Industry News

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.

Note: At the bottom of this post, after today’s DPLA news, make sure to look at a brief overview of the Smithsonian Collections Database. This searchable and browsable resource comes direct from the SI and is available today (free).  From the DPLA Announcement: The Smithsonian Institution will join with the Digital Public Library of America [...]

Author and illustrator Tomie dePaola's exuberance and unrestrained creativity were evident this week as he joined Pratt Institute for an evening modeled after Inside the Actors Studio to discuss with moderator Pat Cummings his artistic process, his childhood, and his most notable works.

Get ready for a busy April with National Bookmobile Day, author/illustrator Patricia Polacco discussing bullying via Skype, and the deadline for submission for the Library of Congress’s new Literacy Awards. Check out these stories and more in News Bites.