double-beneficial things where we’re able to teach

36 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org engaging with technology and online. “We teach that you should never say, do, or post anything that you wouldn’t do in real life,” Dudenhoffer explains. “Digital gaslighting is the opposite: using technology and the internet to skew someone’s perception of the world, through Marvel lets false content or content that strictly shows one she says demonstrates users create particular slant, or using technology to control the library leadership by web or app actions of others.” providing access to a prototypes wealth of new content and without writing code. Translate with tech tools is the searchable portal Several products break the language barrier OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search, with real-time translation. Dudenhoffer’s oasis.geneseo.edu). Developed at the State Univer- library uses the SayHi app sity of New York at Geneseo’s Milne Library, it aims (sayhitranslate. com) for to facilitate the discovery of open content. OASIS mobile; other free tools like searches open content from more than 70 different Skype Translator and Google sources and contains more than 170,000 records. Translate (for mobile or desk- top) can also bridge the gaps. Make prototypes On the higher end, Waverly with Marvel Labs’ Pilot earbuds ($250) and Dudenhoffer has a sign in her office that says companion app let two people plan less, prototype more. She teaches work- who speak different languages shops on prototyping using an app called Marvel understand each other. The (marvelapp.com) that lets users create web or app system currently supports 15 lan- prototypes without writing a single line of code. guages and 42 dialects. In Marvel, you can take photos of your mock-ups, animate the buttons, link the screens, and play the Access open educational prototype immediately. resources “Things like that give people who might think they The open access, open science, and open data don’t have the training a chance to make something movements are providing alternatives to subscrip- you can play with in 20 minutes, whereas that used tion databases in response to what Valenza calls to take semesters and semesters of coding design,” “information privilege and information poverty.” Dudenhoffer says. “The fact that we can make those “How do we ensure that people who need access kinds of tools accessible is really exciting.” to information can get access to information,” she asks, “and how do we create that equity when so ALISON MARCOTTE is a freelance much is behind a paywall?” writer for American Libraries. Valenza thinks libraries could be doing more with open educational resources. One project that

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 37 38 LIBRARY AMERICA’S FOR STRATEGY DIGITAL A NEW March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org

Photo: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Abraham Lincoln Papers (letter, envelope) he Library of Congress (LC) holds two of the five known manuscript copies of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address, so it’s no surprise that LC would hold an event to mark the speech’s 155th anni- Tversary. On November 19, 2018, the library hosted talks by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and others to discuss Lincoln’s legacy (bit.ly/gburgday), but it also launched something new. Hayden and her staff invited attendees and livestream viewers to join its Letters to Lincoln project (bit.ly/LettersLincoln) by helping to transcribe 28,000 scanned pages of documents written to or by Lincoln, making LC’s Abraham Lincoln Papers more accessible online and easier for researchers to find.

The Library of Congress expands its online oﬀerings through letters,

maps, and colors by Greg Landgraf

“What you’re doing in helping us operations. “The strategic plan has the vision of what transcribe these letters is bringing we’d like the library to look like five years from now,” to life the letters and the thoughts of says Kate Zwaard, LC’s director of digital strategy. “The people from decades and centuries digital strategy breaks it down into specific initiatives.” ago,” Hayden said at the event. LC created Library of Congress Labs (bit.ly/lclabs) Letters to Lincoln is just one of the in September 2017 to test projects that use LC’s digital many projects launched or under KATE ZWAARD collections in innovative ways, including the following. development as part of LC’s new five- Director of digital year digital strategy (bit.ly/lcdigital) strategy at LC By the People announced October 1. The initiative Letters to Lincoln is one campaign within the By the has three primary planks: People crowdsourced transcription platform (bit.ly/ ■ “Throw open the treasure chest,” as LC puts it, by lcByPeople). LC is also using it for efforts to transcribe growing the library’s digital collections and sharing the papers of American Red Cross founder and nurse them as widely as possible Clara Barton (1821–1912); African-American civil ■ Connect to more users by improving online access rights pioneer Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954); and creating opportunities for public participation disabled Civil War soldiers; and baseball player and ■ Invest in the future by ensuring that LC staffers have scout Branch Rickey (1881–1965), who signed Jackie the tools and the training to protect and preserve col- Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, breaking lections as technology evolves the Major League color barrier. The digital strategy falls under Enriching the User Examining these original documents offers a more Experience (bit.ly/lcenrich), the library’s FY2019–2023 immediate sense of history than a textbook can provide. strategic plan, which outlines such broad goals as “One letter in the collection is from Lincoln to his first expanding access to its collections and modernizing fiancée [Mary Owens], and it’s incredible,” Zwaard

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 39 The opportunity to work with primary-source documents will be valuable for students and educators, lifelong learners, and others with a deep curiosity.

MEGHAN FERRITER, senior innovation specialist for LC’s digital initiatives

says. “In his own hand, he talks about his approach to love process to identify the next collections targeted for tran- and marriage, and it gives a real sense of who he was.” scription, and it will incorporate lessons learned from the The opportunity to work with primary-source docu- first projects in making those decisions. LC has also released ments will be valuable for students and educators, lifelong Concordia (bit.ly/lcConcordia), the software that powers learners, and others with a deep curiosity, according to these crowdsourced transcription projects, as open source Meghan Ferriter, senior innovation specialist for LC’s digital code on GitHub. That means libraries and other organiza- initiatives. The transcriptions will also make the collections tions can use it for their own crowdsourced transcription more usable. projects at no charge. Scanning historical documents greatly improves their access, but it also has its drawbacks. “So many resources Story Maps available are currently presented at the item level,” Ferriter Story Maps (bit.ly/lcStoryMaps) combine artifacts from says. “Clara Barton’s diary is described, but there’s no LC’s collections, narratives written by staff experts, and differentiating metadata for individual pages or keywords.” geographic data on a platform created by geographic Transcribing and tagging the documents is making them information systems developer Esri to present stories online searchable for the first time. in an immersive way. The Incunabula Story Map (bit.ly/ Nineteenth-century handwriting can be difficult to deci- lcIncunabula), for example, illustrates not only how publish- pher, and people with visual disabilities may not be able to ing in Western Europe evolved in the 50 years after the first read the originals. Once transcribed over the next year or Gutenberg Bible was printed, but where it took place. so, Lincoln’s letters will be indexed and full-text searchable, “Because of the geospatial data revolution in the past 20 making it easier for researchers to find specific documents. years or so, people are much more conscious of what a visual By the People will continue after the first five pilot display can do,” says John Hessler, a specialist in computa- campaigns are completed. Ferriter says LC has begun a tional geography and geographic information scientist and one of the pioneers of the project. “Geospatial visualization is the key to displaying these things in a way that people can understand them.” LC has developed seven Story Maps so far, but because about 40 staffers have been trained to create their own, more will be coming. No project manager or committee dictates topics. “Our goal is to get ‘hidden’ collections out there,” Hessler says, so LC curators, content specialists, and librarians will create Story Maps when they identify worthy collections that haven’t gotten the display or publicity they deserve. Specific Story Maps will attract different audiences. The Incunabula Story Map, for instance, offers an introduction to books printed before 1500 that’s well suited to the general public. Behind Barbed Wire (bit.ly/lcBarbedWire), a Story Map about Japanese-American internment camp newspapers during World War II, provides links to digital copies of

Victoria Van Hyning guides local students in transcribing letters from the original documents that are valuable for historians and Library of Congress collections during the Letters to Lincoln crowd- other researchers. All of LC’s Story Maps also contain map

sourcing kickoff event on November 19, 2018. data that sociologists and geographers can download. Miller Shawn Photo:

40 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org Individual Story Maps may, however, turn out to be ephemeral. “We don’t see Story Maps as things that will be out there forever,” Hessler says. “They are more like tempo- rary exhibits or presentations that highlight our collections.”

Innovator-in-Residence In September 2017, LC appointed data artist Jer Thorp as the library’s innovator-in-residence (bit.ly/lcInnovator) to explore the library’s digital collections and create new ways to showcase them. “He’s putting things next to one another that don’t normally go together in hopes that it might spur The Library of Colors (top) allows users to browse various LC collections curiosity,” Zwaard says. visualized by colors in the titles of the work. The Incunabula Story Map One of his suggestions was to guest (below) illustrates how publishing evolved in Western Europe after the host LC’s Twitter account for three hours first Gutenberg Bible was printed. on November 8 for something he called a #SerendipityRun (bit.ly/SerendipityRun). for a second term in July, and he will soon announce a call Hayden started off by tweeting a note for applications to be the next innovator-in-residence. written by civil rights activist Rosa Parks JER THORP Innovator-in- describing how she felt at the moment of LC for Robots residence at LC her 1955 bus protest in Montgomery, Ala- Computers are far more efficient at analyzing data than bama, and Twitter users shared documents humans. “The library wants to encourage digital scholarship they had discovered that connected to it in some way. Then through our labs site,” Zwaard says. Part of that is LC for others reposted items LC had already tweeted about and Robots (bit.ly/lcRobots), a collection of available bulk data, matched them with other relevant library resources. MARC records, and APIs that researchers can use for com- Another example is Thorp’s data visualization project, the puter analysis, as well as tutorials about how to use them. Library of Colors (bit.ly/LibraryOfColors), which came about Zwaard adds that identifying ways to effectively sup- while he was thinking of ways to use the library’s MARC port digital scholarship, both online and onsite, is a high data set. He identified colors in the titles of works and used priority. That support may ultimately take the form of future a tool developed by Laura Wrubel (bit.ly/lcColors), a George workshops, resource guides, or an onsite digital scholar- Washington University software development librarian ship center. LC will announce future digital endeavors on working on assignment with LC Labs, to visualize the pal- its news site (loc.gov/news) or through its blog The Signal ettes from various LC collections. “In large part these color (blogs.loc.gov/thesignal). palettes speak to trends in the titles themselves: the large blue region in Music, the common use of the terms black and GREG LANDGRAF is web content specialist at blood in American literature,” Thorp wrote on Medium. Greene County (Ohio) Public Library and a regular contributor to American Libraries. Thorp also hosts the Artist in the Archive podcast (bit.ly/ ArtistArchive) to relate his experiences. LC reappointed him

How we built an arts-focused program at our library

BY Carla-Mae Crookendale, Hillary Miller, and Sue Robinson

ichmond, Virginia, is home to a vibrant art scene fed by the high numbers of Virginia Com- Rmonwealth University (VCU) School of the Arts alumni who live and work in the city. Given the large concentration of artists, designers, and arts scholars in our region and their need for information on the legal landscape and fair use, VCU Libraries, working with VCU School of the Arts, created programs about copyright for this particular audience.

42 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org In 2017 we started the “Copyright for Creators” on the open web. She also series aimed at graduate and undergraduate students helped the audience under- and faculty in arts disciplines, as well as creators stand contractual issues that throughout the university, such as web designers and can arise when using content communicators. Like most VCU Libraries events, this from websites with terms and series was free and open to the public, and the topics conditions that can restrict covered were relevant to this large community both on use of images or other media. campus and off. Faculty guests were a video artist who uses appropriated How we did it material for social commen- Once we decided to hold the series, our first step was to This is an excerpt from tary and a documentary film- establish a partnership with the School of the Arts. We The Library Outreach maker and photographer. worked with the dean’s office to cosponsor a series of Casebook, edited by Session three: Finally, the events designed to help prepare students for life after Ryan L. Sittler and third part of the series looked college, including how to navigate potential copyright Terra J. Rogerson at issues faced by art scholars. concerns that they may face as working artists. Next, we (Association of The presenter focused on identified and contacted content experts—both legal College and Research reuse of images in scholarly and artist-scholars—to bridge the gap between law and Libraries, 2018). publications, including the practice. We were fortunate that our university counsel complex layers of rights in had extensive experience with intellectual property law artworks and the permissions process. She also covered and had advised artists in different fields in the course of publishing agreements and author rights. Our faculty her practice. We also contacted artists and scholars from guests—all art historians—outlined their experiences the faculty who could provide real-world context to the obtaining image rights and permissions for books they issues discussed. Their participation enriched the ses- have had published. sions and encouraged attendance among their students. VCU Libraries has a professional public relations and We decided to use a modular approach and broke the event planning office to support faculty initiatives like content into three distinct sessions. The basic session “Copyright for Creators.” This internal, virtual agency format provided 45 minutes for the legal expert to frees librarians to focus on the program’s creation and present copyright information, 15 minutes for a faculty content. Whether your library has this level of staff sup- guest to share their expertise, and 15 minutes for a Q&A port or you are in a do-it-yourself office, the processes with the audience. During the second year we held this and tactical steps are similar. series, we invited different faculty guests for variety. Plan and plan some more The details Talk before you act. Your PR office should be Session one: Our overview covered copyright basics, brought in from the start rather than at the with a heavy focus on the concept of fair use. The pre- end of an assembly-line-style process. senter cited fair use case law from art and other creative Colleagues from this office can offer fields and explained legal outcomes and implications. insights about a variety of practical The cases covered the concept of transformative fair use factors, focus your ideas, and and included examples of appropriation, parody, and scale and organize your remix of creative works. event for the greatest Session two: We addressed reuse of images and chance of success. For other media, including music and video. The presenter instance, our events highlighted the differences between what is allowable office—which in an educational environment versus what is allowable manages

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 43 close to 200 events each academic year—strongly attendance. We also asked for some basic info to glean advises a maximum time of 90 minutes for a program. who was interested and why. We used the Springshare It can also offer time-tested guidance on such matters product LibCal for registration, which was an efficient as the best setup for your session and how time, day, and streamlined way to manage the event. Participants and conflicting events can affect turnout. automatically received a confirmation email upon Think about the intended audience. The tactics registering, a reminder a day before the event, and a and tools used to promote an event will vary widely. feedback survey an hour after the event ended. Determine the scale, tone, and budget for the sessions. Don’t forget about tech. Test and check the The speaker you choose for a formal lecture may be technology in the room. Gather presentations in different from one you pick for an informal discussion advance and load them on a hard drive or store them or panel presentation. Reserve a suitable venue. For in the cloud. This is particularly important for media- example, “Copyright for Creators” held sessions both rich talks. Recruit volunteers or colleagues to staff in the School of the Arts interdisciplinary collaboration a check-in table and welcome attendees, run micro- space and in the library’s lecture hall. phones, and assist in other ways. This frees the hosts Set up a registration system. This gives you to tend to guest speakers and handle introductions and control over the budget and setup. Registering attend- other podium duties. ees also provides a way to communicate with them Get legal advice. Consider contacting your univer- (slide) Madelyn Wessel (classroom); Stock © kasto/Adobe illustration: Photo about the event. This was particularly important since sity’s legal team to see if an intellectual property expert ours was a three-part series that depended on repeat would be willing to partner with you. Find someone Registering attendees provides a way to communicate with them about the event.

44 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org who can strike a balance that will encour- in the School of the Arts as well as age responsible copyright behavior and from those involved in creating support academic and creative free- art or media throughout the doms. Having our university counsel university, including faculty was a great benefit: Her position 15 min and staff in communications, allowed her to speak with authority on university relations, and web design. the university’s policies as well as articu- Many attendees were alumni and artists late the university’s support for fair use. from the community. Based on post-session feedback, attendees The big day found the series highly useful. This was largely due Be clear with speakers about what you need from to the legal expert’s interpretation of specific, relevant them and how long they are to speak. We provided a case law combined with real-world perspectives and list of specific topics that we wanted our legal expert concrete examples from faculty experts. This combina- to cover and explained the specific perspectives we tion helped attendees understand best practices in their wanted guest speakers to provide. Less is more—if you disciplines and provided them with a framework to tell someone to talk for 10 minutes, they will generally analyze copyright issues in their own work. Topics that talk for 15 minutes or more. The session moderator attendees were most interested in learning more about should be prepared with questions for the Q&A in case in future workshops included: the audience doesn’t offer any. Questions can also be ■ discipline-specific issues or media-specific issues, solicited in advance via email or social media. such as reusing video for filmmakers Decide if you will record sessions and how you will ■ protecting copyrights, including copyright reg- share session content. On advice of our legal expert, istration and defending and litigating against we decided not to record the sessions in order to pro- infringement vide a candid environment for the presenters and the ■ contractual or work-for-hire issues when hiring inde- audience to speak, but we did create a research guide pendent contractors or working on a freelance basis to share the legal expert’s slides and other helpful ■ navigating and managing the permissions process resources. Unfortunately, it was difficult to share slides ■ finding images or other works that are free of some from our artist-scholars in the guide because of the or all copyright restrictions copyrighted works within them that could not necessarily be considered fair use (for example, art images Looking ahead that were displayed as the speaker explained the per- In future years we plan to hold more focused workshops missions process they went through to use the images with hands-on components that cover topics attendees in their scholarship). To maximize the impact of the want to learn more about. Now that we have built a workshops, translate presentation slides into an easily partnership among our library divisions and the School readable format by writing them up as case studies. of the Arts, we would like to increase our efforts and Do not try to fit too much into one session. We hold a daylong series of events with a guest speaker from lengthened ours with a hands-on activity based on outside the university who is both an artist and lawyer concepts covered, but most attendees did not stay for or has expertise in both areas. The day could include the extra half hour. Based on feedback from a follow-up workshops, public lectures, and time spent with students survey, we learned that inviting attendees to more in the classroom. We may also partner with community focused sessions with hands-on components would be arts organizations for future events. more effective than increasing the length of the event beyond an hour and a half. CARLA-MAE CROOKENDALE (left) is arts research librarian, Pre- and post-session assessment HILLARY MILLER (right) is We repeated the series in 2018 because of our first-year scholarly communications outreach librarian, and SUE success. For both years, we gathered information about ROBINSON (not pictured) is attendees’ status and department during registration. director of communications and public relations at Virginia We found there was interest from faculty and students Commonwealth University in Richmond.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 45 PERSPECTIVES

Unintentional Inequity Examining equity gaps in our libraries

arratives about libraries often a 2016 audit showed that resources portray them as “the great were unevenly distributed to the city’s equalizer,” but achieving 36 libraries because the city provides equity means more than just in matching funds for private donations to opening the doors to everyone. practice specific branches, which led to branches NALA’s Access to Library Resources and BY Meredith Farkas that serve wealthy neighborhoods getting Services guide (bit.ly/AL-equity1) says more funding (bit.ly/AL-equity5). The that “equity extends beyond equality … to auditor recommended pooling a portion of deliberate and intentional efforts to create Library, in her February 2018 TEDx talk, the funds to distribute them more evenly. service delivery models that will make “A Librarian’s Case against Overdue Book San Diego Public Library eliminated fines sure that community members have the Fines” (bit.ly/AL-equity2). Wacek cites for overdue materials in July. resources they need.” a 2016 report from the Colorado State In 2018 Evanston (Ill.) Public Library Libraries rarely design services to spe- Library that suggests overdue fines and (EPL) hired a consulting group to perform cifically exclude certain patron groups, but fear of fines are among the biggest barriers an equity audit. The consultants examined exclusion is often the unfortunate result of keeping low-income families from using equity issues in the surrounding area as well not considering the unique needs and cir- libraries (bit.ly/AL-equity3). as those within the library itself and sug- cumstances of all community members. For Libraries need to examine their policies gested a greater focus on serving commu- example, after my son was born, I noticed and practices to see if they disproportion- nities affected by systemic racism. Among that my local library offered programs ately impact marginalized community its 11 recommendations was hiring staffers for babies and toddlers only on weekday members. Equity audits—which some who reflect the diversity of the community mornings. This made their programming public schools have used to explore their EPL serves (bit.ly/AL-equity6), which is to support early literacy inaccessible to the data, policies, and practices and identify 18% black, 9% Latinx, and 9% Asian. children of most working parents. equity gaps—can benefit libraries as well Libraries should also look at the A friend recently mentioned that her (bit.ly/AL-equity4). unique needs and desires of the different new hometown library charges patrons Examining data about funding, hiring, patron groups they serve. Los Angeles a small fee to place a hold on materials. utilization of services, access to opportuni- County Library’s iCount initiative, which Holds are often the only way to get access ties, collection diversity, and other factors launched in 2016, not only examined to bestsellers at any library. This effectively can be useful when analyzing potential barriers to equity but also worked to means that timely access to popular mate- equity gaps. In San Diego, for example, address the needs of every community rials is limited to those who can pay. within its large and diverse service area At academic institutions, unpaid library (bit.ly/AL-equity7). fines can prevent a student from register- Libraries need If our profession is committed to equity, ing for classes or applying for graduation. to examine their we need to look at structural barriers that A few years ago, my library removed fines create inequity. Conducting a deep audit on all materials except high-demand tech- policies and practices of policies, practices, usage statistics, and nologies like laptops. community data can help libraries serve Librarians do so much to mitigate to see if they everyone. childhood achievement gaps tied to socio- economic status. “At the same time, we disproportionately MEREDITH FARKAS is a faculty librarian at Portland (Oreg.) Community College and a lec- counteract it by charging fines and fees to impact marginalized turer at San José (Calif.) State University School our patrons,” said Dawn Wacek, youth ser- of Information. She blogs at Information Wants vices manager at La Crosse (Wis.) Public community members. to Be Free. Email: [email protected]

46 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org PERSPECTIVES

AI and Machine Learning The challenges of artiﬁcial intelligence in libraries

rtificial intelligence (AI) and AI systems can be trained to recognize machine learning are every- locations from a single photograph— where, giving driving direc- including where the photographer was tions and identifying objects standing—based on angle, geography, in photographs. They are so dispatches and other factors. These systems can Aengrained in our technology that often BY Jason Griffey be enormously useful in making the people don’t realize what they’re expe- processing and cataloging of archives and riencing is a machine learning system. collections more discoverable. Everyone with a smartphone has an AI Apple’s preset weights, but they aren’t As more libraries and library vendors system that uses machine learning. pushed to Apple’s servers. Because each move into developing AI and machine For example, Google’s Android oper- data set is analyzed locally, there is no learning systems, we should be sensitive ating system records, measures, and col- shared decision making as there is with to the privacy implications of collecting lects information and sends that data to Google. Each device must do heavy lifting and storing the data that’s needed to servers. These servers use billions of data itself, rather than rely on remote servers train and update those systems. As with points collected from tens of millions of for the bulk of the work. existing systems where we outsource users as input for their machine learning For data privacy and security concerns, data collection and retention to vendors, systems. When you ask an Android phone localized machine learning has an advan- libraries need to be aware of the mecha- to show you photos from the beach, a tage. If you don’t need to send photos nisms by which that data is protected and complex set of data moves back and forth and data back and forth from server to how it may be shared with others through between your phone and Google’s serv- client, and if providers don’t need to store training sets. Where libraries can provide ers, comparing your photos to the billions and host data, the data’s vulnerability to local analysis in the style of Apple and in its data set. The search results include attack is greatly reduced. iOS, they should. pictures that the AI decided were most The examples above focus on object The opportunities associated with new likely to be related. and image recognition in photos by a machine learning systems to reform large Since Google has billions of photos machine learning system. This is only portions of library activities will be rich to assess and millions of people help- one of dozens of uses for AI and machine and varied. While it will be some time ing it train its AI, the decisions that the learning systems. before AI will conduct full conversations AI makes are generally good. But AI is It’s also easy to see how an AI system is or reference interviews with students and only as effective as its training data and useful for libraries and archives in creat- patrons, the use of AI as an increasingly the weighting given to the system as it ing metadata from digitization projects. powerful lever inside other systems will learns to make decisions. If the data is progress quickly over the next three to biased, contains bad examples of decision five years. Libraries can watch these sys- making, or is simply collected in a way For data privacy tems as they develop, work with vendors, that doesn’t represent the full problem and create their own services and systems set, the system will produce broken, and security so that our values and ethics are baked unrepresentative, or bad outputs. into the technology at the outset. Apple, on the other hand, has chosen concerns, to model its AI and machine learning by JASON GRIFFEY is a librarian and technolo- analyzing and weighting your data locally localized machine gist and the founder and principal at Evenly Distributed. Adapted from “Artificial Intel- on the iOS devices themselves. Your learning has an ligence and Machine Learning in Libraries,” devices use the same machine learning Library Technology Reports vol. 55, no. 1 algorithms to include your photos in advantage. (Jan. 2019).

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 47 PERSPECTIVES

Spreading ‘Bookjoy’ Ideas for growing a successful Día celebration

an Francisco might not be for use of the park, refuse collection, park- known for bright skies, but ing clearance, and barricades. there is a special day in late Get your neighbors involved. Ask local April when the fog breaks and youth organizations to showcase their resources the sun seems to shine: Día de matters for area families. Día San Francisco doesn’t Slos Niños/Día de los Libros, or Día. BY Maricela Leon-Barrera charge to set up a table, but we ask that Conceived in 1996 by author Pat Mora, participants come up with one literacy- with support from Reforma and the Asso- based, make-and-take activity and materi- ciation for Library Service to Children, Día multiethnic event at every local library als for at least 300 children. When agencies is a celebration of children, literacy, and and encourage all families to attend. register, they let us know ahead of time diversity. This year will mark 20 years that Find your partners. Día San Fran- what their activity will be, which allows for San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) has cisco is the work of a team, and SFPL is a variety of crafts without replication. Past been proudly supporting Día in our com- one lead agency with a shared interest in activities have included paper bag puppets, munity, with the goal of connecting kids organizing the event. We are part of the mask making, and homemade play dough. to “bookjoy”—the pleasure of reading. Early Literacy Network, a consortium that Start planning early. In the fall, Every year we host a vibrant afternoon serves the interests of families with chil- we choose a date and submit our park of music, dance, performances, literacy dren newborn to age 5, and having these reservation. In the months leading up to activities, and community resources for partners helps us with planning, dona- the event, organizers divide the work of families. This year Día will be observed tions, fundraising, and cross-promotion. recruiting volunteers, soliciting donations, April 30, and we are already far into plan- Internal partners are important, too: and renting tables, chairs, and portable ning our event. If your library is looking Hugely popular at our celebration is the restrooms. Don’t forget the details that to host or expand a Día celebration of its library’s own bookmobile. make your space inviting. Every year our own, here are some considerations that Think logistics. Where and when volunteers decorate the park in a rainbow have made our program successful: might you host this event? Do you want of papel picado (tissue-paper banners) Take inventory. Brainstorm what fund- the celebration to be indoors or outdoors? and carefully take it down to store for the ing you have and what you want to offer. Our Día takes place at Parque Niños following year. Consult resources online (dia.ala .org) to Unidos, a beloved public park. The event Promote your event. We advertise Día jog the thought process. Do you want to is always held on a Sunday because we on our website, on our Facebook page, have storytimes and take-home crafts? know it’s a common day to spend with and through publicity materials, such as Is the focus on book giveaways and home- family. SFPL works with the city to request postcards and posters. Another way to get library building? What kind of entertain- that the street adjacent to the park be the word out is to add your event to the ment will be featured? Over the years closed to traffic. We also request permits National Día Program Registry (bit.ly/ we’ve had DJs, storytellers, musicians, AL-DiaRegistry). dancers, taiko drummers, hula-hoopers, To libraries interested in taking part in and bubble-blowers. Having partners Día, I invite you to join us. Whether your SFPL includes agencies that are varied celebration is big or small, your Día will in scope, such as those that focus on art, helps us with promote a love of literacy. music, science, movement, public services, MARICELA LEON-BARRERA is early learn- and different types of literacies. Though planning, donations, ing coordinator at San Francisco Public we host our celebration in the Mission fundraising, and Library, where she leads programs, partner- District, a neighborhood with strong ties ships, and initiatives focused on children to the Latinx community, we promote the cross-promotion. newborn to age 5.

48 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org PERSPECTIVES

Transform the High School Library Innovative ways to get more students—and staﬀ—engaged with your space

hen I took the role of Start a writing center. I was honored head librarian at a whenever students solicited my advice on public high school five on my writing personal essays, college applica- years ago, I was excited tions, résumés, and informational reports. about the possibilities. mind Consider forming a student-led writing WMy previous experiences at middle and ele- BY Chiquita Toure center. At our school, a literary publica- mentary schools were meaningful, but high tion featuring poetry, prose, opinion, and school was the next level. I saw potential artwork was born from this group. to reach students before they enrolled in longer exists. The school library needs Hold information literacy sessions. postsecondary schools or started vocations. to take on a different role as it caters to Teach students serious search strategies I was pumped to introduce great reads and present-day academic and social needs. and how to dig into noteworthy databases. instill in students a love of research. The reality of low circulation cannot over- Show them how to handle the overload Surely, I thought, students will pour rule the necessity of being a learning hub of information by focusing on research into the library, begging for the latest best- where student meets student, staff member questions, not topics. sellers. Imagine my surprise when one of meets staff member, staff member meets Bring in storytellers. Who says high the first students to enter the library asked, students, and community meets school. schoolers are too old to enjoy a professional “Does anyone ever check books out?” We can become “the place to be” storyteller? Students learn the significance After examining the stats, I found that through transformational thinking. Here of spoken language and ways to honor oral students did not check out very many are some ideas for getting the community history from our cultural bearers. books. During my first nine weeks, only to see the school library differently: Put on music. After purchasing a Blue- 81 books were circulated at a school with Start a virtual book club. Social tooth speaker for the library, I found that a population of more than 800 students. media is second nature to students. playing music—reggae, gospel, jazz, pop, Certainly, students’ academic perfor- Take book club selections and prompts and rap—while students gathered to chat, mance and achievement showed that they online, and encourage all members of play cards, put puzzles together, and study were readers and there was a culture of the school community to participate in a was an effective strategy to get students to reading. It became clear that students were digital discussion. visit more often. reading novels for English classes, essays Host brown-bag lunch workshops. Promote the library to instructors. from professional journals, stories from For example, in my first year I hosted a Market the school library as an open space local newspapers, and New York Times and Women’s History Month–themed event at where educators from different disciplines Wall Street Journal articles assigned by which I invited professional women in the can meet to showcase interactive learning social studies and science teachers. community to speak about their careers and share their course reading. Now I had a dilemma: Do I take on the while students ate lunch in the library. Are we meeting the needs of a new task of promoting titles within the school generation of school library users? As library, or do I conduct a needs assessment models of professional learning, we must to determine how best to use the space for Prioritizing be prepared to take the community to a the entire school community? higher level of engagement. As the year went on, I realized that relationships was the prioritizing relationships with students, CHIQUITA TOURE is school librarian at East- moor Academy in Columbus, Ohio. This is teachers, staff members, administrators, best way to resolve an excerpt from “Not Your Mother’s School and parents was the best way to resolve the issue of an Library: Transformational Thinking and Innova- the issue of an underutilized space. I was tion to Impact Learning for the School Com- reminded that the quiet school library no underutilized space. munity,” Knowledge Quest blog, July 2, 2018.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 49 PERSPECTIVES

Become Future Ready Tips for preparing for change

hen I started at the Stachokas assembles American Library 15 essayists to present Association in 1987, best practices on the I was given a copy of librarian’s delivery of digital Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s library resources. The essays WThe Change Masters: Innovation and Entre- BY Karen Muller primarily concern preneurship in the American Corporation the academic library, (Free Press, 1985) to read because, well, but topics such as change was happening. It was then, it is Starker analyzes issues that are chang- licensing and cost now, it will be tomorrow. New uses for ing libraries, including their historical containment affect libraries of all types. technology drive change, as does the context, the specific challenges each faces, Licensing issues addressed include new extent to which people of all ages, particu- and the range of resources and references uses of the vast bodies of text available for larly younger digital natives, access infor- available to address them. For example, if data mining, accessibility requirements, mation online. a library wishes to help increase its com- and open access. Electronic resources munity’s musical intelligence, what tools management is much more than creating Transforming are required? How could it build a studio access tools; it might encompass evalua- Libraries: A Toolkit for for recording or rehearsals, for example? tion, technical and reference support, and Innovators, Makers, Issues addressed include censorship, promotion of the tools available, which and Seekers, by Ron information literacy, marketing, building calls for teams with diverse skill sets. Starker, begins with design, and implementing the changes to Some of the practical measures presented the premise that move a library forward. EdTechTeam Press, include using LibGuides to enhance the libraries are at a 2017. 306 P. $24.97. PBK. 978-1-945167-30-0. (Also awareness of electronic resources, mea- tipping point in the available as an ebook.) suring usage with statistics, and managing evolutionary process, the discovery services that help library from being book warehouses to serving In Reengineering the Library: Issues in users access the riches. ALA Editions, 2018. as centers for collaboration and learning. Electronic Resources Management, George 336 P. $79. PBK. 978-0-8389-1621-6.

THE BESTSELLERS LIST

TOP 3 IN PRINT 1 | National School 2 | Reference and 3 | Fundamentals of Library Standards Information Services: Collection Development for Learners, School An Introduction, 4th and Management, 4th Librarians, and School edition by Kay Ann Cassell edition by Peggy Johnson Libraries by American and Uma Hiremath Johnson offers complete Association of School Librarians In this book Cassell and Hiremath coverage of different aspects of collec- The Standards enables school librarians provide tools to manage the ebb and tion development and management, with to influence and lead in their schools, flow of changing reference services in numerous suggestions for further reading districts, and states, and to develop plans today’s libraries. and narrative case studies that explore that meet today’s educational landscape. these issues.

50 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org PERSPECTIVES

Starker posits that or small. Project going. She then addresses how to remove the new value of Management in barriers to change, persuade reluctant libraries is their role Libraries: On Time, staff members, and involve the com- as centers for learn- on Budget, on Target, munity. ALA Editions, 2019. 64 P. $19.99. PBK. ing, and Stacho- by Carly Wiggins 978-0-8389-1770-1. kas notes that, in Searcy, provides a academic libraries road map. Using Many guides, apps, at least, electronic formal methodology and paper planners materials are the from the Project are available for most heavily used. Melissa N. Mallon, in Management Institute, Searcy presents enhancing personal The Pivotal Role of Academic Librarians in an iterative model adapted to libraries. productivity, and Digital Learning, focuses on the important She also addresses the skills necessary to the current hot role that librarians play in building a select the proper tracking tool or plan a method is bullet learning environment and demonstrating meeting that will help attendees contrib- journaling. The their value to the institution’s educational ute meaningfully to a project. She breaks Bullet Journal mission. Mallon examines aspects of the out elements of each phase, covering Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, librarian’s job that are most directly part information gathering, deliverables, Design the Future, by Ryder Carroll, of the educational process in academia. budget, and the schedule for the initia- details Carroll’s productivity approach, She explores ways to collaborate with tion stage. ALA Editions, 2019. 136 P. $54.99. PBK. which involves making bulleted lists of faculty to build critical thinking skills 978-0-8389-1719-0. commitments, plans, tasks, and thoughts and integrate digital resources into that can be structured into daily and research processes. She also addresses Future-Proof Your future planners and indexed into a set providing instructional support to Team, by Catherine of collections dedicated to a project or different groups—undergraduates, com- Hakala-Ausperk, activity. The point is to quickly record muter students, distance learners, and is the first in ALA what has been accomplished and what professional-degree students on campus Editions’ new needs to be done. The book also includes only on evenings or weekends. Libraries Leadership Planners sections on goal setting and assessment. Unlimited, 2017. 150 P. $50. PBK. 978-1-4408-5217-6. series of workbooks Penguin Random House, 2018. 320 P. $26. 978-0- (Also available as an ebook.) for structuring a 525-53333-7. (Also available as an ebook.) planning process. Hakala-Ausperk starts

Instituting the changes required for by urging readers to “plan to know what’s KAREN MULLER was librarian and knowl- advancing digital learning requires going on” and moves them through steps edge management specialist for the ALA management, whether the project is large to determine where their team should be Library until her retirement in 2017.

The Top-Selling Books from ALA Publishing (Since January 1, 2019)

TOP 3 IN EBOOKS 1 | Fundamentals of 2 | The Neal-Schuman 3 | New on the Job: Collection Development Library Technology A School Librarian’s and Management, 4th Companion: A Basic Guide to Success, edition by Peggy Johnson Guide for Library Staff, 2nd edition by Hilda Johnson offers complete 5th edition by John J. Burke K. Weisburg and Ruth Toor coverage of different aspects of collec- This primer gives readers a sound and From job search strategies to the details tion development and management, with sensible way to consider, access, and of creating acceptable-use policies, this numerous suggestions for further reading deploy library technologies to better edition shares the joys and perils of the and narrative case studies that explore meet the needs of library users. profession, along with practical advice these issues. from decades of experience.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 51 Total BooX keeps lending costs down by charging only for pages that are read.

by customizing the subjects or publisher catalogs they make available to patrons. The free-to-download Total BooX app is compatible with iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire tablets. There are 80,000 titles available from more than 30 publishers, with new titles added each week, and titles are available to patrons at any time without hold or wait lists. Librarians and users alike can curate “reading shelves” in the app to share recommendations or simply maintain a to-be-read pile. Shelves can be made public or kept private. Total BooX provides monthly reports on title interest and reading habits based on anonymized statis- Ebooks Made Easy tics. The app tracks on- and offline Budget-friendly acquisition models patron reading data, but the company states that it does not share that data with third parties. s patron interest in ebooks The library does not pay for or Setup fees start at $500 and continues to grow, main- maintain ownership of any titles. are based on library size. The fee Ataining a robust digital col- To use Total BooX, libraries includes staff training and market- lection can strain library budgets. allocate a budget and are charged ing, and Total BooX will consult Alternative licensing and access based on reading statistics. Libraries with libraries to determine a lend- models remain one of the best ways pay a percentage of the book’s list ing budget for the platform. There for libraries to control their digital price equal to the percentage read, is no annual platform fee. For more title lending costs, and these com- and pages that are flipped past or information, visit totalboox.com. panies focus on providing right-size quickly browsed through are not fits for libraries and patrons alike. billed. Material that’s been read ProQuest Ebook Central remains on the patron’s device, ProQuest has a long track record Total BooX accessible in their Total BooX of innovative ebook acquisition Total BooX offers patrons unlimited account at any time without further models. It was among the first access to ebooks on its platform and charge to the library. In addition a unique payment model: Libraries to the passive savings of paying pay only for material that’s read, only for material that’s read, whether that means a page or libraries can control costs an entire book. By transferring ownership of the book directly to ProQuest Ebook Central the patron, this model bypasses offers a range of the high prices libraries sometimes acquisition models have to pay for ebook licenses. and DRM-free titles.

52 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org SUBMISSIONS To have a new product considered, contact Carrie Smith at [email protected].

to roll out demand-driven acquisition, allowing libraries to pay DPLA Takes on for only books that are loaned, and it launched an access-to-own Ebook Distribution option in 2016, allowing libraries to apply funds spent on short-term How do you use DPLA USER: Judy Poe, former ebook loans toward their eventual Exchange? We are currently library network manager, purchase. In 2018, ProQuest added testing the DPLA Exchange Yavapai Library Network more than 10,000 digital rights to collect and provide feed- in Prescott, Arizona management (DRM)–free ebooks back on the user experience, from academic publishers to its particularly for collection PRODUCT: DPLA Ebook Central platform. DRM-free development librarians. In Exchange ebooks allow concurrent usage and addition, we are evaluating DETAILS: The DPLA Exchange is an have no print, download, or copy its benefits for the different ebook marketplace hosted by the non- limitations, a particular advantage types of libraries across our profit Digital Public Library of America for patrons in academia. Libraries network. We have discovered (DPLA). It offers popular ebooks and can purchase DRM-free ebooks that using the Exchange is openly licensed titles. through Ebook Central via one of easy—just sign in, browse or three models: title-by-title, sub- choose search parameters, scription, or usage-based. Libraries add selections to the cart, and purchase. still have the option to purchase How does DPLA Exchange serve your library the same titles with standard system’s needs? The Exchange provides us DRM protections. with a platform-fee-free store to purchase Ebook Central includes several materials from a wide variety of publishers. collection management features: Additionally, it supports consortial purchasing, discovery, selection, acquisition, so our 43 member libraries (including academic and analytics. It has the largest libraries and K–12 schools) can acquire mate- selection of any ebook platform rials that are then accessible to all the available to libraries, with more patrons in our network. than 1 million titles from more than 750 publishers. Syndetics Unbound, DPLA Exchange What are the main benefits? The DPLA Exchange is an easy, made available on Ebook Central is a platform- straightforward platform that allows us to order from diverse ven- for Academic Complete subscribers fee-free ebook dors through a simple and easy-to-use interface. With the Exchange, marketplace. in early 2018, introduces interac- we can quickly search and browse for ebooks that appeal to our tive elements to the discovery layer, patrons. It enables our libraries to purchase digital items without a including related titles and tags, platform fee, allowing them to spend more of their funds on mate- plus expanded book information rials. We are excited to be part of this new and innovative paradigm pages with author information and for libraries and to work with a nonprofit organization that shares awards. The platform is available to our libraries’ missions to provide quality resources, rather than with a all types of libraries, including aca- commercial entity focused on profit. demic, public, school, government, What would you like to see improved or added? We hope to see a and corporate. broader selection of ebooks, especially from the Big Five publishers, Subscribers to ProQuest’s ebook added to the Exchange, so it offers a more competitive selection of collections receive free access to popular titles. In addition, we’d like to see audiobooks made avail- Ebook Central. Those without able. Finally, we’d particularly like to have a clearer ability to see active subscriptions pay a usage fee what has been ordered by other members of our consortium, and based on the amount spent on the more searchable metadata made available (such as series informa- platform. More information is avail- tion). Librarians always want more metadata! able at bit.ly/SolEbookCentral. •

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 53 Portage County (Ohio) District Library ON THE MOVE appointed Jonathan Harris director, effective December 3. Cranston (R.I.) Public Library appointed Victoria Ames Hart became director of December 12 Melanie Huggins, Martha Boksenbaum library services at Northeast Lakeview executive director of Richland as youth services College in San Antonio in December. Library in Columbia, South Car- librarian at its Auburn olina, received One Columbia OhioNET named Nancy S. Kirkpatrick branch in November. Arts and History’s 2018 Stephen executive director and CEO in January. G. Morrison Visionary Award, October 16 William Burchfield joined November 29 Natalie recognizing Columbians who the Kentucky Historical Society in McDonough started as support the growth and vitality Frankfort as cataloging librarian. library development spe- of the city. • cialist at the New York The University of North State Library Division of Carolina at Greensboro Library Development. Libraries appointed North Carolina State University in Brynne Norton joined Montgomery Col- Deborah Yun Caldwell Raleigh promoted Greg Raschke to lege Library in Rockville, Maryland, as as 2018–2020 diversity senior vice provost and director of access services associate director resident in December. libraries December 1. in October. Craig Scott was promoted to director of Will Dean became research and data Prince George’s County (Md.) Memorial Gadsen (Ala.) Public Library November 2. services librarian at Temple University’s Library appointed Roberta Phillips as Ginsburg Health Sciences Library in chief executive officer in January. Philadelphia in October. January 1 Tanya Sinclair Veronda J. Pitchford joined the Califa was promoted to chief engagement officer at Jina DuVernay began library membership consortium in Pickering (Ont.) Public a two-year fellowship San Francisco as assistant director Library. as visiting archivist in November. of African-American November 13 Alan Price became direc- In September Lisa Radha Weaver was collections at Emory tor of the John F. Kennedy Presidential promoted to director of collections University’s Stuart Library and Museum in Boston. and program development at Hamilton A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare (Ont.) Public Library. Book Library in Atlanta January 22.

PROMOTIONS East Baton Rouge (La.) Parish Library RETIREMENTS named Kristen Edson deputy director Arlington Heights (Ill.) Memorial Library in November. promoted Mike Driskell to executive Barb Angelone retired as head of circu- director November 20. lation services at Cranston (R.I.) Public In October Lauri Fennell joined Temple Library January 2. University in Philadelphia as public Brooklyn (N.Y.) Public Library promoted health and social sciences librarian in Nicholas Higgins to chief librarian Octo- Linda Archetto, head of teen services the Learning and Research Services ber 29. at Cranston (R.I.) Public Library, retired January 2. Business, Social Sciences, and Educa- Brown University in Providence, Rhode tion unit. Island, promoted Joseph Meisel to David Bosca retired in December as Joukowsky Family University Librarian library director at South University in Cranston (R.I.) Public October 29. West Palm Beach, Florida. Library appointed Christine Hall as Boca Raton (Fla.) Public Library pro- Michael P. Butler retired as executive cataloging and reference moted Ellen Randolph to manager of director and CEO of OhioNET in Colum- librarian in December. library services in December. bus January 2.

54 March/April 2019 | americanlibrariesmagazine.org SUBMISSIONS Send notices and photographs to Amy Carlton, [email protected].

MORE ONLINE americanlibrariesmagazine.org/currents

In November Kathleen Citro retired as director of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Hunt Library in Daytona Beach, Florida. L. H. Werner Fajardo, 92, who held several positions at University of Califor- Joanne Lovejoy, library assistant at nia, Santa Barbara Library for more than 20 years, including supervision in cat- Cranston (R.I.) Public Library, retired aloging, special collections, and bibliographic searching, died in August. Fajardo November 9. was active in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institu- tions and the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials. Cecilia Swanson retired as director of Portage County (Ohio) District Library Helen Mae Mullen, 91, a librarian at the Free Library of Philadelphia for November 30. 44 years, died December 2. Mullen began her career as a children’s librarian and progressed to coordinator of the Office of Work with Children, becom- Sarah E. Thomas retired as vice president of Har- ing the first African-American woman to head a department at the library. vard Library and Roy She served as 1981–1982 president of the Association of Library Service to E. Larsen Librarian of Children and received the Public Library Association’s Allie Beth Martin Award the Faculty of Arts and in 1992, the Pennsylvania Library Association’s Distinguished Service Award Sciences in Cambridge, in 1994, and outstanding alumni awards from both Hastings College and Massachusetts, Decem- Syracuse University. ber 31. Carlton C. Rochell, 85, dean of New York University Libraries until his 1999 Jonalyn Woolf-Ivory retired as exec- retirement, died December 23. As dean, he launched the first minicomputer- utive director of Sno-Isle Libraries in based online catalog in the country; incorporated the Courant Institute, Marysville, Washington, in December. Business and Real Estate Institute Libraries, and the NYU Archives; founded the Wagner Labor Archives; launched the Elmer H. Bobst Awards for Arts and Letters; brought the NYU Press under the management of the libraries; and AT ALA integrated campus media and video production services. He served as chair- man of the board of the Research Libraries Group, on the board of the Associa- Crystal Carrazco returned to ALA as tion of Research Libraries, and on ALA Council. He led the New York delegation membership communications specialist to the White House Conference on Libraries in 1979, was a member of the New in December. York State Governor’s Commission on Libraries, and was chair of the New York November 19 American Libraries pro- Regents Advisory Council on Libraries. Prior to joining NYU, Rochell was direc- moted Terra Dankowski to managing tor of Atlanta Public Library from 1968–1976, and in the early 1960s, worked editor. to integrate city libraries in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Anniston, Alabama.

ALA Staff Support Services promoted Kay Webster, 61, coordinator of youth services for 38 years at Greene County Valeria Edwards-Newman to office (Ohio) Public Library, died November 27. Webster was instrumental in the manager in December. library’s decision to reinstate its bookmobile in 2001. • December 28 Lois Ann Gregory-Wood retired as Council secretariat after 50 years with ALA. Trish McFadden joined United for Kara O’Keefe, Public Library Associa- ALSC Awards Coordinator Courtney Libraries as program coordinator tion manager for marketing and mem- Jones left ALA January 4. December 10. bership, left January 4.

January 14 Earla J. Jones joined ALA The Association for Library Service Veronica Perez, production editor and as director of conference service to Children appointed Anne Michaud graphic designer in Production Services, operations. full-time program coordinator Decem- left ALA December 13. ber 3. The ALA Development Office named Don Wood retired as program officer in Anne Manly assistant director, corporate Phil Morehart was promoted to senior ALA’s Chapter Relations Office Decem- and foundation relations, December 10. editor of American Libraries September 1. ber 28.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org | March/April 2019 55 the BOOKEND

An Archive of Ice and Fire n George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series and its TV adaptation, Game of Thrones, a massive barrier of ice and rock known as the Wall protects the ISeven Kingdoms from threats from the north. “The Wall” at Texas A&M University’s Cushing Memorial Library and Archives isn’t hundreds of feet high like its fictional counterpart, but it is imposing. Nicknamed by library staffers, it’s an area in the library that holds Martin’s personal collection of ephemera spanning his career. Martin’s relationship with Texas A&M began in the 1970s, when he first visited Aggie Con, a science fiction and fantasy convention held at the university, says Jeremy Brett (right), curator of the library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection. In 1993, Martin began shipping items to the archives, which now include more than 50,000 pieces. The collection contains replicas of swords used by Game of Thrones charac- ters, which are on permanent display because they are “incredibly popular,” says Brett. The collection also includes short stories, correspondence, personal papers, and items from his time working on the TV adaptation of Beauty and the Beast in the 1980s, but the Game of Thrones items are the most sought after, according to Brett. Patrons can request to view book drafts, shooting scripts, board-game prototypes, and figurines. Lucky patrons may even catch a glimpse of Martin himself. “He’s been here a couple times,” says Brett, who recounts a gift Martin gave the library during his last visit. “He donated his first edition of The Hobbit. He’s the American Tolkien, so that was very fitting.”

THE BOOKEND showcases librarians, their work, and their work spaces. For consideration, please send press material to [email protected]. Photo: Texas A&M University Libraries A&M University Texas Photo:

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