Industry News

Here’s a brief update on the all-digital, bookless library system now under construction in Bexar County, Texas (San Antoni0) that infoDOCKET and many others first posted about in early January. From the San Antonio Express-News: Construction is underway on the system’s 5,000-square-foot base of operations at 3505 Pleasanton Road. County Judge Nelson Wolff, Precinct 1 Commissioner Sergio [...]

SLJ is giving away 25 author-signed copies of the latest book in the format-bending “Infinity Ring” series (Scholastic). Written by Matt de la Peña, the middle grade novel Curse of the Ancients continues the adventures of Dak, Sera, and Riq, who are on a quest to set history back on course by traveling to different cataclysmic events in time. Leave comment to enter.

The live webcast along with a live is scheduled for April 18, 2013 at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific. It’s being organized by Connected Learning. Blurb An in-depth look at YOUmedia’s strengths as a space for connected learning, and broader considerations for application in other environments. Speaker Info Penny Bender Sebring is a founding co-director of the [...]

From Madison.com/Wisconsin State Journal: Wisconsin public schools have received $30.1 million from a state trust fund to help purchase materials for their libraries. School districts can spend the money awarded Monday on books, newspapers, periodicals, and some digital materials. A state trust fund set by the constitution uses loan interests generated on public lands to [...]

When word came out that Amazon was pulling social network Goodreads into its acquisitional tractor beam, reaction seemed to fall into one of two categories... Travis Jonker, a librarian who blogs at 100 Scope Notes, falls somewhere in between.

In honor of National Poetry Month, acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye—whose anthology This Same Sky (Simon & Schuster, 1993) continues to be used in both college and fifth grade classrooms—offers us five of her “very favorite lovingly-used poetry collections.”

The International Society for Technology in Education has initiated an online petition urging the White House to take action to invest in school broadband connectivity to bridge the digital divide in education.

Media specialists, teachers, and principals in public and private K–12 schools are invited to submit their collaboration success stories for an opportunity to win the 2013 Gale/LMC TEAMS Award which recognizes the critical collaboration of teachers and librarians to “promote learning and achievement.”

“The power of books is profound, but power does start in the children’s room. When we connect children with books...we are introducing them to the world,” says Pam Sandlian Smith, director of Colorado’s Anythink Libraries and opening keynote speaker at our first Public Library Leadership Think Tank on Friday. Among the day’s emerging themes: dreaming big, collaboration, innovation, creating community, and believing in the power of kids (and kids’ librarians) to change the world.