Industry News

In the face of the government shutdown that has seen EBSCO offer free access to its version of the ERIC database, Oxford University Press announced that it will offer complimentary access to three reference databases of its own. For the next two weeks, Oxford Reference, American National Biography Online, and Social Explorer will be free to access and explore online.

Interest is the engine of intellectual achievement—it’s what drives us to keep learning, keep trying. But how does one generate it in oneself or others? Expanding on her keynote message at the SLJ summit, author Annie Murphy Paul offers three practical ways to use information gaps to stimulate curiosity.

The very limitations of the book are its strengths, according to journalist and author Annie Murphy Paul, speaking at School Library Journal’s 2013 Leadership Summit in Austin, TX.

How Washington State teacher librarians redefined their roles, organized, and created an outstanding advocacy model for all.

Although the U.S. federal shutdown means many important government websites—such as those for the Library of Congress and NASA—have gone completely dark this week, the nonprofit Internet Archive is making those sites available to the public through archived captures, the organization has announced on its blog.

Rebecca Newland, librarian at Kemps Landing Magnet School in Virginia Beach, VA, has been selected as the Library of Congress (LOC) Teacher-in-Residence for 2013–2014. Newland began her work at the library in August and—except for the government shutdown—she is looking forward during her appointment to planning and facilitating workshops for teacher/librarian pairs on using LOC primary sources with students, she tells School Library Journal.

School librarian leaders from across the country made their way to the Austin, TX, aka the “Live Music Capital of the World,” on September 28–29 to attend SLJ’s annual Leadership Summit, where they discussed the future of libraries and how partnership is a necessary ingredient for stakeholder success. Throughout the weekend, participants—speakers, sponsors, panelists, and attendees—honed their conversations around the transformative power of collaboration.

Impassioned, creative, dynamic, evolving and cool—these are just some of the words that the sponsors of SLJ’s annual Leadership Summit used to describe their companies’ latest developments. Joyce Valenza, SLJ blogger and teacher librarian, lead a panel discussion with the companies to examine the relationships between vendors and schools, the importance of strong content, and the ways that vendors can help educators in support of the Common Core.

Political writer Ben Joravsky editorializes in a recent Chicago Reader column on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plans for schools in the face of budget cuts that have gutted school libraries. “It’s not quite clear what Mayor Emanuel has against libraries,” Joravsky says, advising the mayor to “stop holding press conferences in school libraries that have no librarians because of your massive budget cuts.”