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Welcome to Check Your Shelf! This is your guide to help librarians like you up your game when it comes to doing your job (& rocking it).
This newsletter is brought to you from the great city of Nashville! I got down here in one piece, and I’m not moving from my hotel room until tomorrow morning. Let’s do this!
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
- Tennessee state legislators have put forth a proposed bill that would require a parental oversight committee to make decisions about what types of material are sexually inappropriate for children in public libraries. We all know this is a terrible idea, right?
- The Tennessee Library Association and ALA release statements about Tennessee’s proposed parental oversight bill.
- Southern California libraries have difficulties finding books in the languages of their patrons.
Cool Library Updates
- The Grand Area (NE) Public Library is hosting a series of job seeking programs to help people learn new workplace skills.
- Paula Pridgen, a marathon runner racing at the Olympic trials, said that she learned how to do long distance running from library books!
- This Little Free Library in Philadelphia is stocked with yarn rather than books.
- The Seattle Public Library’s most checked-out books.
- Check out these awesome book bikes in Afghanistan!
Worth Reading
- Compassion fatigue can take its toll on librarians.
- After the recent death of a security guard, libraries look at the balance between safety and access.
- Librarians at the Tilton Library in Massachusetts emphasize diversity and social justice in children’s books. Rock on!
- PLA 2020 preview: How the award-winning Nashville Public Library makes the city tick.
- Here’s a letter to the editor of a local Maine newspaper saying that drugs are easier to get than a library card.
- Who should decide what books are allowed in prisons?
- The NYPL lions are reading large lion-sized books! Plus, how to navigate the NYPL like an expert.
Book Adaptations in the News
- The Love, Simon series has moved from Disney+ to Hulu, and will be renamed Love, Victor. Some people have speculated that this was an example of Disney’s reluctance to feature LGBTQ content, but Becky Albertalli has asked fans to give Disney the benefit of the doubt.
- Riley Sager’s upcoming thriller, Home Before Dark, has been snagged for an adaptation already. (Also this is the first I’ve heard that Riley Sager has a new book coming out!)
- Graham Moore’s latest novel, The Holdout, has been optioned for a Hulu series.
- The BBC is adapting Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations With Friends, as a 12-part series.
- E.L. James’ The Mister was optioned by Universal.
- Dennis Lehane is set to write multiple episodes of HBO’s The Outsider.
- Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy is being adapted as a ballet.
- Here’s the trailer for I Am Not Okay With This, based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman.
- Trailers for Little Fires Everywhere and My Brilliant Friend, season 2.
Books & Authors in the News
- There’s been controversy surrounding the book Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices, in that it doesn’t credit the work of Tangerine Jones, who began using the phrase “rage baking” as a response to racial injustice.
- (TW: sexual assault) E. Jean Carroll says that she was fired from Elle after she accused Trump of sexual assault.
- Myriam Gurba, a leading voice in the American Dirt controversy, was placed on administrative leave from her high school teaching job and was escorted out of the building. Her students are protesting the decision.
On the Riot
- Author and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson has died at 101.
Award News
- The Bram Stoker and Nebula finalists were announced.
- Toni Morrison and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton each win an NAACP Image Award for their writing.
- Martin Edwards wins the 2020 Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association.
- 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Award winners.
- Finalists for the LA Times’ Book Prize and its inaugural Ray Bradbury Prize.
Pop Cultured
- Forgot this from Valentine’s Day, but there’s a teaser promo for Stranger Things Season 4! Watch at your own risk – contains a VERY big spoiler.
- Lucifer might get an additional season after the final fifth season airs.
- Trailer for Killing Eve, season 3.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- The importance of reading to your kids.
- A typewriter shop is holding typewriting classes for kids, and they’re surprisingly popular!
On the Riot
- New ways to think about libraries.
- Public library collection development secrets revealed!
- 5 memorable library heists.
- There’s a new award for disabled writers called the Berbellion Prize – read more about it here.
- On letting books find us organically.
- How to host a reading party.
- 8 perspectives on building a personal library.
- Test your bookish trivia with 125 literary-themed Jeopardy questions.
- Should you stay up late to finish that book?
Thanks for hanging! Catch you next time!
Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter. Currently reading Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis.
