By Gwen Vanderhage, MLIS Recently, I sat down with a group of Collection Development librarians to talk about pressing issues in their work. All of them have been spending a great deal of time and energy examining the diversity of their collections, or performing diversity audits. (If you are unfamiliar with diversity audits, there have been many articles and webinars from ALA, Library Journal, and School Library Journal on the subject. Check out some sources below.) One of the concerns they brought up was that once a team has gone through all the work to balance the collection and purchase ..read more

By Gwen Vanderhage, MLIS Children’s books have always served as both entertainment and education. Whether characters are transported to a joust during King Arthur’s rule, exploring the Arctic, or experiencing the unique solutions offered by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, there are sprinkles of history, science, and social skills throughout most stories. Picture books for the youngest have especially focused on making friends, sharing, and gaining mastery over emotions. Over the last several years, school districts in 29 states have adopted Social Emotional Learning standards as part of their curricula ..read more

By Gwen Vanderhage, MLIS Just kidding… It’s true, though, that libraries of all kinds have gotten into the social media game, particularly during the period of COVID-19 closures. Your library may have had a Twitter or Facebook account for years. Most public libraries have at least a small presence on these platforms for sharing information about press releases and library events. While many libraries were previously only using them for marketing, during the pandemic Facebook became one of the platforms for hosting virtual events. Storytime, genealogy presentations, summer reading program perf ..read more

By Suzanne Hawley, MLS Did you realize that there have been over 400 titles selected as Newbery honors and winners since the medal was established in 1922? Remarkable, isn’t it? According to information from the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), the award’s “terms, as well as its long history, continue to make it the best known and most discussed children’s book award in this country.” Newbery medal winners and honors are chosen annually. Frederic Melcher, the founder of the Newbery, had one request for the decision-makers: the process of selecting the books must rema ..read more

By Kat Kan, MLS Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month is observed every May. This year, I felt it was more important than ever to celebrate and uphold our cultures in the face of overt racism and actual physical attacks upon people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent, which occurred throughout 2020 and have continued into 2021. Specifically, I want to focus on the positive impact AAPI comics creators have made with the books they’ve published. When I started thinking about AAPI contributors to the world of comics, a flood of names came quickly to my mind: Stan Sakai, Gene Lu ..read more

Recently, Vishma Bhattarai submitted the following question to Librarian to Librarian: “How do you think about the significance/value/importance or anything else of SR Ranganathan’s five laws of library science during these days?” Source: Pinterest.com Brodart’s Scott Piepenburg, who wrote an article about the five laws, responded: “As a cataloger, I still use these principles when I teach. As of late, there have been many efforts to ‘update’ the five laws to say ‘resource’ rather than ‘book’ and reflect other more modern trends, but when it comes to access and the philosophy of collection ..read more

By Kat Kan, MLS The word “resiliency” can refer to emotional resilience, mental resilience, or physical resilience. A school counselor at my local school district said that students who have good resilience are better able to handle emotional stresses, environmental stresses (in our area, we suffered from a Category 5 hurricane in October 2018), and all the problems so many have faced with COVID-19—not to mention poverty, food insecurity, racism, and many other problems. When I was young, I dealt a lot with feelings of being an outsider. I’m mixed Japanese/White, and I didn’t feel that I belon ..read more

Source: Christina Kochi Hernandez/Getty Images By Suzanne W. Hawley, MLS I sighed sadly when I read of Beverly Cleary’s death on March 25. Those of us who work with children’s books revered her as an iconic figure in our field. She lived a long and full life, but I guess I thought she would always be with us. Still, 104 years isn’t bad! Cleary often spoke about the original inspiration for her first novel, “Henry Huggins,” which was published in 1950. After college at UC Berkeley, she returned to her childhood home of Oregon to work as a librarian in Yakima. Tired of hearing her young patrons ..read more

As librarians, we all know on a base level that we’re making a difference, that our work is important. But too often, we lose sight of the key moments that fill us with joy, each true connection quickly overshadowed by the next project on our list. Our librarians are excited to share the personal memories they turn to for that extra boost of inspiration. Julie O’Connor: “Cutting the Ribbon” It’s difficult to pinpoint the most rewarding experience I’ve had as a librarian since my job is to help libraries with their collection development needs on a daily basis. It’s gratifying to help solv ..read more

Meghan Herman graduated in 2018 from Penn College of Technology with a B.S. degree in Industrial Design. However, being the daughter of a Brodart executive (Gretchen Herman is Brodart’s Vice President of Product Development), she grew up having a close familiarity with the library industry. It was no great surprise, then, that Meghan decided to pursue her Master of Science in Information and Library Science (MSLS) degree from Clarion University. Not only is she currently studying diligently to become a librarian, she also works full time in Brodart’s Collection Development department ..read more