Many of the topics that came up at the 2024 American Library Association (ALA) LibLearnX conference, held in Baltimore January 19–22, were not surprising to anyone following library issues. People talked about the ongoing and increasing number of book challenges and how to handle them, the opportunities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence (AI), and how to diversify a field whose demographics remain stubbornly flat, to name a few.
Willa Liburd Tavernier, research impact and open scholarship librarian at the Herman B. Wells Library at Indiana University–Bloomington, was named a 2023 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her work facilitating open educational resources and the development of open pedagogy projects. We recently spoke with Tavernier to find out more about these projects and what’s next for her.
Self-help was already one of the fastest-growing nonfiction categories in the 2010s, according to NPD Group. Then came the global pandemic in 2020, with its social isolation, a host of novel stressors, and information overload, triggering stress, anxiety, and all manner of mental health disorders.
The National Book Critics Circle Awards finalists and the nominees for the NAACP Image Awards are announced. Mimi Khalvati is awarded Britain’s King’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Bernie McGill wins the Edge Hill Short Story Prize for her collection This Train Is For. The Bookseller reports that BookTok has remained a key driver of fiction sales.
The mysterious intricacies of the brain, a groundbreaking architect of rock and roll, and a no-holds-barred history of YouTube are among the subjects of this month’s must-see documentaries.
This database project offers free, comprehensive, unprecedented access to three decades of material about Asian Pacific American history, culture, politics, and news, all published in AsianWeek.
An 1800s Icelandic mission, class resentments and crime, and a hit man in Mussolini’s Italy feature in this month’s can’t-miss foreign and indie films.
“What stood out from those conversations was that the reason they’d done a particular project through open access was so the communities they were studying could have access to it. Some of those were remote communities, and some were in countries where access to knowledge is highly restricted by the government, not just by commercial forces or paywalls.”
Lots to look forward to with these forthcoming DVDs and Blu-rays, including the gritty classic noir that inspired Dragnet and legendary Australian criminal Mark “Chopper” Read’s outsized autobiography.
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas leads holds this week. Four LibraryReads and five Indie Next picks publish this week. People’s book of the week is Come and Get It by Kiley Reid, which garners buzz and reviews. The CALIBA Golden Poppy Awards are announced. Scotland’s Highland Book Prize shortlist is announced. Whoopi Goldberg announces a new memoir, due out in May.
British graphic novelist Posy Simmonds wins the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. The shortlist for the Gordon Burn Prize is announced. The longlist for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers, aged 39 or under, is released. Plus, new title best sellers.
These novels span multiple genres and offer bookish delights as they capture the joy of reading, the allure of bookstore and library settings, and the power of books to connect people.
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, by Izzy Wasserstein, is a starred SFF title. "Recommended for SF readers who love a good mystery, can’t resist a queer romance, and adore seeing a corporate conspiracy unraveled and undone." In law and crime, The Waltham Murders: One Woman’s Pursuit To Expose the Truth Behind a Murder and a National Tragedy, by Susan Clare Zalkind, is a starred selection. "Readers will be able to visualize Zalkind’s murder board as they take in her meticulous, intriguing summation of her years of research. This is an eloquent book that is part true-crime deep dive and part memoir. It’s a definitive resource on a crime that, while officially unsolved, appears to be littered with conspiracies, corruption, and poor decisions." And Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! is a starred fiction selection. "Akbar delivers a delirious but moving portrait of one man’s personal reckoning, the novel’s profound affection for life fully earning its title’s bold exclamation."
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