Articles

Serving the Vision Impaired
Recently, I visited the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library (http://www.wtbbl.org/) in Seattle, where the books talk.Library director Gloria Leonard filled me in on the history of this special library. It opened around 1906 at the Seattle Public Library, then located on Fourth Avenue. As the story goes, a library employee wanted to supply Braille materials to the entire state, and by 1907 about a hundred Braille-embossed books were circulating by mail.Then, in 1931, the Pratt-Smoot Act established the National Library Service (NLS) within the U.S. Library of Congress, and nineteen libraries across the country – including Seattle Public – signed up to distribute Braille materials. Today, there are fifty-seven regional libraries across the United States. READ MORE
65 Reasons to Love Your Library
The 65 Reasons to Love Your Library tool kit (PDF) was developed by the Texas Library Association Public Relations Committee,  under the leadership of Sue Haas, committee chair, 2003-2005, and Dee Brock, committee chair, 2005-2006. Texas libraries use it to develop local promotional campaigns. The elements of the 65 Reasons tool kit can be adapted to fit your library and your needs. READ MORE
Grassroots Group Rally for SKILLs Act
Characterizing school library media specialists as “an endangered species,” Washington State Sen. Tracey J. Eide (D-Federal Way) introduced a bill January 22 that codifies through a per-pupil formula how many credentialed school library media specialists should be employed by each district and offers some $55 million to fund the initiative. Its aim of guaranteeing the presence in school libraries of certificated staff echoes the language of the federal SKILLs (Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries) Act, introduced in June 2007 as an unfunded amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act and scheduled for Senate committee review in February. READ MORE
Grassroots Group Grows School Library Support in Washington State
More than 100 people gathered in the rain at the state capitol steps in Olympia, Washington, February 1 to rally for school libraries (above), despite cold winds and a storm in the eastern half of the state that prevented many from attending, and which later caused Governor Christine Gregoire to declare a state of emergency for 15 counties. The rally and an all-day summit were the culmination of the work of a group of concerned Spokane mothers.The effort began last spring when Lisa Layera Brunkan, Denette Hill, and Susan McBurney, enraged at the cuts to school library media programs in Washington and determined to strengthen them statewide, began a grassroots movement to combat their school board’s decision to close part of a $10.8-million deficit by halving the hours of the 10 full-time, K-8 teacher librarians still employed by Washington’s second-largest district. READ MORE
It Took a Community To Build This Library
The award was the 2007 Thompson Gale Giant Step Award, a $10,000 award to libraries who provide unusually beneficial services to their community or school. As the co-winner of the award, splitting the honor and money with a New York school, the Fort Washakie School in Wyoming was chosen as the recipient because of its efforts to make the library not only a school affair, but a community one too. READ MORE
Booklist Editors Read for Fun 2007
American Libraries Associate Editor Dan Kraus talked to seven editor-reviewers for Booklist Magazine about the books they read in their spare time in 2007. Learn one editor's excuse for not reading Harry Potter, how another found cheer in "an intrusive and lying government, torture, and nuclear experiments," and the treasure a third found in Montana READ MORE
The Civil Rights Movement: Sites for Students and Researchers
The Supreme Court's Brown versus Board of Education decision turned 50 in 2004. Over the next several years, many of the perennially popular research topics of the Civil Rights Movement will celebrate equally momentous anniversaries. Media attention and scholarly interest increase with each significant anniversary.Fortunately for librarians and researchers, the events, people, and places of the Civil Rights Movement are well represented online. Web sites include an excellent array of primary source materials, including papers, laws, photographs, oral histories, and speeches. These digitized collections will interest researchers of any age group or scholastic level. The digital files offer a great opportunity to listen to Martin Luther King's most galvanizing speeches in his own voice, to read Malcolm X's letters to his mother, and to look at photographs of the freedom riders. In addition to primary source documents, many federal sites provide in-depth data, history and government documents from the Civil Rights Movement. The museums dedicated to civil rights provide outstanding study guides, biographical information, and photographs online. READ MORE
Sunshine Week: Your Right to Know
 >Download Sunshine Week poster (.pdf format).What Is Sunshine Week? READ MORE
Booklist Editors' Choice: 2007
Every year, the editors of Booklist magazine prepare a set of Editors' Choice lists. These lists contain dozens of great reads representative of the year's most outstanding books. Books included on these lists balance popular appeal with intellectual, literary, and aesthetic excellence. READ MORE
Welcoming Libraries: How Communities’ Favorite Public Institutions Are Settling New Immigrants
If you’re listening to the presidential debates, you know immigration continues to be a hot issue in America. Foreign-born residents now constitute nearly 13% of the American population, a rate not seen since 1910. A new report from the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) entitled “Welcome, Stranger: Public Libraries Build the Global Village” reports on trends for the spread of immigration into new cities, and the role public libraries play in welcoming and settling new residents READ MORE

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