Industry News

A library branch in Park Slope, Brooklyn, boasts a fleet of iPads, but some local parents aren't all that enthused. For his three-year-old, parent Josh Skaller says, "there's an immense opportunity to discover new things to read, and anything that's pulling her away from that gets in the way of the purpose of the trip to the library."

“March Madness” has taken on a secondary meaning in rural Pollok, TX, where 423 high school students have been closely watching, rooting for, and predicting the winners of a unique elimination contest this month—not basketball, but books. Under the direction of Donna Steel Cook, district library director and high school teacher-librarian, Pollok’s Central High School has incorporated our fifth annual Battle of the Kids’ Books contest into an engaging program to support reading.

Girls Write Now, a nonprofit organization that mentors budding female writers, opened its CHAPTERS Reading series with Sesame Street's 'Maria' and YA author Sonia Manzano as the first guest speaker. The ongoing 4-part event will showcase the works of teen girls from all over NYC, and will feature female authors like Gayle Forman, Adele Griffin, and Marcia Ann Gillespie.

Nearly fifty authors gathered last week for the fifth annual NYC Teen Author Festival. The brainchild of author and Scholastic editor David Levithan, the festival includes author appearances and discussion panels at libraries, schools, and bookstores all around the city.

Long Island (NY) school librarian and tireless school library advocate eva efron died March 20 at the Tuttle Center in Port Washington, NY, following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 66. At the time of her death, efron—who spelled her name in lower case—was a candidate for supervisor section representative to the American Association of School Librarians executive board, and was serving as chair of the AASL supervisors section.

Students at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School will participate in a 3-D scanning of Mission Santa Ines, part of the “El Camino Real” project to scan all of California’s 21 Spanish missions, four presidios and three pueblos over the next two to three years.

Students at the Bankstreet School discuss diversity and book covers with editors from Knopf; author Elizabeth Eulberg reunites with a fan at TEDXTeen.

Justin Hoenke, Portland Public Library’s very first teen services librarian, has had a super productive few years, with even bigger plans on the horizon. In this first of a dozen interviews with the youth services librarians named as 2013 Library Journal Mover & Shakers, we explore in more detail what makes Hoenke tick—his inspirations, his passions, and his vision for the future of teen services.

SLJ's very own version of March Madness, our fifth annual Battle of the Kids’ Books (BOB) elimination contest between 16 of 2012’s best children’s and teens’ fiction and nonfiction books, kicked off on March 12 and has been going strong for eight consecutive matches. Here's an update on which titles will advance to Round Two.