Two days after the 2024 election, public library leaders from across the nation gathered at Richland Library in Columbia, SC, for Library Journal’s annual Directors’ Summit. This year’s program explored the ways public libraries are called upon to respond to complex community challenges and opportunities. From housing insecurity to low literacy rates to political polarization, public libraries are often part of solutions to address the very issues that impact the livability and resiliency of their communities. Together, library leaders sought answers to questions about the role libraries are uniquely positioned to play, where efforts can be best directed to support diverse community needs, and defining a library leadership agenda.
As LJ approaches its 150th year helping librarians curate collections, we offer modern reviews of titles published decades and centuries ago. These reviews highlight iconic works and provide professional assessments of classics that have appeared on banned-book lists.
We have now passed the point of no return: We have not acted fast enough to slow the increasing frequency and severity of the impacts of the climate emergency in our lifetime. Even if we were to do everything “right,” climate scientists predict we have at least 30 more years of increasingly dire impacts from climate change. We now find ourselves facing this reality with an incoming administration that has already declared plans to roll back environmental protections that would have helped us do things “right” for future generations. So, what now?
Chartered by President Abraham Lincoln in 1864, Gallaudet University, in Washington, DC, holds the distinction of being the only bilingual university for Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and other Deaf Disabled students in the world. Consequently, it has the world’s largest archives of materials related to deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, with a mission to preserve “the institutional memory of the University and historic material from the global Deaf community,” according to the Gallaudet website.
“Self-help had a bad rap in the past,” says Olivia Peitsch, marketing manager at Baker Publishing Group. “But a new generation is coming into the reading space, and self-help is becoming more widely accepted. It isn’t considered gimmicky anymore; it’s bravery.”
The SLJ reviews editors rounded up our reviews of the books lauded at the 2025 Youth Media Awards. Here, the reviews of the Newbery Medal and Honors winners. Check out additional Youth Media Awards coverage at slj.com.
A recent addition to Bloomsbury’s Visual Arts Hub, Bloomsbury Art Markets is the first resource of its kind to offer unprecedented access to scholarly, peer-reviewed materials centered on art galleries, auction houses, art fairs, dealers, and pivotal figures in the art world in Europe and North America from 1900 to the present.
“Don’t trust the sanitized versions of history…We’ve got to get to the roots,” writes rapper Chuck D in the foreword to The Transatlantic Slave Trade, a new title from SelectBooks highlighted in this feature. That viewpoint is the guiding compass behind new Black history books on publishers’ lists for spring 2025.
EBSCO’s LitBase offers students and researchers a new option for literary research, supporting full-text access to over 600 current literary journals, more than 425,000 primary sources, 100,000 secondary sources, and hundreds of full-text scholarly journals and magazines.
“Redemptive, heartrending, and emotionally powerful, this finely crafted, deeply observant novel is among the treasures of 19th-century British fiction.
The RUSA Book and Media Awards are announced, including the Notable Books List, Reading List, Listen List, Essential Cookbooks, Dartmouth Medal, and Outstanding References Sources List. Percival Everett’s James and Kevin Fedarko’s A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon win Andrew Carnegie Medals. Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz by József Debreczeni is awarded the Sophie Brody Medal. The Crash by Freida McFadden leads holds this week.
The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize are revealed. Mick Herron wins the Crime Writers Association Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement. Novelists are wondering if their careers will survive without BookTok. Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a strategic partnership with OpenAI. Plus, Page to Screen and new spring titles from Martha Stewart, Jeremy Renner, and the Dalai Lama.
The Edgar Award nominees and Audie Awards finalists are revealed. USA Today launches its Winter Book Challenge, a bingo card full of book categories, to help readers stretch and track their reading goals. Christian rom-coms are flourishing. Plus, new title bestsellers.
Ayelet Tsabari wins the Association of Jewish Libraries Jewish Fiction Award for her novel Songs for the Brokenhearted. Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced her forthcoming memoir, A Different Kind of Power, which arrives in June. Vanessa Bryant will publish Mamba & Mambacita Forever in August. Also buzzing are memoirs from Rick Astley, Neko Case, Keeonna Harris, and Lola Kirke.
The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Ron Currie, is a starred mystery. "Fans of Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, as well as readers who appreciate their crime fiction served straight up with no chaser, will be mesmerized by Currie’s latest." The Portable Feminist Reader, edited by Roxane Gay, is a starred social sciences title. "Worth picking up for Gay’s introspective yet inclusive introduction alone, this new collection provides accessible entry points into feminism and offers even advanced scholars new ways of viewing the complex, intersectional histories of feminist thought, literature, and action." And Yvonnick Denoël's Vatican Spies: From the Second World War to Pope Francis is a starred religion & spirituality selection. "Incorporating findings from recently released research and documents, this book reads like a fascinating thriller."
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