Industry News

The National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Street Workshop have created the Aprendiendo Juntos (“Learning Together) Council (AJC) to identify models and practical strategies to improve digital literacy for Hispanic-Latino families. AJC plans to use the findings to influence public and private sector investments in effective programs for the community on a regional and national scale.

Emily Gover and Caity Selleck, information literacy librarians and content developers for EasyBib and its new platform, ResearchReady, posit that libraries should stay open later hours in order to serve students' research needs.

Findaway World launches the Playaway Bookpack program, which features preloaded audiobooks and their print versions. There are currently more than 200 titles available for preschool through young adult readers. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is now accepting nominations for the 2014 National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The National Book Foundation’s Up All Night online exhibit showcases National Book Award Winners and Finalists in Young People’s Literature. Educators interested in integrating educational games into the K-12 curriculum are invited to attend a one-day workshop on August 19 during the Serious Play Conference.

Are there lessons to be learned from those perennial state assignments? On a road trip, Marc Aronson reconsiders his position.

Uma Krishnaswami’s charming novels will have young readers tap-tap-tapping their toes as the colors and music of Bollywood dance through these madcap middle grade romps, and now five lucky people can win her two books featuring Dini, Maddie, and Dolly–The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, and The Problem with Being Slightly Heroic.

There was a spirit of optimism among attendees at the 2013 annual American Library Association (ALA) conference held recently in Chicago, especially among school media specialists and youth services librarians. Members of ALA’s three youth divisions were particularly energized and motivated by the dynamic programming and renewed advocacy efforts, they say.

The 2013 American Library Association (ALA) annual conference in Chicago has come and gone, but the buzz is still with us from all that we saw, shared, and experienced of the exhibits, panels, committee meetings, and many special events with authors and colleagues. Out of all the memorable moments, following are the top ten sights from the event from Rocco Staino, SLJ contributing editor.

Ingrid Abrams, children’s and teen librarian at Brooklyn Public Library in NYC and Natalie V. Binder, a systems librarian at the Jefferson County R.J. Bailar Public Library in Monticello, FL, teamed up virtually to create Libraries Changed My Life (LCML), a patron-driven Tumblr initiative, in direct response to Michael Rosenblum’s article “What’s a Library?”, which was published in the Huffington Post this past May.

In celebration of its 25th Anniversary of children’s publishing, Chronicle Books hosted a cocktail reception at the American Library Association Annual conference that included a raffle of original artwork inspired by the company's spectacles logo. The pieces were created by many award-winning and bestselling illustrators, including Tom Lichtenheld, who presented the prize to winner and children's literature professor, Susannah Richards.