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Matt Murdock defends the Punisher in the trial of the century—the murder of the Kingpin—while by night Daredevil staves off a war of succession for the throne of the criminal underworld.

Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Alex Segura (Secret Identity) pens an all-new Marvel Crime thriller novel for adult readers.

When reports come in that the Kingpin and a police officer have been killed and that Frank Castle (aka the Punisher) has turned himself in for it, Matt Murdock senses holes in the narratives the media and the streets are quick to run with.

Both criminals have been Matt’s nemeses when he dons the cowl of the Daredevil, and there’s no denying that New York is better off without its Kingpin and with the Punisher behind bars. And yet . . .  while the Punisher is a murderous vigilante, he doesn’t kill cops. And he doesn’t turn himself in.

Castle certainly deserves prison for all of the other crimes he has committed in the past. However, Matt’s indominable sense of justice insists that nobody should be locked away for crimes they didn’t actually commit. Representing the vigilante in court, Matt enters a contest of wills and guile with Castle to try and uncover the game beneath the game. And when Matt’s girlfriend takes the stand and complicates matters, there’s truly no rest for the wicked or the just. As the Kingpin’s absence causes passion and ambitions to run hot in Hell’s Kitchen, Matt must decide if justice means the letter of the law, what’s best for the citizen on the streets, or where his heart leading him.

Enemy of My Enemy continues the Marvel Crime series that began with Lisa Jewell’s Breaking the Dark, and brings fans into a grittier, street-level side of the Marvel Universe. Marvel Crime novels build on one another but do not require in-depth familiarity with Marvel or the other books in the series.

Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which the New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editors’ Choice. His work includes the YA superhero adventure Araña/Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow, the follow-up to Secret Identity, Alter Ego, and the sci-fi/espionage thriller, Dark Space (with Rob Hart). Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books, including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, and more.

SHOW NOTES:

Enemy of My Enemy: A Daredevil Marvel Crime Novel

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Tamika Barnes is the Associate Dean for Perimeter Library Services at Georgia State University, where she provides strategic leadership for libraries across five campuses in the metro Atlanta area serving students in more than 30 associate-degree pathways. A nationally recognized leader in the library profession, Tamika has served on the American Library Association Executive Board, recently chaired ALA’s Budget and Review Committee, and will serve as President of the Georgia Library Association in 2026. Her leadership has been recognized through numerous honors, including UCLA Library Senior Fellows, the Bob Richardson Award, and multiple national diversity and advocacy awards. She is also an educator, currently serving as an adjunct faculty member with Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and previously teaching at North Carolina Central University, UNC Chapel Hill, and UNC Greensboro. Across all roles, Tamika is committed to advancing advocacy, equity, professional development, and strong, transparent library leadership.

Becky Calzada is a District Library Coordinator in Leander, Texas and a co-founding member of Texas #FReadom Fighters, a grass-roots led group of librarians launched back in October 2021. She is the Immediate Past President for the American Association of School Librarians President, has served on the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, and is actively engaged in supporting intellectual freedom advocacy both in her state and nationally. She is the recipient of several intellectual freedom awards and is the co-author of Prepared Libraries, Empowered Teams: A Workbook for Navigating Intellectual Freedom Challenges Together published in June 2024. She is featured in The Librarians documentary, a film which spotlights brave school librarians who are on the front lines in the fight against censorship.

SHOW NOTES:

Tamika Barnes campaign site
Becky Calzada campaign site

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Terra B. Jacobson has been the dean of Learning Resources at Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills, IL) since 2016 and has worked in community college libraries since 2009. She has a PhD in Information Studies from Dominican University, an MS in Information Science, and an MS in Library Science, both from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her current research interests are strategic planning, outreach, and advocacy in academic libraries, and the future and value of community college libraries. She has published in College and Research Libraries, Library Philosophy and Practice, and a chapter in Managing Crises in the Academic Library: Past, Present and Future. She has served as the chair of Network of Illinois Learning Resources in Community Colleges (NILRC), a statewide consortium for community college learning resources, the CJCLS Scholarly Communications Committee, ACRL’s Standards Committee and the Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey Editorial Board. She currently teaches online at the State University of New York and at Dominican University in the School of Information Studies.

Spencer Brayton is director of Library Services at Waubonsee Community College (northeastern Illinois, USA). His research and publication interests include media and information literacy, community college libraries, coaching and leadership. Spencer received his Master of Arts in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Science in Management from the University of St. Francis (Joliet, IL), and is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Higher Education from the University of Southern Mississippi.

SHOW NOTES:

 Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success

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Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees first published together twenty-five years ago with the #1 Sunday Times bestseller Come Together, which was translated into twenty-seven languages and made into a film by Working Title. Josie and Emlyn then wrote a further six bestselling rom-coms together, all published in the UK. Josie has written thirteen other novels in a variety of genres, including The Bright Side Running Club, based on her own experience of breast cancer, which is currently in film development and was published in the U.S., while Emlyn has written a number of thrillers under his own name and as a ghost writer, published in the UK. Just like Adam and Jules in You & Me and You & Me and You & Me, Josie and Emlyn live with their kids and dog by Brighton Beach, but sadly they haven’t discovered a hole in the space-time continuum in their garden shed…or at least not yet…

SHOW NOTES:

You & Me and You & Me and You & Me

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Lila Denning is a librarian in Florida specializing in Passive Readers’ Advisory for patrons of all ages. She is the Acquisitions Coordinator for the St Petersburg Library System and has worked in circulation, collection development, reference, and youth services. She serves the volunteer coordinator for the Horror Writers Association. You can find her  on BlueSky @Vantine.bsky.social. On her blog, bookdisplays.blogspot.com, she talks about ideas for book displays and other forms of Passive Readers Advisory and how to best use it to serve your patrons.

SHOW NOTES:

Passively Recommending Books

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Become the ultimate Game Master and deliver tabletop role-playing games with confidence!

For librarians, teachers, school staff, and parents who want to run a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) but who don’t know where to begin, this practical guide includes five tabletop role-playing adventures written so a first-time Game Master can jump straight in and start playing. Alongside the adventures the book includes

• examples of safety tools to allow players to stay safe;
• a comprehensive TTRPG glossary;
• practical tips for helping new players at the TTRPG table;
• practical tips for first-time Game Master and new players;
• ideas on how to establish role-playing sessions and festivals in your school; and
• lists of potions, magic items and non-player characters, including their motivations and occupations.

A companion to Maxwell’s bestselling Let’s Roll, this book is a must-read for librarians and teachers looking to deliver exciting and creative games and quests. Now roll the dice and have fun!

Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, Lucas Maxwell has been working with teens in public and school libraries for close to fifteen years. He is currently the librarian at Glenthorne High School in London, UK. He writes for Book Riot and has contributed to School Library Journal and American Library Association publications. In 2017, Lucas was named the School Librarian of the Year by the UK’s School Library Association.

SHOW NOTES:

Let’s Roll: A Guide to Setting up Tabletop Role-Playing Games in your School or Public Library
Roll for Adventure: Tabletop Roleplaying Adventures for Your School or Public Library
Dungeon Master’s Guild: Wild Sheep Chase | Grammy’s Country Apple Pie
A Million Tiny Missiles All At Once

Looking for a catalog solution on a tiny budget? TinyCat offers a powerful and professional catalog perfect for small libraries; from classrooms and churches, to schools and public libraries. The catalog is easy to use and easy to customize to your library’s needs. You can import library records or scan books in with the mobile app, track circulation, send reminder emails, and view detailed reports. TinyCat is powered by LibraryThing, and has served thousands of libraries over the last 10 years.

To double the length of your free trial, sign up at librarycat.org and say you heard about TinyCat from the Circulating Ideas podcast.

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Together, librarians and specialists can create experiences to reach all learners in their buildings, including those with hidden needs and talents.

While school librarians are experts at collaborating with classroom teachers, too often they overlook the specialists in their buildings as key collaborative partners.

Focusing on the many specialists who work with students, Karla Bame Collins provides information about their roles and responsibilities and discusses how school librarians can collaborate to improve learning for all students, including those with hidden needs, disabilities, and talents that are not easily detected and may go undiagnosed. Because librarians work with every student, but may not always be informed about each student’s particular needs, it’s important for them to know whom in the school to turn to for information. Librarians will gain ideas for working with students to provide the best possible learning environment for each.

This practical book looks at the whole school library environment-collection, instruction, space, and programming-and offers many ideas for librarians to collaborate with other educators and specialists for the good of all students.

SHOW NOTES:

School Libraries Supporting Students with Hidden Needs and Talents: From ADHD to Vision Impairment

Looking for a catalog solution on a tiny budget? TinyCat offers a powerful and professional catalog perfect for small libraries; from classrooms and churches, to schools and public libraries. The catalog is easy to use and easy to customize to your library’s needs. You can import library records or scan books in with the mobile app, track circulation, send reminder emails, and view detailed reports. TinyCat is powered by LibraryThing, and has served thousands of libraries over the last 10 years.

To double the length of your free trial, sign up at librarycat.org and say you heard about TinyCat from the Circulating Ideas podcast.

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Dr. Bradley Custer is a higher education policy expert in Washington, D.C. He was most recently an analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, where he resolved complex complaints from student loan borrowers. He was previously a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a student services administrator on public college and university campuses. He holds a Ph.D. in higher, adult, and lifelong education from Michigan State University.  

SHOW NOTES:

Dr. Bradley Custer on LinkedIn
U.S. Department of Education

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We are suffering from a crisis of belief in our country today. So many people have lost faith in America—in our leaders, institutions, and even one another. The status quo is not working for far too many of us. Our central task today is to meet this historic moment. But how do we grow our belief that we can get things done together—not as Republicans or Democrats or Independents, but as Americans? How do we rebuild trust and reclaim agency?

In this deeply personal manifesto written while crisscrossing the country for his “Enough. Time to Build.” civic campaign, Richard C. Harwood reveals how we can address the fundamental challenges holding us back in America today. We must dedicate ourselves to forging a new civic path that grows our belief that we can move forward amid our real differences. The New Civic Path is a must-read for those who want to spark civic renewal and get our communities and the country moving again.

Richard C. Harwood, President and Founder of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, is an innovator, author, and speaker. For nearly 40 years, he has devoted his career to revitalizing the nation’s hardest-hit communities, transforming the world’s largest organizations, and reconnecting institutions to society. He has been recruited to solve some of the most difficult problems of our time, including being called into Newtown, CT, after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He has appeared in numerous national media outlets and has written scores of articles, groundbreaking reports, and nine books. In 2025, Rich and the Institute are running the Campaign for the New Civic Path, anchored by his manifesto, The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation. 

SHOW NOTES:

The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation
The Harwood Institute

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Jack and Quint are trapped in the Monster Dimension! Their mission: prevent Rezzoch the Ancient, Destructor of Worlds, from reaching Earth and annihilating civilization. To do this, they must secure an audience with a creature more mysterious than any other. It’s a race against time—and a race through the monster dimension! But before they can get back home to June and Dirk, Jack will find himself in a confrontation that will change everything. . . .

SHOW NOTES:

The Last Kids on Earth and the Destructor’s Lair
The Last Comics on Earth: A Song of Swords and Stuffies
Circulating Ideas 258: The Last Comics on Earth: Too Many Villains! by Max Brallier

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A love letter to the horror genre from many of the most influential and bestselling authors in the industry.

For twenty-five years, Becky Siegel Spratford has worked as a librarian in Reader Advisory, training library workers all over the world on how to engage their patrons and readers, and to use her place as a horror expert and critic to get the word out to others; to bring even more readers into the horror fold.

Why I Love Horror is a captivating anthology and heartfelt tribute to the horror genre featuring essays from several of the most celebrated contemporary horror writers including, Grady Hendrix, Paul Tremblay, Stephen Graham Jones, Josh Malerman, Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Rachel Harrison.

SHOW NOTES:

Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature
RA for All
RA for All: Horror
Why I Love Horror: The Book Tour
StokerCon 2025 Keynote Speech: “Why We Need Horror Authors in the Fight For the Freedom to Read”

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The human resources (HR) function for libraries can range in size and scope, depending on the size of the library. The complexities of HR today call for a guiding manual to help keep the multitude of processes fair, legal, and accurate. This book provides the level of detail for new and seasoned HR leaders to use to staff and operate their libraries with the best employees they can find. It offers legal advice from labor law attorneys, and operational steps, policies, and processes from Dr. Steve Albrecht, a longtime HR consultant for municipal government.

Even with the support of an HR Department (however large or small), all library leaders who have supervisory responsibility over their staff (hiring, firing, performance evaluation, assigning job duties) must have a working, updated knowledge of HR issues related to employing people in their branches. (And don’t forget that even student interns, unpaid volunteers, and part-time employees have similar employment rights as full-time, paid employees.) This means that besides the myriad of other duties required to run a safe, efficient, useful library for the community, library leaders – from the Director, to the department heads, to the managers, to the frontline supervisors, to the PIC (Person in Charge on each work shift) – each must know what they can and cannot do when it comes to HR laws, policies, guidelines, and best practices.

This includes: legal issues related to screening interviewing, and hiring applicants; successful on-boarding and new-employee orientation programs; coaching for improved work performance or employee behavior; mentoring employees for both promotional opportunities and succession planning; the challenges of attendance, sick leave, ADA and FMLA issues; fair and legal performance evaluations; working with employees in a union or an association; HR practices related to testing, promoting, disciplining, or terminating library employees; and keeping all employees motivated and connected, using wellness, stress management, and programs to prevent burnout or “quiet quitting.” Other books for library leaders may touch on HR issues as part of a broader look at supervising employees. This book will focus on it.

Dr. Steve Albrecht is well known in libraries for his workshops, webinars, podcasts, and articles on library service, safety, and security. He has worked as an HR consultant and security trainer for several decades. He is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (www.SHRM.org) and has been board certified by them as “Professional In Human Resources” (PHR) since 1996.

SHOW NOTES:

The Library Leader’s Guide to Human Resources: Keeping It Real, Legal, and Ethical
Library 2.0

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Nicole A. Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and a Professor at the University of South Carolina. Her research and teaching interests include human information behavior, critical cultural information studies, LIS Education, and diversity and social justice in librarianship. She has been awarded the 2019 Association of Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2021 MLK Social Justice Award presented by the University of South Carolina, and the 2024 American Library Association (ALA) Lippincott award. She has edited and authored several books, including Information Services to Diverse Populations (2016) and Fake News and Alternative Facts: Information Literacy in a Post-truth Era (2018). She is the Founding Editor of ALA Editions/Neal-Schuman’s Critical Cultural Information Studies series, and her latest book is The Legacy of Black Women in Librarianship: When They Dared to Be Powerful (2025).

SHOW NOTES:

The Legacy of Black Women in Librarianship: When They Dared to Be Powerful

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Addressing a topic of great concern with both urgency and clarity, this book offers a compelling vision for libraries to claim their central role as trusted stewards of knowledge and architects of a responsible and equitable AI-driven world.

In the form of generative AI, libraries are facing technological transformation of unprecedented speed and scale. Both controversial and disruptive, the sudden ubiquity of AI has already triggered uncertainty as well as the need for rapid adaptation. As AI reshapes how humans learn, work, and interact with information, libraries across the ecosystem—from public to academic, from school to special libraries—must resist the temptation to merely serve as static support and instead claim the center by becoming a dynamic, positive influence. Because, as the authors of this book persuasively argue, libraries are uniquely positioned to lead AI’s ethical and human-centered integration within communities. Blending theory and concepts with an unswervingly pragmatic approach, from this book readers will

• be introduced to foundational principles and frameworks for navigating the so-called “Age of Intelligence” that provide useful guiderails no matter how AI technology actively evolves;
• delve into the complex ethical considerations of AI, including bias, equity, privacy, misinformation, and the potential impact on human agency and dignity;
• receive guidance related to stakeholder engagement, resource allocation, and the need for continuous learning and adaptation;
• discover practical models for evaluating and implementing AI tools thoughtfully and effectively in ways that align with libraries’ values and mission;
• become familiar with STACKS, an approach for learning, problem solving, and innovation with generative AI;
• explore AI literacy as an expression of metaliteracy using seven frames for instruction and learning; and
• walk away with a sense of how libraries can actively define their essential role as leaders and shapers of the AI landscape, ensuring their continued value and preventing marginalization.

As this book demonstrates, by embracing their unique position as ethical stewards and trusted guides, libraries have an unprecedented opportunity to shape how AI transforms society—not from the margins, but from the center of a shared future.

Michael Hanegan is the founder and chief research officer of the Center for the Future of Learning and Work. He is an adjunct professor at Rose State College and the University of Central Oklahoma. His research and practice spans K–12 schools, higher education, the library ecosystem, and industry to cultivate and sustain human-centered approaches to the future of learning and work. He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Chris Rosser is First Year and Transfer Experience Librarian at Oklahoma State University. From 2009 to 2024, Chris served as an instructional and Theological Librarian at Oklahoma Christian University. His expertise centers around pedagogy, instructional design, and innovative approaches to learning, including gamification, and AI-empowered learning. His work has been featured at the American Library Association annual conference, American Theological Librarian Association, Oklahoma Association of College and Research Libraries, Transformative Learning Conference, and Christian Scholar’s Conference. He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.  

SHOW NOTES:

Generative AI and Libraries: Claiming Our Place in the Center of a Shared Future

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A young Victorian Egyptologist traverses the Nile River on a mission to undo a curse that may have befallen her family in this spellbinding novel.

Essex, 1887. Clementine’s ability to read hieroglyphs makes her invaluable at her father’s Egyptian relic parties, which have become the talk of the town. But at one such party, the words she interprets from an unusual amulet strike fear into her heart. As her childhood games about Isis and Nephthys—sister goddesses who protect the dead—take on a devastating resonance in her life, and tragedy slowly consumes her loved ones, she wonders what she and her father may have unleashed.

Five years later, Clemmie arrives in Cairo desperate to save what remains of her family back home. There, she meets a motley crew of unwitting English travelers about to set sail down the Nile—including an adventurer with secrets of his own—and joins them on a mission to reach Denderah, a revered religious site, where she hopes to return the amulet and atone for her sins.

With each passing day, she is further engulfed in a life she’s yearned for all along. But as long-buried secrets and betrayals rise to the surface, Clemmie must reconcile the impossibility of living in the light while her past keeps her anchored to the darkness.

SHOW NOTES:
The House of Two Sisters

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
 London Seance Society by Sarah Penner
 Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn
 A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
 Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef

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Geisel Award–winning creator James Yang explores the mysteries of the universe, inspired by the work of lauded astronomer Carl Sagan.

When Carl stared out the window, he had many questions.

Astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan loved asking questions—he wanted to learn about everything from the smallest atoms to the vastness of the galaxy. And by using his imagination and allowing himself to dream up questions big and small, he inspired others to keep exploring the mysteries of the universe and our place in it.

Geisel Award-winning author and illustrator James Yang invites readers on a fantastic journey through the cosmos, inspired by the life and work of Carl Sagan.

SHOW NOTES:
A Universe Big & Small: a Story about Carl Sagan

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
Your Place In The Universe by Jason Chin
Another by Christian Robinson
Mae Among the Stars written by Roda Ahmed, illustrated by Stasia Burrington
What Miss Mitchell Saw written by Hayley Barrett, illustrated by Diana Sudyka

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Murder disrupts the routine for four quirky librarians who hide among books to keep their secrets in this mystery from USA Today bestselling author Sherry Thomas.

Sometimes a workplace isn’t just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge….

In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don’t always realize that their librarians are human, too.

Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won’t be enough anymore.

When two patrons turn up dead after the library’s inaugural murder mystery–themed game night, the librarians’ quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library—and themselves—is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together….

All in a day’s work.

SHOW NOTES:
The Librarians

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
Village Library Demon Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner
How Can I Help You? by Laura Sims
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentil
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

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Historical horror maven Alma Katsu turns her talents to the modern world for the first time, in this terrifying tale about an all-powerful family with an ancient evil under its thumb.

Imagine if the Sackler family had a demon at their beck and call.

The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. Their rivals suffer strokes. Inconvenient buildings catch on fire. Earthquakes swallow up manufacturing plants, destroying harmful evidence. Things always seem to work out for the Berishas. They’re blessed.

At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own.

SHOW NOTES:
Fiend

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
Mexican Gothic by  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
 Weyward: a Novel by Emilia Hart
 Galilee by Clive Barker
 Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

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From the author of Once More We Saw Stars comes a gripping novel about four intertwined lives that collide in the wake of a mysterious tragedy. Set in a near-future world where the boundaries between human and AI blur, the story challenges our understanding of consciousness and humanity.

Anna is shattered by the violent death of her son, Alex, and tormented by the question of whether it was an accident or a suicide. Samantha is Alex’s best friend, and the only eyewitness to his death. She keeps returning to the cliff where she watched him either jump or fall, trying to sift through the shards. Aviva is an “upload,” a digital entity composed of the sense memories of a human tether. But she’s “emancipated,” having left her human behind. Set free from her source and harboring a troubling secret, she finds temporary solace in the body of Cathy, a self-destructive ex-addict turned AI professor and upload-rights activist.

With UnWorld, Jayson Greene envisions a grim but eerily familiar near-future where all lines have blurred—between visceral and digital, human and machine, real and unreal. As Anna, Cathy, Sam, and Aviva’s stories hurtle toward each other, the stakes of UnWorld reveal themselves with electrifying intensity: What happens to the soul when it is splintered by grief? Where does love reside except in memory? What does it mean to be conscious, to be human, to be alive?

SHOW NOTES:
UnWorld

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
The Ferryman: A Novel by Justin Cronin
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Toward Eternity by Anton Hur

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Welcome back to Assassins Anonymous, the only twelve-step group where joining can be deadly.

When Astrid, known in her assassin days as Azrael, stopped showing up to Assassins Anonymous, the group assumed her past had caught up with her. Only her sponsor Mark, formerly the deadliest killer in the world, holds out hope that she’s okay. Then, during a meeting, the group gets a sign, or rather, a pizza delivery. Is there another psychopath out there who actually likes olives on their pizza, or is Astrid trying to send Mark a message?

Meanwhile, Astrid wakes up in the cell of a black site prison, on a remote island. A doctor subjects her to mysterious experiments, plumbing the depths of her memory and looking for a vital clue from her past. She’ll do anything to escape, except…killing anyone. Hmm. Turns out it’s not easy to blow this joint without blowing anything, or anyone up.

SHOW NOTES:
The Medusa Protocol
Assassin’s Anonymous

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
Battle Ground by Jim Butcher
Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon
The Recruiter by Gregg Podolski

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In this touching novel by the acclaimed author of Telephone of the Tree, an intriguing new boy at school helps Daisy cope with both bullying and past trauma.

Daisy has been working on invisibilizing herself—ever since living with her mother’s violent ex-boyfriend, and now to avoid the school bullies who are targeting her. She keeps a low profile, eating lunch with the librarian instead of in the Lunchroom of Terror and secretly counting whenever she’s anxious.

But things are looking up. A new boy has befriended her and seems able to stand up to the bullies, and the stray cat she’s been feeding is starting to almost trust her. Maybe she can finally focus on futurizing rather than invisibilizing.

ALISON McGHEE has been awarded the Minnesota Book Award and the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award for her first novel, Rainlight. This is her second novel. Her short fiction has been published widely in literary magazines. Born and reared in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, she currently lives in Minnesota.

SHOW NOTES:
Weird Sad and Silent

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy
By the Book by Jasmine Guillory
Kiss the Girl by Zoraida Córdova
Tangled Up In You by Christina Lauren
Worth Fighting For by Jesse Q. Sutanto
A Boy Called Bat by Elena Arnold
Close to Famous by Joan Bauer

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From the author of the “phenomenal achievement” (Kirkus) Take Me Home, a children’s librarian must temporarily move her public library into a shed in the county botanic gardens, where her archnemesis is the assistant director.

Single mom Tansy Perkins only has room in her life for her daughter and her library. And maybe the next book to add to her collection. But after a catastrophic hurricane severely damages her library, she’s forced to temporarily move her branch into the adjacent county botanic gardens, where Jack Reid—the world’s grouchiest gardener who rescued her and her daughter from the flood—happens to be the assistant director.

Jack has always preferred plants over people, having  built a strong track record of avoiding relationships ever since his divorce six years ago. So, Tansy and her quirky band of bookish colleagues’ encroachment into his carefully-kept territory is a little more than irksome, especially when it means sharing his already-scarce resources.

When Jack and Tansy are tasked with working together on the spring festival, they have no choice but to call a truce. And soon their newfound professional partnership gives way to a deep intimacy that they’ve both been silently craving. But Tansy has lost too much to risk her heart, and Jack has sworn off real love. When an opportunity arises for funding that both the library and gardens need, will their loyalties lie with the futures they’d always planned for, or the new spark they’ve found with each other?

Melanie Sweeney is the USA Today bestselling author of Take Me Home. She writes contemporary romance in which ordinary people find extraordinary love, and she lives near Houston, Texas, with her husband, three kids, and too many cats. When she’s not writing, she’s figure skating, embroidering, or playing her ukulele.

SHOW NOTES:
Where You’re Planted

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
What You Wish For by Katherine Center
Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady
Pick-Up by Nora Dalia
A Dash of Salt and Pepper by Kosoko Jackson

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Leah Lockhart is more than her astrology. She’ll search the world to prove it.

Leah Lockhart is proudly science-minded and woo-woo averse. But the life she’s carefully curated is knocked suddenly off course, first by a destabilizing case of vertigo, and then by an astrology reading that claims she’s living way out of line with what was written in her stars. 

Incensed, Leah sets off on a mission to prove that astrology is bogus by comparing her life to that of her Star Twins around the world—people born under her exact same map of the stars. But her even deeper guides on a whirlwind journey through Venice, Istanbul, New Orleans, and beyond turn out to be three people already in her orbit: the mother she thinks abandoned her, the father she thinks saved her, and the former boy next door whose love could be the path to her truest self.

Jessie Rosen is a writer who got her start with the award-winning blog 20-Nothings. She  has sold original television projects to ABC, CBS, Warner Bros., and Netflix, and her live storytelling show Sunday Night Sex Talks was featured on The Bachelorette. She is the author of The Heirloom, and lives in Los Angeles.

SHOW NOTES:
All the Signs
The Heirloom

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Library Reads

The Circ Desk recommends:
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
Two Lives of Lydia Bird: a Novel by Josie Silver
Miranda in Retrograde by Lauren Layne
Half-Blown Rose by Leesa Cross-Smith

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From this essential guide, managers will learn concrete steps for creating and maintaining a supportive, productive work environment that supports well-being among library staff.

Fostering well-being in today’s library workplaces is no longer a luxury but a necessity, particularly for managers tasked with guiding and supporting their teams. Amidst budget cuts, attempts to ban or restrict books, attacks on library staff online and in-person, and potentially hostile and aggressive patrons, taking care of ourselves and our staff by putting good policies and practices into place is more important than ever. In this book, Newman and her expert contributors will lead you through creating an environment that nurtures the health, satisfaction, and well-being of its workers and helps prevent or reduce the internal factors that create an unhealthy workplace. You will receive actionable advice on

• navigating the pitfalls of vocational awe, which can lead to unrealistic expectations and self-neglect;
• setting and recalibrating healthy boundaries;
• approaching difficult conversations by creating spaces for positive staff communication;
• overcoming limited budgets;
• the proper mindset for encouraging realistic performance expectations among employees;
• using recognition, appreciation, and staff professional development as tools for wellness;
• nurturing social connections and collaboration to combat loneliness;
• effective techniques for addressing sensitive issues such as disabilities, confronting anti-fat bias, and moral injury;
• emotional and invisible labor mitigation; and
• self-care methods for library leaders at risk of burnout.

Bobbi L. Newman (she/her) is a librarian, Certified Wellness Practitioner, and workplace well-being expert dedicated to helping libraries create environments where individuals feel empowered, supported, and free to bring their best selves to work. Bobbi specializes in evidence-based strategies to cultivate psychologically safe workplaces that foster trust, collaboration, and open communication. As a consultant, speaker, instructor, coach, and well-being advocate, her comprehensive approach includes workshops, keynote presentations, strategic consulting, and coaching to help organizations establish sustainable practices that reduce burnout, increase engagement, and ensure team members feel genuinely valued. She also writes about workplace well-being on her blog, Librarian by Day, and is a sought-after speaker at state, national, and international conferences.

SHOW NOTES:

Well-Being in the Library Workplace: A Handbook for Managers
Librarian By Day

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Tattoos are not merely decorative; they contain deep meaning for individuals and communities. They document their wearers’ personal histories and position in families or society, and they engage with a communal understanding of symbols.

This unique book makes the case that archivists who want to preserve as full a human story as possible must recognize the rich documentation provided by tattoos. It also argues, in a broader sense, that traditional archives are not representative of the ways human beings transmit information through time and that they must be augmented by other types of storytelling to provide a more complete record of our species.

Authors Baxter and Coyner touch on timely topics such as historical narratives, storytelling, cultural traditions, the body as a text, social control, and memorialization by considering tattoos as a personal and community archive. Discussing tattoos as a storytelling tool, the authors also challenge how history is kept and who gets included. Stories on Skin is committed to the rights of communities to tell their stories in their own way and to the power that right brings.

Terry Baxter (he/him) has been an archivist for almost 40 years, the last 25 with the Multnomah County (OR) Archives, USA. He helped establish the County Archives in 2001 and continues seeking ways to use it to assist information seekers of all sorts. Baxter is a member of and has served in a variety of leadership positions in Northwest Archivists; Society of American Archivists; Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums; Archives Leadership Institute; and The Academy of Certified Archivists.

Libby Coyner-Tsosie (she/they) is the University Archivist at UMass Amherst in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, USA, where she primarily cares for collections related to the history of the university. She was trained in archival studies and library science at the University of British Columbia and is a member of the 2016 cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute. She is a cancer survivor whose life has been reshaped by disability. Libby lives with her partner Shepherd and their five cats.

SHOW NOTES:

Stories on Skin: A Librarian’s Guide to Tattoos as Personal Archives

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Jason Tyrrell is the executive vice president of content at OverDrive, the leading digital media distributor for libraries, schools, and corporations. He oversees the growth and development of its platforms: Kanopy, Libby, and Sora. With over 15 years of experience in film and TV marketing and distribution, he plays a key role in expanding OverDrive’s presence while championing accessibility for partners and communities globally.

SHOW NOTES:

OverDrive
Kanopy

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The campaign of destruction that Axel Soledad and Dallas Cates wreaked on Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett left both men in tatters, especially Nate, who lost almost everything. Wondering if the civilized life left him vulnerable to attack, Nate dropped off the grid with his falcons in tow to prepare for vengeance.

When Joe gets a call from the governor asking for help finding his son-in-law, who has gone missing in the Sierra Madre mountain range, he enlists the help of a local, a rookie game warden named Susan Kany.

As Nate and fellow falconer Geronimo Jones circle closer to their prey, Joe and Susan follow the nearly cold trail to Warm Springs. Little do Nate and Joe know that their separate journeys are about to converge . . . at Battle Mountain.

C. J. Box is the author of twenty-five Joe Pickett novels, eight stand-alone novels, and a story collection. He has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and two Barry awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38, the Western Heritage Award for Literature, and two Spur Awards. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He has been executive producer on television series based on his books, including ABC TV’s Big Sky and Joe Pickett on Paramount+.

SHOW NOTES:

Battle Mountain

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Lindsay Cronk currently serves as a member of Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures. She’s a member of the Core Five-Year Fundraising Team and served as 2021–2022 president of Core. She led the Core Communications Working Group and has also served on ALA Council, coauthoring ALA’s Resolution to Condemn White Supremacy and Fascism as Antithetical to Library Work. Before that, she served on the board of the Library Information Technology Association and edited its popular LITA Blog. She is the first woman to serve as dean of libraries at Tulane University.  

Cronk is 2024–2025 vice chair of the Association of Research Libraries’ (ARL) Advocacy and Public Policy Committee. She also serves on the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries board, Clarivate North American advisory group, and editorial board of The Serials Librarian journal. She is cocreator and founder of PeMento: Peer Mentoring for Mid-Career Library Workers. Her past keynotes have covered a variety of topics, from leadership to team building to systems migrations, while her research has focused on scholarly communication.

Cronk holds an MLIS from Valdosta (Ga.) State University, an education specialist degree from Georgia Southern University in Savannah, and a bachelor’s from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.

“I’m honored and thrilled to be nominated for ALA president—thank you for this opportunity. Libraries are a collective superpower for learning, research, and discovery. We empower individuals and strengthen communities. The American Library Association champions and advances this vital work, offering all library professionals a shared home, a united voice, a thriving community of practice, and a values-driven foundation of policy. We have deep strengths and spectacular talent, and I am the loud librarian ready to amplify and advocate it,” Cronk said. “With a proven record of building teams and coalitions—within ALA and beyond—I am prepared to guide the Association through this pivotal moment of challenges and opportunities. Libraries are indispensable—not only providing resources but also fostering curiosity and inspiring a love of knowledge. When libraries lead, communities succeed.”

Maria McCauley, who was an ALA Spectrum Scholar, is a current member of Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures; the Public Library Association (PLA); and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). She is also a member of the Rainbow Round Table, Sustainability Round Table, Intellectual Freedom Round Table, and the International Relations Round Table. She is also a member of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, Chinese American Librarians Association, BCALA, Reforma: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking, the American Indian Library Association; the Freedom to Read Foundation; the Massachusetts Library Association; and New England Library Association.

McCauley has held several leadership positions, including at-large councilor of ALA Council, ALA Executive Board member, and member of ALA’s Fiscal and Audit Committee. She was the 2022–2023 PLA president and a PLA board member.

McCauley holds a PhD in managerial leadership in the information professions from Simmons University in Boston; an MLIS from University of Pittsburgh; a bachelor’s in theater from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio; and a leadership certificate from Northeastern University in Boston. She also completed ARL’s Library Leadership for New Managers Program.

“It is an honor to stand for the 2026–2027 ALA presidential election. ALA is a vital organization that is a lifeline for so many in the areas of professional development, advocacy, and connection. This includes me, from being a Spectrum Scholar, working in academic libraries, and serving for the past 13 years as a public library director, former ALA Executive Board member, and Public Library Association president,” McCauley said. “I am excited to bring my executive leadership and governance experience, knowledge, and passion for libraries to the presidential role. With my inclusive leadership practices and facilitation skills, I will work across the Association to strengthen ALA, inspire, guide, and connect members, and advocate for intellectual freedom, equity and inclusion, sustainability, and the public good of libraries.”

SHOW NOTES:

Cronk the Vote
Maria for Libraries

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Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.

Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.

Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.

Allen Eskens is the USA Today bestselling author of The Life We Bury, which has been published in twenty-six languages, and eight other novels, most recently Saving Emma, Forsaken Country,The Stolen Hours, The Shadows We Hide, and Nothing More Dangerous. His books have won the Barry Award, the Rosebud Award, the Silver Falchion Award, and the Minnesota Book Award. Eskens is a former criminal defense attorney and lives with his wife, Joely, in greater Minnesota.

SHOW NOTES:

The Quiet Librarian

THE CIRC DESK RECOMMENDS:

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
How Can I Help You? by Laura Sims
Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan

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Learn to facilitate modern book clubs devoted to elevating the reading experience through active engagement, resulting in long-term commitment to book club events.

How do you get the kids in your library to read? The benefits of reading are plentiful, especially for youth – it improves vocabulary, helps them become more empathetic and inclusive, and expands exposure to academic opportunities. In an age of digital distractions, book clubs can be a catalyst for encouraging youth to prioritize reading.

These tried and tested strategies help even reluctant readers develop a love of reading through book club participation. Author Stacy Brown, who has facilitated book clubs for more than twenty years, shows you how to build active engagement through hands-on activities, reflective discussions, and theme-related tips and tricks, even in the face of time and budget constraints. Learn how to attract participants, brand and market your book clubs, and keep attendees returning for more. You’ll be changing the world – one book club at a time.

Stacy Brown is the Director of Innovation and Professional Learning at The Davis Academy in Atlanta, GA, USA, where she previously worked as the 21st-Century Learning Coordinator.

SHOW NOTES:

Revolutionize Youth Book Clubs: Strategies for Meaningful and Fun Reading Experiences
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Elizabeth Kamper has been teaching information literacy in libraries for 10 years and received their MSLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. They are currently the Information Literacy Librarian and an Associate Professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Elizabeth also teaches in the University Honors Program on ‘Questions and the Spirit of Inquiry’ and ‘the Nature of Liberal Education’. Elizabeth has served on several university and national committees focusing on information literacy in university curriculum and held faculty fellowships supporting the campus freshman experience. Their research interests include criticality in information literacy, LGBTQIA+ librarians, wonder-led inquiry for research and writing, as well as using tabletop gaming to roleplay empathy in the classroom.

Gayle Porter holds the rank of Assistant Professor in the Gwendolyn Brooks Library at Chicago State University. She earned a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Brigham Young University and a Master’s degree in History from Chicago State University.  As an academic librarian, her specialty is cataloging materials in all formats. Her research interests include cataloging and metadata description.

Hunter Dunlap is a tenured professor and systems librarian at Western Illinois University, where he serves as the Coordinator of Resource Management Services. Dunlap has written widely about technology and academic libraries over his 28-year career, including authoring the widely held book “Open Source Database Driven Web Development” (Chandos). The senior member of the (all) nine librarian faculty eliminated at Western (effective May 2025), he created the savewiulibrarians.org website to help mobilize support for academic librarianship at WIU, and beyond.

SHOW NOTES:

Save WIU Librarians
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Filling a gap in the literature, this volume provides librarians and catalogers with practical approaches to reparative cataloging as well as a broader understanding of the topic and its place in the technical services landscape.

As part of the profession’s ongoing EDISJ efforts to redress librarianship’s problematic past, practitioners from across the field are questioning long-held library authorities and standards. They’re undertaking a critical and rigorous re-examination of so-called “best” practices and the decisionmakers behind them, pointing out heretofore unscrutinized injustices within our library systems of organization and making concrete steps towards progressive change. This collection from Core details the efforts of some of the many librarians who are working to improve our systems and collections, in the process inspiring those who have yet to enact change by demonstrating that this work is scalable, possible, and necessary. From this book, readers will

• gain an understanding of the theoretical underpinning for the actions that create our history and be challenged to reconsider their perspectives;
• learn about the important role of the library catalog in real-world EDISJ initiatives through examples ranging from accessibility metadata and gendered information to inclusive comics cataloging and revising LC call numbers for Black people and Indigenous people;
• discover more than a dozen case studies drawn from a variety of contexts including archives, academic and public libraries, and research institutions; and
• see ways to incorporate these ideas into their own work, with a variety of sample policies, “how to” documents, and other helpful tools provided in the text.    

Billey Albina (née Amber Billey) served as the Chair of the Leadership Team for the Core Metadata & Collection Section and Co-Chair of the Core Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She is a member of the PCC Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and was Chair of the PCC Ad Hoc Task Group on Gender in Name Authority Records. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Digital Transgender Archive, and the editorial board for the Homosaurus – a linked data thesaurus for the LGBTQ+ community. Previously, she was the Associate Director for Bibliographic Services at Bard College.

Elizabeth Nelson is the Cataloging and Collection Development Librarian and Library Department Chair at McHenry County College, where she has worked since 2008. Prior to working in academic libraries, she started her career in public libraries and then spent seven years in special libraries. She is also the current editor of Library Leadership & Management.

Rebecca Uhl has over 30 years’ experience as a catalog and authority control librarian at Arizona State University. Currently serving as the Principal on the Acquisitions and Metadata Services team, she has experience as a manager, supervisor and department head, in addition to copy and original cataloging in all formats.

SHOW NOTES:

Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches
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Eliza Evans pens heartwarming holiday rom-coms. When not writing, Evans can be found teaching Pilates or exploring the great outdoors. A lifelong Colorado girl, Evans lives with her husband, two sons, and two fur babies. She is also the author of The Christmas Café.

SHOW NOTES:

The Christmas Cookie Wars
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Building on the success and impact of Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library by Joseph Janes, Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries updates, expands upon, and broadens the discussions on the future of libraries and the ways in which they transform information services to best serve their communities.Library 2035 explores the lessons learned over the past decade and forecasts the opportunities, strengths, and challenges for libraries in the future. Contributors including R. David Lankes, Kelvin Watson, Annie Norman, Miguel Figueroa, and Nicole Cooke, along with 25 other library leaders, were asked to describe the “library of 2035” in whatever way they wanted. Their responses to this question will inspire, provoke, challenge, and expand our thinking about the role and importance of libraries in the future. Library leaders, LIS students and faculty will find this book particularly meaningful and useful as we grapple with what the future of libraries and the profession will be.

Sandra Hirsh is associate dean for academics in the College of Information, Data and Society at San José State University. Before this, she served as professor and director of the SJSU School of Information and worked at HP Labs, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. She actively contributes to library and information science professional associations and has previously served as president of two international associations: the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) and the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). She holds a bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. from UCLA and an MLIS degree from the University of Michigan. She is a second-generation librarian and she is passionate about the important role that libraries play in our society.

SHOW NOTES:

Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries
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Written as a textbook for LIS students taking reference courses, this fully updated and revised seventh edition of Reference and Information Services: An Introduction also serves as a helpful handbook for practitioners to refamiliarize themselves with particular types and formats of sources and to refresh their knowledge on specific service topics.

Melissa A. Wong has been an online instructor for the University of Illinois since 2001, teaching courses in reference, instruction, management, and academic librarianship. Previously, she worked as an academic librarian for 14 years, including 6 years at the University of Southern California and 8 years as library director at Marymount College Palos Verdes. She earned her master’s degree in library science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Laura Saunders is associate professor at Simmons University School of Library and Information Science, teaching in the areas of reference, instruction, and academic libraries. Prior to earning her PhD, she worked as an academic reference librarian and in circulation at a public library. She earned her master’s of library and information science and her PhD at Simmons University.

SHOW NOTES:

Reference and Information Services: An Introduction
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Nora Wiltse has been a school librarian with Chicago Public Schools since 2003. After 20 years in K to 8th grade elementary schools, she now works at King College Prep High School in the Kenwood neighborhood. Since 2012, Nora has advocated against the rapid loss of librarians in the Chicago Public Schools district. She is the chair of the Chicago Teachers Union Librarian Committee and a member of the 2024 contract bargaining team. Nora hopes to gain more job security for all librarians, as well as more librarian positions, in the next union contract.  You can email her at norawiltse@gmail.com. You can follow CTU’s Librarian Committee on Instagram or X @ctulibrarians. 

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including his book Knowledge as a Feeling: How Neuroscience and Psychology Impact Human Information Behavior was published by Rowman & Littlefield. His Ph.D. research focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy in 2016.  Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campus’ Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL. Additionally, he serves as Legislative Chair for Cook County College Teachers Union which serves 5,000 community college employees.

SHOW NOTES:

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Madeline Martin is a New York Times, USA TODAY, and international bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance with books that have been translated into over twenty different languages. 

SHOW NOTES:

The Booklover’s Library
Library Reads
Novelist
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Amanda Jones has been an educator for 22 years and is the President of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians. She was the 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year, 2021 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, and 2020 Louisiana School Librarian of the Year. Amanda is a sought-after keynote speaker at national and international conferences. Amanda co-founded the Livingston Parish Library Alliance to defeat censorship attempts in her community and is a founding member of the Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, which fights against censorship efforts across the state. She lives in Livingston Parish, Louisiana.

SHOW NOTES:

That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
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Wayne Bivens-Tatum is the Librarian for Philosophy, Religion, and Anthropology at the Princeton University Library. He has taught academic writing at the University of Illinois and Princeton University and courses on librarianship for the University of Illinois School of Information Sciences and Rutgers University’s Department of Library and Information Science. He currently teaches college English classes to incarcerated students in New Jersey state prisons as a volunteer with Princeton’s Prison Teaching Initiative. He’s published two books, Libraries and the Enlightenment and Virtue Information Literacy, both with Library Juice Press.

SHOW NOTES:

Libraries and the Enlightenment
Virtue Information Literacy
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It’s been over a decade since Nash Rollins recruited a brilliant, talented, but disaffected young man named David Webb to join Treadstone. Webb became the agent known as Cain–and later took on the identity of Jason Bourne.

That violent winter–which included Cain’s first mission for Treadstone–was also a story of betrayal in ways that David never knew. So after the injury that erased Bourne’s whole life, Nash lied about the circumstances of David’s recruitment to Treadstone. He was afraid that learning the truth might drive Bourne out of the agency forever.

But now, when Bourne meets a woman who recognizes him as David Webb, the secrets of those days begin to come out and Bourne is forced to confront the dangerous ghosts of a past he doesn’t even remember.

SHOW NOTES:

The Bourne Shadow
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Eva Jurczyk was born in a mining town in Poland and wound up halfway around the world in a Canadian city that often masquerades as New York in the movies. As her day job, she buys books, building library collections for the University of Toronto Libraries. She travels to Paris whenever the wind is good but currently lives with her husband, son, and collections of books in Toronto, Canada.

SHOW NOTES:

That Night in the Library
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Gwenda Bond is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds, as well as the Match Made in Hell, Lois Lane, and Cirque American series. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with a veritable zoo of adorable doggos and queenly cats. She writes a regular newsletter, Dear Reader, available on Substack.

SHOW NOTES:

The Frame-Up
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Andy Runton has always loved to draw and always loved comics. After college and a career in corporate America, he finally followed his heart, started drawing comics, graphic novels, and children’s books, and he hasn’t looked back since. In 2001 he created the all-ages series of graphic novels, Owly, which features a kind-hearted little owl who’s always searching for new friends and adventure. The Owly series has earned praise from fans and critics alike, winning multiple awards including the Harvey Award, two Ignatz Awards, the 2006 Eisner Award for “Best Publication for a Younger Audience,” and many others. He currently reside in the greater-Atlanta area where he works full-time as a cartoonist!

SHOW NOTES:

Owly: Tiny Tales
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Jessie Rosen got her start with the award-winning blog 20-Nothings and has sold original television projects to ABC, CBS, Warner Bros., and Netflix. Her live storytelling show Sunday Night Sex Talks was featured on The Bachelorette. She lives in Los Angeles.

SHOW NOTES:

The Heirloom
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A.J. Jacobs is a journalist, lecturer, and human guinea pig who has written four bestselling books—including Drop Dead Healthy and The Year of Living Biblically—that blend memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self-help. A contributor to NPR, The New York Times, and Esquire, among other media outlets, Jacobs lives in New York City with his family.

SHOW NOTES:

The Year of Living Constitutionally
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Kirsten Miller is the author of Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books and The Change, a GMA Book Club pick, as well as the groundbreaking YA series starring Kiki Strike. Born and raised in a small town in North Carolina, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

SHOW NOTES:

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books
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Amita Murray lives in London and can be found writing and tweeting about life and chocolate. Her novels take you on a romp through the edgier streets of Regency England. Her Arya Winters mysteries are under a TV option. Her mystery novel Thirteenth Night won the Exeter Novel Prize and her short story “A Heist in Three Acts” appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. She’s been writer-in-residence with the British Council, Spread the Word, Leverhulme, and Literature Works, and she is committed to finding that magic button that creates more diversity in publishing.

SHOW NOTES:

Unladylike Rules of Attraction
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Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently THE BEZZLE (a followup to RED TEAM BLUES) and THE LOST CAUSE, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is THE INTERNET CON: HOW TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF COMPUTATION, a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include RED TEAM BLUES, a science fiction crime thriller; CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the LITTLE BROTHER series for young adults; IN REAL LIFE, a graphic novel; and the picture book POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

SHOW NOTES:

The Bezzle [bookshop.org affiliate link]
Circulating Ideas 28: Cory Doctorow
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Audrey Barbakoff is the CEO of Co/lab Capacity LLC, which provides community-centered consulting for libraries and social good organizations. During more than a decade in public libraries, her work was recognized by Library Journal Movers & Shakers, the Urban Libraries Council Top Innovators, and the Freedom to Read Foundation. Dr. Barbakoff holds an MLIS from the University of Washington and an EdD in Organizational Change and Leadership from the University of Southern California. She is co-author of The 12 Steps to a Community-Led Library, and author of Adults Just Wanna Have Fun: Programs for Emerging Adults and the forthcoming picture book The Schlemiel Kids Save the Moon. 

Noah Lenstra is an associate professor of library and information science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he brings a community organizing approach to the teaching and research of public librarianship. Since 2016, Dr. Lenstra has managed the Let’s Move in Libraries initiative, an online space for sharing stories and resources related to public library participation in community health initiatives related to food or physical activity. Dr. Lenstra holds doctoral and master’s degrees in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

SHOW NOTES:

12 Steps to a Community-Led Library [affiliate link]

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Tom Bober is an elementary librarian in Clayton, Missouri, USA; a former teacher in residence at the Library of Congress, a member of the Teachers Advisory Board at the National Portrait Gallery, and a 2018 Library Journal Mover and Shaker.

Rebecca Newland is a high school librarian in Fairfax County, Virginia, USA. She is a former Teacher in Residence at the Library of Congress where she specialized in creating resources for teachers to bring primary sources into the English Language Arts classroom and libraries. She contributes regularly to the blog of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress is the author of Engaging Students with Library of Congress Primary Sources in the ELA Classroom with NCTE and the Library of Congress.

SHOW NOTES:

Literature and Primary Sources: The Perfect Pairing for Student Learning [affiliate link]

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During a quick pause from defeating monsters, Jack, June, Quint, and Dirk face their trickiest challenge in THE LAST COMICS ON EARTH: TOO MANY VILLAINS!, the second graphic novel in the best-selling spin-off starring the beloved heroes, monsters, and side-kicks from THE LAST KIDS ON EARTH series.

Set on creating an epic follow-up to their Z-Man: Defender of Apocalyptia spin-off graphic novel, Jack, June, Quint, and Dirk plan an action-packed story featuring tougher villains, puzzles, and more in THE LAST COMICS ON EARTH: TOO MANY VILLAINS! Their superhero alter-egos discover that supervillains will do whatever it takes to stop the even more mysterious evil boss from carrying out the biggest evil plan ever and destroying the world, featuring monsters our heroes have battled in the pages of THE LAST KIDS ON EARTH.

THE LAST COMICS ON EARTH: TOO MANY VILLAINS! is the second story in a four-book spin-off series features original content in Max Brallier’s signature witty storytelling style along with Emmy-Award-winning writer, Joshua Pruett. Full-color illustrations by Jay Cooper and Douglas Holgate share bright and engaging scenes that’ll bring readers into the middle of the action. Leaping into new territory, younger and newer fans, as well as existing fans can enjoy new adventures within the apocalyptic world of THE LAST KIDS ON EARTH.

THE LAST KIDS ON EARTH novels continue to bring monsters into the lexicon with over 10 million copies in print worldwide, toys, video games, an Emmy-award-winning animated Netflix series, and a graphic novel spin-off series in THE LAST COMICS ON EARTH.

Max Brallier is a #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. His books and series include The Last Kids on Earth, Eerie Elementary, Mister Shivers, Galactic Hot Dogs, and Can YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? He is a writer and producer for Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning adaptation of The Last Kids on Earth. Visit him at MaxBrallier.com.

SHOW NOTES:

THE LAST COMICS ON EARTH: TOO MANY VILLAINS! [affiliate link]

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Sylvie Golod is a Career Services Specialist for Richland Library Business and Careers Center. Since 2011, she has worked with an impressive team who were recipients of the 2022 National Career Development Association Exemplary Career Center Award. She is a Certified Master of Career Services, Professional Résumé Writer, and Entrepreneurship Teacher. She has presented at conference for the National Career Development Association (NCDA), SC Career Development (SCCDA) and American Library Association (ALA), educational institutions, businesses, agencies and community organizations. On the state level, Sylvie was the 2018 Founding President of SCCDA, a division of the NCDA and recipient of the NCDA 2019 Outstanding Emerging State Division Award. She continues to serve as Emeritus and Communications Chair.

Thomas Maluck is a Teen Services Librarian for Richland Library and adjunct LIS instructor for The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has worked in public libraries, including youth services and readers advisory, for over fifteen years. He was the 2019 recipient of the F. William Summers Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of South Carolina. He co-presented the keynote address with Kristin LaLonde at the Quebec Library Association about graphic novel collections and their impact on readers. He has been a panelist and moderator at American Library Association, South Carolina Library Association, New York Comic Con, Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Dragon Con, and C2E2 conferences. He has served on YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels For Teens book selection committee as well as School Library Journal’s Best Graphic Novels team. He reviews for Kirkus and uses his Accredited Personal Finance Instructor ℠ credential to provide financial education.

SHOW NOTES:

Richland Library Business, Careers and Research Center
National Financial Educators Council
Operation HOPE
Project: NAS (Not A Statistic)
US Small Business Administration
Clark Howard
Next Gen Personal Finance
SC Student Loan
Libraries Build Business Playbook [PDF]
Morningstar Investment Research Center
LinkedIn Learning
Portfolio Visualizer (suggested alternative for X-Ray Tool)

Steve recommends:
iTunes Terms of Service: the Graphic Novel by R. Sikoryak

Sylvie recommends:
The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelley [affiliate link]

Thomas recommends (bonus Secret Stacks pick!):
How to Money: Your Ultimate Visual Guide to the Basics of Finance by Jean Chatzky, Kathryn Tuggle, and Nina Cosford [affiliate link]
The Index Card by Helaine Olen and Harold Pollack [affiliate link]

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Elizabeth A. Wahler is Professor and Director of the School of Social Work at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA, and founder of Beth Wahler Consulting. She has collaborated with libraries and library systems across the United States to conduct assessments of their patrons’ psychosocial needs and staff challenges with these types of patron needs; provided training to library staff about trauma-informed librarianship and other approaches to addressing their patrons’ needs; and created and piloted various interventions to address patron needs and support library staff. She is recognized internationally for her work on library and social work collaborations.

Sarah C. Johnson, MLIS, LMSW, is adjunct lecturer at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, where she teaches a course on library social work. She is a licensed social worker, and her research focuses on the impact of social work students conducting their field placements at public libraries. Her aim is to foster quality internships by building alliances among students, public librarians, and social work educators, with the goal of enhancing services to library patrons and their wider community.

SHOW NOTES:

Creating a Person-Centered Library: Best Practices for Supporting High-Needs Patrons

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Sam Helmick is the Community & Access Services Coordinator at Iowa City Public Library, immediate Past President of the Iowa Library Association, and the current ILA Government Affairs chair. Helmick is a current member of the ALA Executive Board and previously served as chair-elect on the Freedom to Read Foundation as well as chair of the Iowa Governor’s Commission of Libraries. They have served on committees for the Network of the National Library of Medicine, the Stonewall Book Awards, the ALA Policy Monitoring Committee, Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Michael L. Printz Committee, on the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Sophie Brody Award Committee and on the YALSA Fundraising Task Force. Helmick is a 2017 Emerging Leader as well as an author, consultant, and instructor for management, social media marketing, and graphic design.

Dr. Ray Pun (he/him) is an ALA Presidential candidate for 2025-2026. Pun is the academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education, a teacher residency program in California, where he supports graduate students, teachers, and teacher educators. Pun previously worked as librarian at The New York Public Library, New York University Shanghai, Fresno State, and Stanford University. An active member of the American Library Association, Pun is also a member of several library groups such as the American Indian Library Association (AILA), the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA), and REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. From 2021-2022, Pun served as President of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) and from 2022-2023, Pun served as President of the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA). Pun holds an Ed.D. from Fresno State, a Master of Library Science from the City University of New York – Queens College, a Master of Arts in East Asian Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from St. John’s University. Learn more about Dr. Ray Pun at https://www.raypun.info.

SHOW NOTES:

Sam’s campaign site
Ray’s campaign site

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Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett faces two different kinds of rampaging beasts—one animal, one human—in this riveting new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C.J. Box.

A rogue grizzly bear has gone on a rampage—killing, among others, the potential fiancé of Joe’s daughter. At the same time, Dallas Cates, who Joe helped lock up years ago, is released from prison with a special list tattooed on his skin. He wants revenge on the people who sent him away: the six people he blames for the deaths of his entire family and the loss of his reputation and property.

Using the grizzly attacks as cover, Cates sets out to methodically check off his list. The problem is, both Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett are on it.

C. J. Box is the author of twenty-four Joe Pickett novels, eight stand-alone novels, and a story collection. He has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and two Barry awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38, the Western Heritage Award for Literature, and two Spur Awards. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He has been executive producer on shows based on his books, including ABC TV’s Big Sky and Joe Pickett on Paramount+.

SHOW NOTES:

Three-Inch Teeth (affiliate link)
C. J. Box

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James LaRue is the director of the Garfield County (Colorado) Public Library District. Author of “The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges,” (2007) and “On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US,” (2023) LaRue has been a public library director for many years, as well as a weekly newspaper columnist and cable TV host. From January of 2016 to November of 2018, he was director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, and ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. He has written, spoken, and consulted extensively on intellectual freedom issues, leadership and organizational development, community engagement, and the future of libraries.

SHOW NOTES:

On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US

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Janette Derucki joined RAILS in January 2022 as part of the SLATE (School Library Advocacy Through Education) Project before transitioning to her current role as Data Research Specialist. She is a second-career librarian, earning a Master of Information degree with a concentration in Data Science from Rutgers University in 2021. The use of data for advocacy and to support advancement in the field of library and information science is one of her many interests, and she endeavors to work with library professionals to make a positive impact.

Grant Halter is the Data Analysis Manager at RAILS and has been there for 4.5 years helping steadily grow the Data Analysis Department. Grant joined RAILS after a short stint at the Oak Park Public Library as their Data Analyst, where he learned the ins and outs of the library world and how data can best impact the industry. His background is in applied mathematics, which he utilizes to uncover useful insights that help guide RAILS staff and members with data. His favorite chart is a scatter plot, and his favorite part of his work is developing formulas to equitably distribute grant funding.

SHOW NOTES:

RAILS

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Ashley is an avid reader who pretty much has an interest in all types of genres and has recently become a big fan of manga/comics. She runs a blog at BookishRealmReviews also makes YouTube videos – all related to books!

Thomas Maluck is a Teen Services Librarian for Richland Library. He has worked in public libraries, including youth services and readers advisory, for over thirteen years. He was the 2019 recipient of the F. William Summers Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of South Carolina. He co-presented the keynote address with Kristin LaLonde at the Quebec Library Association about graphic novel collections and their impact on readers. He has been a panelist and moderator about graphic novels and library programming at American Library Association, New York Comic Con, Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Dragon Con, and C2E2 conferences. He has served on YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels For Teens book selection committee as well as School Library Journal’s Best Graphic Novels team. He currently reviews for Kirkus and contributes to features for No Flying No Tights. He also uses his Accredited Personal Finance Instructor ℠ credential to provide financial education.

Follow Ashley’s reviews:
Blog
Goodreads
YouTube
Instagram

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Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty is the director of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. The recently integrated Smithsonian Libraries and Archives contains nearly 3 million library volumes and over 44,000 cubic feet of archival materials chronicling the history of the Smithsonian. Evangelestia-Dougherty oversees 137 employees, a national advisory board of 15 members, an annual budget of over $16 million and 22 library branches and reading rooms located in Washington, D.C., New York City, Maryland, Virginia and the Republic of Panama.

Previously, Evangelestia-Dougherty was an associate university librarian at Cornell University where she initiated Cornell RAD, a new research hub for rare and distinctive collections. She is also a faculty member of the UCLA California Rare Book School. As director of collections and services at New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 2013 to 2014, Evangelestia-Dougherty led collection and programmatic development of five curatorial divisions. At the University of Chicago’s Black Metropolis Research Consortium, she served as executive director from 2011 to 2013 and as consulting archivist from 2007 to 2011. There, she successfully led initiatives to discover and make accessible archives related to the African American diaspora.

In addition to her extensive work with rare and distinctive collections, Evangelestia-Dougherty is a published author and public speaker who has presented nationally on topics of inclusivity and equity in bibliography, administration and primary-source literacy. She currently serves on the boards of Digital Scriptorium and the American Printing History Association.

Evangelestia-Dougherty holds a Master of Science in information science from Simmons University’s School of Library and Information Science in Boston and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Houston.

SHOW NOTES:

Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
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Tracie D. Hall was the American Library Association’s 10th executive director in its 143-year history, and the first African American female in the role. She resigned in October 2023. Her work in library and arts administration has been recognized with the National Book Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and by Time magazine. Hall was the 2023 recipient of the medal for Freedom of Speech and Free Expression by the Franklin D Roosevelt Institute.

SHOW NOTES:

“Executive Director Tracie D. Hall to Depart from the American Library Association”
“No Quiet in the Library”
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Kerri Maher is the USA Today bestselling author of The Paris Bookseller, The Girl in White Gloves, The Kennedy Debutante, and, under the name Kerri Majors, This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives with her daughter and dog in a leafy suburb west of Boston, Massachusetts.

SHOW NOTES:

All You Have To Do Is Call
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What is your school library’s brand? This book will help school librarians improve their practice and strengthen their influence within their learning communities, increasing positive perceptions of school libraries through developing a brand in alignment with the AASL Standards.

A former Director of Library, Media and Technology, Susan D. Ballard guided her district to AASL National School Library of the Year Award recognition. She has served as an adjunct professor and lecturer in various school librarian preparation programs, published numerous articles in professional and scholarly journals and edited and contributed to several books. A Past-President of AASL, the New Hampshire School Library Media Association, and the New England School Library Association, Susan served on the Standards and Guidelines Editorial Board for the National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. 

Sara Kelly Johns, an online instructor at the Syracuse University iSchool and a long-time school librarian, is a past president of AASL, the New York Library Association (NYLA), and the Section of School Librarians of NYLA. She received the NYLA Lifetime Achievement Award and the first AASL Social Media Superstar Advocacy Ambassador Award. Active in ALA Council and ALA committees, Johns was a member of the Implementation Task Force for the National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. She has written articles for several school library publications and contributed chapters for various books.

SHOW NOTES:

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Elevating the School Library

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Alyssa Wees is the acclaimed author of The Waking Forest and Nocturne. She grew up writing stories about her Beanie Babies in between ballet lessons. She earned a BA in English from Creighton University and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago. Currently she works as an assistant librarian in youth services at an awesome public library. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband and their two cats.

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Nocturne

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Emily Knox is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include information access and intellectual freedom and censorship. She is a member of the Mapping Information Access research team.

Her most recent book Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman) won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom. Her previous book, Book Banning in 21st Century America (Rowman & Littlefield) is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars’ Series. Emily’s articles have been published in the Library Quarterly, Library and Information Science Research, and the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy.

Emily serves on the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship. She is also editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy.

Emily received her PhD from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information.

SHOW NOTES:

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Book Banning in 21st Century America
Foundations of Intellectual Freedom

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Dr. Steve Albrecht has trained thousands of library employees in 28+ states, live and online, in service, safety, and security. In 2015, the ALA published his book, Library Security: Better Communication, Safer Facilities. His new book, The Safe Library: Keeping Users, Staff, and Collections Secure, was just published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Steve holds a doctoral degree in Business Administration (D.B.A.), an M.A. in Security Management, a B.A. in English, and a B.S. in Psychology. He is board-certified in HR, security management, employee coaching, and threat assessment.

He has written 26 books on business, security, and leadership topics. He lives in Springfield, Missouri, with six dogs and two cats.

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Subscribe (FREE!) to the Circulating Ideas newsletter!
The Safe Library: Keeping Users, Staff, and Collections Secure
Circulating Ideas 88: Steve Albrecht
Circulating Ideas 135: Ryan Dowd

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Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years’ experience as a litigator. A graduate of Boston College and the Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USAToday bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Carnegie’s Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. All have been translated into multiple languages. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Victoria Christopher Murray is an acclaimed author with more than one million books in print. She has written more than twenty novels, including Stand Your Ground, a NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

SHOW NOTES:

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The First Ladies
Marie Benedict
Victoria Christopher Murray
CI204: The Personal Library by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

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Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including co-editor of Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information which received the Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award from ARCL’s Instruction Section. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy. Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campus’s Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL.

SHOW NOTES:

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Knowledge as a Feeling: How Neuroscience and Psychology Impact Human Information Behavior

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Lindsay Cronk is currently Assistant Dean for Scholarly Resources and Curation at the University of Rochester. She’s a passionate advocate and champion for libraries and library workers who served as first elected president of Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, ALA’s newest Division. Her consortial work includes the creation of NERL’s Backflip model for retroactive open access. She’s more covered in tattoos and full of strong opinions than ever before. 

Maurini Strub is the Assistant Dean for Strategy & Planning at the University of Rochester.  She’s a storyteller who enjoys helping organizations tell their own stories about how they are working together to fulfill their mission while optimizing limited resources; and, about the impact of their strategic changes on the community (or institution)-at-large. As a systems thinker with years of experience in academic libraries, she has a strong understanding of the strategic levers that can scale strategic and user-focused initiatives.

Ashley Krenelka Chase is a former law librarian and current Assistant Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law, where she teaches research & writing. In her copious free time, Ashley writes about access to justice for incarcerated litigants, spends time pretending to be PeMento’s general counsel, and plays a lot of hide and seek with the Brute Squad (aka her three kids). 

Rachel Fleming is Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where they manage the UTC Library’s Affordable Course Materials Initiative, support open campus publishing in UTC Scholar, and provide scholarly communications training and support. 

SHOW NOTES:

PeMento
Sign up for the 2023 cohort!
Sign up for the Circulating Ideas newsletter!

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Rebecca Vnuk is the Executive Director of LibraryReads, an organization that works with public library staff and U.S. publishers to promote adult reading. She has an MLIS from Dominican University and worked as a readers’ advisory librarian for a decade, and prior to joining LibraryReads, she was the editor for Collection Management and Library Outreach at Booklist. Rebecca is the author of three reference books on the topic of Women’s Fiction, as well as a best-selling book on weeding library collections.

Stephanie Chase is the Executive Director of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon and Founding Principal of the Constructive Disruption consultancy. Previously, Stephanie was the Director of Libraries for Hillsboro (OR) and was the Director of Library Programs and Services for The Seattle Public Library. Stephanie is the founder of the Green Mountain (VT) Library Consortium, a statewide library consortium providing digital collections and partnership opportunities to 150 member libraries, a founding member and inaugural chair of the LibraryReads Steering Committee, and currently serves on the Public Library Association Board of Directors and the American Library Association ALA Council and was recently elected to serve on the ALA Executive Board.

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LibraryReads

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Sarah R. Kostelecky is the Director of Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication (DISC) for University of New Mexico Libraries. Her research focuses on outreach efforts to underrepresented communities, diversity in academic libraries and library collections, and Native American language resources. Previously at UNM, Sarah has served as the Education Librarian and Access Services Librarian in the Indigenous Nations Library Program (INLP). She earned both her MA in Information Resources and Library Science and BA in Sociology from the University of Arizona. Prior to working at UNM Libraries, Sarah was the Library Director at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, NM, the premiere educational institution for contemporary Native American arts and cultures. Along with David A. Hurley and Paulita Aguilar, she co-edited “Sharing Knowledge and Smashing Stereotypes: Representing Native American, First Nation, and Indigenous Realities in Library Collections,” a special double issue of the journal Collection Management. Sarah has enjoyed working in a variety of libraries including university, public, tribal college, and museum. She is a member of Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico.

Lori Townsend is the Learning Services Coordinator and Engineering Librarian for the University of New Mexico Libraries. Her research interests include threshold concepts and information literacy, academic librarians of color and cultural humility. Lori holds a BA in history from the University of New Mexico and an MLIS from San Jose State University. Before coming to UNM, she worked as the Electronic Collections Librarian at California State University, East Bay from 2005-2010. She is co-author, along with Amy R. Hofer and Silvia Lin Hanick, of the book Transforming Information Literacy Instruction: Threshold Concepts in Theory and Practice (Libraries Unlimited, 2018); she and Silvia Lin Hanick are Series Editors for the just-launched Libraries Unlimited Series on Teaching Information Literacy Today. Lori is a member of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of Duck Valley.

David A. Hurley is the Web and Discovery Librarian for the University Libraries. In addition to cultural humility, he writes and presents on search, reference services, and information literacy. He was previously the director of the Diné College libraries on the Navajo Nation, chief of the library development bureau at the New Mexico State Library, and branch and digital services manager for the public library of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. With Sarah R. Kostelecky and Paulita Aguilar, David co-edited “Sharing Knowledge and Smashing Stereotypes: Representing Native American, First Nation, and Indigenous Realities in Library Collections,” a special double issue of the journal Collection Management.

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Hopeful Visions, Practical Actions: Cultural Humility in Library Work

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CJ Ivory is an Associate Professor and Librarian at the University of West Georgia, where she teaches Information Literacy & Research. With expertise in open education resources and textbook alternatives, she serves as a Library Champion for Affordable Learning Georgia, a statewide initiative. She has been awarded grants for developing open textbooks in the fields of teacher education and chemistry. Professor Ivory recently published a book with ACRL Press titled “Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice.”

Additionally, she teaches courses helping librarians develop their diversity and inclusion skills through Library Juice Academy. She has been invited to speak on these topics in academic libraries and professional organizations. Professor Ivory’s commitment to providing inclusive and equitable educational resources aligns with her passion for social justice education.

Angela Pashia has over a decade of experience as an academic librarian focusing on teaching critical information literacy, mentoring colleagues, working against structural oppression within libraries, and growing as a collaborative leader. Angela is currently a professor / learning & research support librarian at a regional comprehensive university. Angela is also an academic career and leadership development coach, supporting faculty and librarians in aligning their work with their core values, so that they can focus more on things that bring meaning to their life and less on things that are just chores that drain their energy. Angela teaches several courses at the Library Juice Academy. Learn more at https://angelapashia.com/

Mary Ann Cullen is an associate professor and Associate Department Head at Georgia State University’s Alpharetta Campus. She has been involved in the open and affordable educational resources movement since 2013, when she participated in the adaptation of an OER text for an introductory English composition course. Since then, she has assisted faculty with OER adoption and grants, and presented about librarians’ roles in OER at ACRL, the Distance Library Services Conference, and a Carterette Series webinar. She has been recognized as an Affordable Learning Georgia Featured Advocate and co-edited the Fall 2020 special edition of the academic journal, Library Trends, “OER and the Academic Library,” with Elizabeth Dill, in addition to the ACRL book, Intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy, discussed in this podcast.

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. He is also the President of the Moraine Valley Faculty Association. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including co-editor of Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information which received the Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award from ARCL’s Instruction Section. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy.  Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campuses Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL. 

SHOW NOTES:

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Intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy
Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice

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C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 30 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction.  He was recently awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum as well as the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel by the Western Writers of America in 2017.  Over ten million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad and they’ve been translated into 27 languages.  Two television series based on his novels are in production (BIG SKY on ABC and JOE PICKETT on Spectrum Originals and Paramount+). He is an Executive Producer for both series.

Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small town newspaper reporter and editor, and he owned an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie. In 2008, Box was awarded the “BIG WYO” Award from the state tourism industry. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He served on the Board of Directors for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo and currently serves on the Wyoming Office of Tourism Board. They have three daughters and two grandchildren. He and his wife Laurie live on their ranch in Wyoming.

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Storm Watch

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Cindy Hohl is past president of the American Indian Library Association and is an active member of other ALA affiliates, including the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association, Black Caucus of ALA, Chinese American Librarians Association and REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. As a member of the Public Library Association, a division of ALA, she currently co-chairs the Membership Advisory Group, and was a member of the PLA Strategic Plan Review Team. Hohl is also a member of several round tables: Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT), Library Research Round Table (LRRT), and Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT). Hohl holds a Bachelor of Science in Organization Management and Leadership from Friends University, a Master of Library and Information Science from Wayne State University, and a Master of Business Administration from Baker University.

Eric D. Suess is the Director of the Marshall Public Library in Pocatello, Idaho. He has been active in ALA for thirty-five years, including twelve years as a Councilor At-Large, where he was involved in several council committees, including the Policy Monitoring Committee, Committee on Legislation and the Committee on Organization. He is currently a member of the following ALA divisions: Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), Core, PLA and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). He also belongs to several round tables, including International Relations Round Table (IRRT), IFRT, Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) and Games and Gaming Round Table (GAMERT). He is an active member of the Idaho Library Association, a chapter of ALA, where he previously chaired its Intellectual Freedom Committee. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Michigan. His wife Karen works with special needs students at Pocatello High School. When not at work, Eric is usually acting in or directing community theater productions. He is currently playing George in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”.

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Grace M. Jackson-Brown is a professor for research and instruction at Missouri State University Libraries in Springfield, Missouri. She is chairperson of the Springfield African American Read-In and recipient of the 2014 Zora Neale Hurston Award for promoting African American literature and the Educational Partnership Award of the NAACP Springfield Chapter. Her career spans more than twenty-five years as an academic librarian, much of it devoted to library outreach diversity programming. She holds a master’s degree in library and information management from Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, and a PhD in mass communication from Indiana University–Bloomington.

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Promoting African American Writers: Library Partnerships for Outreach, Programming, and Literacy

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Falon Ballard is the author of Just My Type and Lease on Love. When she’s not writing fictional love stories, she’s helping real-life couples celebrate, working as a wedding planner in Southern California.

Robin Bradford has earned a BA and MA in English, an MS in Library Science, and a JD, but has found a home in building reader-focused, popular collections in public libraries. She was recognized as RWA’s 2016 Librarian of the Year, and Emerald City Library Conference’s Librarian of the Year in 2022. She is addicted to books and dedicated to helping others discover a love of reading. She has worked with authors to help get their titles into these collections, and wrote the forthcoming ALA’s Guide to Romance Fiction to further help libraries with their romance collection. She also worked with libraries to push for equal treatment of genre fiction, and worked with readers so that they can find their favorite authors on their library’s shelves.

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Just My Type
The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Romance

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John Hubbard is a librarian at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is excited to be leading the development of the main search interface: a discovery layer known as Primo.

John has worked with library technology for over twenty years, with an emphasis on taking an evidence-based and user-driven approach in order to offer the best library user experience. He has previously worked at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Haverford College, and the University of Pennsylvania. His past responsibilities include acting as a library webmaster, coordinating electronic resources, providing library reference services, performing bibliographic instruction, technical writing, and a little light cataloging. John received his library degree from Drexel University and his undergraduate degree at Macalester College.

He was once interviewed by National Public Radio about librarian stereotypes; has delivered presentations on the benefits of emerging and disruptive technologies; and currently operates the Library Link of the Day. He was also named a Library Journal “Mover & Shaker,” as one of the innovators “who are transforming libraries for the future.”

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Library Link of the Day

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Robin Bradford has earned a BA and MA in English, an MS in Library Science, and a JD, but has found a home in building reader-focused, popular collections in public libraries. She was recognized as RWA’s 2016 Librarian of the Year, and Emerald City Library Conference’s Librarian of the Year in 2022. She is addicted to books and dedicated to helping others discover a love of reading. She has worked with authors to help get their titles into these collections, and wrote the forthcoming ALA’s Guide to Romance Fiction to further help libraries with their romance collection. She also worked with libraries to push for equal treatment of genre fiction, and worked with readers so that they can find their favorite authors on their library’s shelves.

Becky Spratford [MLIS] is a Readers’ Advisor in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up. She trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She runs the critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All. She is under contract to provide content for EBSCO’s NoveList database and writes reviews for Booklist and a horror review column for Library Journal. Becky is a 21 year locally elected Library Trustee [still serving], a Board member for the Reaching Across Illinois Library System, and on the Executive Board of the Illinois Library Association. Known for her work with horror readers, Becky is the author of The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition [ALA Editions, 2021]. She is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association and currently serves as the Association’s Secretary and organizer of their annual Librarians’ Day. You can follow Becky on Twitter @RAforAll.  

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Actively Anti-Racist Service to Readers [Learn with NoveList]

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Angela Hursh is Manager of Engagement and Marketing for NoveList. She helps libraries create effective and engaging ways to market their collection and reach readers as part of the team of expert instructors for LearnwithNoveList.com. Before her job at NoveList, she led the content marketing team for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. She is the author of the blog SuperLibraryMarketing.com and host of the YouTube series The Library Marketing Show. She also has more than 20 years of experience as an Emmy-award-winning broadcast TV journalist.

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Super Library Marketing
The Library Marketing Show
Learn with NoveList

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Sarah Voels is the director of Vogel Library at Wartburg College. She previously worked in collection development, where she began her research and study on diversity audits. These efforts have drawn national attention, and she has presented her findings at multiple conferences, including the Iowa Library Association, Public Library Association, and United for Libraries.

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Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards

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Auditing Diversity in Library Collections [ABC-CLIO]
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Alison J. Head, Ph.D. is an information scientist and social science researcher. She is the founder and director of Project Information Literacy (PIL), a national research institute that studies what it is like to find, use, and evaluate information in the digital age as students and lifelong learners. In a series of 12 groundbreaking research studies with a collective sample of nearly 21,000 undergraduates from U.S. colleges and universities, PIL has investigated how college students and recent graduates utilize research skills, competencies, and strategies for completing course work and for solving information problems and engaging with news in everyday life. Dr. Head’s research about today’s students and their information practices began with a small study at Saint Mary’s College of California, where she taught new media as the Roy O. Disney Visiting Professor in New Media for 10 years. More about Dr. Head’s research and PIL is available at: http://projectinfolit.org/

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. He is also the President of the Moraine Valley Faculty Association. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including co-editor of Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information which received the Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award from ARCL’s Instruction Section. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy.  Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campuses Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL. 

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards

To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community. Again, that’s Syndetics.com, to learn more about today’s sponsor, Syndetics Unbound.

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Project Information Literacy

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Madeline Martin is a New York Times and International Bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance.

She lives in sunny Florida with her two daughters (known collectively as the minions), one incredibly spoiled cat and a man so wonderful he’s been dubbed Mr. Awesome. She is a die-hard history lover who will happily lose herself in research any day. When she’s not writing, researching or ‘moming’, you can find her spending time with her family at Disney or sneaking a couple spoonfuls of Nutella while laughing over cat videos. She also loves to travel, attributing her fascination with history to having spent most of her childhood as an Army brat in Germany.

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards

To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community. Again, that’s Syndetics.com, to learn more about today’s sponsor, Syndetics Unbound.

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The Librarian Spy

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Jacoby Cochran is a writer, educator, and storyteller. He is the award winning host of City Cast Chicago, which was named Best of 2021 by the Chicago Reader and Chicago Magazine calls it “the essential Chicago podcast.” You can also catch Jacoby discussing news, sports, culture and events on Chicago’s NPR and PBS stations. As a performer, keynote speaker, and workshop leader, Jacoby has partnered with corporate clients (Google, Spotify, AT&T, Chicago Bulls, Best Buy, Kohl’s); academic institutions (DePaul University, City Colleges, Syracuse University); and non-profits (The Moth, Boys & Girls Club, American Writers Museum).

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. He is also the President of the Moraine Valley Faculty Association. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including co-editor of Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information which received the Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award from ARCL’s Instruction Section. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy.  Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campuses Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL. 

SPONSOR:

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards

To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community. Again, that’s Syndetics.com, to learn more about today’s sponsor, Syndetics Unbound.

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City Cast Chicago

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Wayne A. Wiegand is the F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus at Florida State University. He is the author of Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey and Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library.

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards

To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community. Again, that’s Syndetics.com, to learn more about today’s sponsor, Syndetics Unbound.

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Jeanie Austin earned their PhD in library and information science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They are a jail and reentry services librarian at the San Francisco Public Library and has provided library services in juvenile detention centers and jails for over a decade. In addition to authoring numerous journal articles, their book, “Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access” was published by the American Library Association in 2021.

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards

To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community. Again, that’s Syndetics.com, to learn more about today’s sponsor, Syndetics Unbound.

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Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access

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Addison Armstrong graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2020 with degrees in elementary education and language and literacy studies and received her master’s degree from Vanderbilt in Reading Education in 2021. The Light of Luna Park was her first novel. She lives with her husband in New York, New York, where she teaches elementary school.

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community.

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Addison Armstrong
The War Librarian

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Liladhar R. Pendse is a librarian for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. He has been with the University of California Library system since 2002 and possesses a wide range of expertise in Area and International Studies within academic libraries. Liladhar tries to educate himself through collaboration with his colleagues and continuing education opportunities. Liladhar considers librarianship to be his vocation and lacks an on-and-off switch when it comes to meeting user needs.

Natalia Estrada (she/they) is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at SUNY Buffalo. She’s worked in various academic library staff positions for more than 15 years and has focused her research on organizational hierarchy in the academic library. She’s also the host of the podcast Digital Explorer, the podcast about digital scholarship and our relationship with computers and the internet. Born and raised in the LA area, Natalia is interested in Legos, arts and crafts, weightlifting, the intersection of neurodiversity and Latinx identity, and chaotic energy.

SPONSOR:

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community.

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Allison Waukau (Menominee/Navajo) resides in Minneapolis, MN and works in Community Engagement. Allison currently is a Member at Large with the American Indian Library Association and one of Library Journal’s 2021 Movers & Shakers. Allison’s professional interests include exploring library land acknowledgement practices, developing community-led library programs, and elevating the voices and perspectives of her Native community.

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing.
Today’s show is brought to you by Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing. Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including reader’s advisory, cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of libraries’ top titles and other stories of interest to the library community.

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Dr. Virginia Campbell is an experienced Emergency and Palliative Medicine physician with a long-standing interest in the brain and consciousness. For over 15 years, she has hosted the Brain Science podcast where she has interviewed leading neuroscientists sharing recent discoveries and exploring ideas from the frontlines of research. The Brain Science podcast has been one of the top-ranking podcasts in Medicine on iTunes enjoying over 12 million downloads.

Dr. Campbell believes that understanding how the brain works gives us insight into what makes us human. She is also committed to showing how the scientific method has unraveled many long-standing mysteries.

Dr. Campbell has also hosted the Graying Rainbows: Coming out LGBT+ Later in Life and the Books and Ideas Podcast both of which are no longer in production but are still feely available online.

 In 2022, Dr. Campbell was selected as a member of the Podcaster Hall of Fame.

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Marshall Breeding is an independent consultant, speaker, and author. He is the creator and editor of Library Technology Guides and the libraries.org online directory of libraries on the Web. His monthly column Systems Librarian appears in Computers in Libraries; he is the Editor for Library Technology Newsletter, published through Library Technology Guides. From 2002 through 2021 he was the editor and contributor for Smart Libraries Newsletter published by the American Library Association, and has authored the annual Library Systems Report published in American Libraries since 2014 and in Library Journal from 2002-2013. He has authored fourteen issues of ALA’s Library Technology Reports, and has written many other articles and book chapters. Marshall has edited or authored eight books, including Cloud Computing for Libraries published by in 2012 by Neal-Schuman, now part of ALA TechSource . He regularly teaches workshops and gives presentations at library conferences on a wide range of topics.

He has been an invited speaker for many library conferences and workshops throughout the United States and internationally. He has spoken in throughout the United States and in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, Singapore, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Israel, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina.

Marshall Breeding held a variety of positions for the Vanderbilt University Libraries in Nashville, TN from 1985 through May 2012, including as Director for Innovative Technologies and Research as the Executive Director the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.

Breeding was the 2010 recipient of the LITA LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication for Continuing Education in Library and Information Science.

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2022 Library Systems Report

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Tasslyn Magnusson is a researcher, writer, and poet living in Prescott, WI. She has a PhD in History from Case Western Reserve University and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. 

John Chrastka is the founder and Executive Director of EveryLibrary and is a long-time library trustee, supporter, and advocate.  Mr. Chrastka is a former partner in AssociaDirect, a Chicago-based consultancy focused on supporting associations in membership recruitment, conference, and governance activities.  He is a former president and member of the Board of Trustees for the Berwyn (IL) Public Library (2006 – 2015) and is a former president of the Reaching Across Illinois Libraries System (RAILS) multi-type library system. Prior to his work at AssociaDirect, he was Director for Membership Development at the American Library Association (ALA). He is a member of ALA as well as the Illinois Library Association (ILA), and the American Political Sciences Association (APSA). He as named a 2014 Mover & Shaker by Library Journal and tweets @mrchrastka.

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EveryLibrary Institute
Book Censorship Database

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Paula Willey is a librarian at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore. She has written about children’s literature and family engagement for publications such as School Library Journal, the Baltimore Sun, Booklist, VOYA, and Baltimore’s Child and speaks on topics ranging from book illustration and media literacy to what it means when a kid is totally into truly creepy books. She is co-author with Andria Amaral of The Passive Programming Playbook: 101 Ways to Get Library Customers Off the Sidelines.

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The Passive Programming Playbook: 101 Ways to Get Library Customers Off the Sidelines [ABC-CLIO Libraries Unlimited]

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Emily Drabinski is Critical Pedagogy Librarian and Interim Chief Librarian at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has been an academic librarian for two decades, publishing and presenting widely on the politics of knowledge organization and the importance of organized labor in the library workplace.

Kelvin Watson is the executive director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, oversees 25 branches spanning 8,000 square miles, a budget of $77 million, 700 employees, and a collection of 3.2 million items. The Library District is a vibrant and vital member of the community offering limitless learning; business and career advancement; and government and social services support.

Mr. Watson joined the Library District from his role as the director of the Broward County Libraries Division, where he managed 700+ full-time employees and a budget of more than $70 million. The Broward County library system serves 1.9 million people through 38 locations in the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida region.

Regarded as one of the most highly respected thought leaders in the library industry, he is credited with expanding his customer base in past library management roles, through outreach efforts to underserved and diverse populations. His deep experience in fundraising, technology, program development, plus his demonstrated success in addressing the digital divide, will help the Library District to further expand its role as a free educational resource for all residents. A current example of this is a partnership with the Regional Transit Commission of Southern Nevada to provide a library app to bus riders using on-board WiFi. This program introduces the library to thousands of potential new customers who may have had no previous library interaction.

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Emily Drabinski campaign site
Kelvin Watson campaign site

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Dion Graham, from HBO’s The Wire, also narrates The First 48 on A&E. A multiple Audie Award–winning and critically acclaimed actor and narrator, he has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series.

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Dion’s audiobook work for Penguin Random House

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Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett is the University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She also holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is Chief Science Officer for the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior. She is the author of countless research articles and books but most notably her recent book Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain and her and her 2018 book How Emotions are Made.

Dr. Barrett received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for her revolutionary research on emotion in the brain.  She also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019, the APS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in Psychology in 2021. Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Barrett has testified before Congress, presented her research to the FBI, consulted to the National Cancer Institute, appeared on Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman and The Today Show with Maria Shriver, and been a featured guest on public television and podcast and radio programs worldwide. She is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada.

Troy A. Swanson is Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at Moraine Valley Community College. He is also the President of the Moraine Valley Faculty Association. Troy is the author or editor of several books and articles including co-editor of Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information which received the Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award from ARCL’s Instruction Section. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of technology policy in higher education. He served on ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education Task Force which issued the Framework for Information Literacy.  Over his tenure as a librarian and educator, Troy has won his campuses Master Teacher and Innovation of the Year awards, as well as the Proquest Innovation in College Librarianship award from ACRL. 

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Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain 

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William Ottens is a librarian and the creator of the library-centric Librarian Problems Tumblr. Described by Library Journal‘s Tumblr-in-Chief, Molly McArdle, as the GIF-king of all librarian tumblrs, William’s Librarian Problems blog pairs common librarian situations, frustrations, and stereotypes with animated reaction GIFs. His public library experience includes work in reference, administration, cataloging, and collection development. He served as Director of the Oskaloosa Public Library in Oskaloosa, Iowa from 2012 to 2015, and is currently a Youth Services Associate with the Mid-Continent Public Library in Kansas City, MO.

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Librarian Tales: Funny, Strange, and Inspiring Dispatches from the Stacks

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M. Elena Lopez is an independent researcher whose work focuses on the ecology of learning, which includes the home, school, and community. She has published extensively on family and community engagement in learning and has served on the Mountain View (CA) Library Board.

Bharat Mehra is a professor and EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama. Among his many research interests are diversity and inclusion advocacy, intercultural communication and action, social justice in library and information science, community-engaged scholarship, and critical and cross-cultural studies.

Margaret Caspe is a senior research consultant with NAFSCE who focuses on how families, early childhood programs, schools, and communities support children’s learning. Her work has appeared in Public Library Quarterly, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, School Community Journal, Young Children, and Childhood Education.

SPONSORS:

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Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

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A Librarian’s Guide to Engaging Families in Learning

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Meredith Farkas (she/her) is a faculty librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon, a perpetual beginner, and a recovering workaholic. From 2007-2021, she wrote the “In Practice” column for American Libraries, focusing on accessible technologies, collaboration, values-driven work, antiracism, and reflective practice. She has also authored the blog Information Wants to be Free since 2004. Meredith was honored in 2009 with the LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology, and in 2014 with the ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award. She’s been in many different leadership and management roles in her career, but her favorite role is working with students and faculty as an instruction librarian.

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Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

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Information Wants To Be Free

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Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of In the Public Interest (ITPI,)  a national research and policy center that studies public goods and services.  His opinion pieces and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The New York Daily News, The New Republic, The American Prospect, The Nation and other online and print outlets.  He’s the co-author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back, out November 23, 2021.

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EveryLibrary
This episode is sponsored today by EveryLibrary, the national political action committee for libraries. EveryLibrary helps support the funding formula for public and school libraries so our public institutions can employ great people. You can see more about their pro-bono support for libraries on the ballot and school librarians in crisis at everylibrary.org and SaveSchoolLibrarians.org.

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

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The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back

Read the transcript!

Shannon M. Oltmann is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. She obtained her Ph.D. from Indiana University. Her research interests include information ethics, censorship, intellectual freedom, information policy, public libraries, privacy, and qualitative research methods. Oltmann is the Editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy and on the Editorial Board for Library Quarterly. She recently published a book, Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries. She has presented her research at academic conferences such as the Information Ethics Roundtable, the Annual Conference of the Association for Information Science & Technology, the iConference, and the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry. Her work has been published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Library Quarterly, Public Libraries Quarterly, Collection Management, Libri, and Library and Information Science Research.

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Book Buddies: Ivy Lost and Found, from Candlewick Press
Ivy Lost and Found, the first of a charming new early chapter book series about library toys and the children who borrow them, written by Newbery Honoree Cynthia Lord and illustrated by Stephanie Graegin. In a starred review, Booklist called Ivy Lost and Found “an engaging story of insecurity overcome by hop, courage, and love.” Ivy is the library’s newest book buddy —a toy that can be checked out just like a book—but she’d rather go back to being what she was before: the librarian’s favorite childhood doll.  So when Fern—a child with a new stepfamily who also wishes she could go back to the way things were—takes Ivy home, they embark on an adventure together that helps both of them find confidence and belonging in their changing worlds. Ivy Lost and Found is available now, and look for upcoming books in the Book Buddies series coming in Spring 2022!

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

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Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries

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Paul Signorelli, author of Change the World Using Social Media (Rowman & Littlefield, January 2021), is an Arizona State University ShapingEDU Storyteller-in-Residence and serves on the organizing committee of ShapingEDU’s “Connecting for Work & Learning” universal broadband access initiative. He earned his MLIS from UNT in 2009. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

SPONSORS:

Book Buddies: Ivy Lost and Found, from Candlewick Press
Ivy Lost and Found, the first of a charming new early chapter book series about library toys and the children who borrow them, written by Newbery Honoree Cynthia Lord and illustrated by Stephanie Graegin. In a starred review, Booklist called Ivy Lost and Found “an engaging story of insecurity overcome by hop, courage, and love.” Ivy is the library’s newest book buddy —a toy that can be checked out just like a book—but she’d rather go back to being what she was before: the librarian’s favorite childhood doll.  So when Fern—a child with a new stepfamily who also wishes she could go back to the way things were—takes Ivy home, they embark on an adventure together that helps both of them find confidence and belonging in their changing worlds. Ivy Lost and Found is available now, and look for upcoming books in the Book Buddies series coming in Spring 2022!

Syndetics Unbound, from ProQuest and LibraryThing
Syndetics Unbound helps public and academic libraries enrich their catalogs and discovery systems with high-interest elements, including cover images, summaries, author profiles, similar books, reviews, and more. Syndetics Unbound encourages serendipitous discovery and higher collection usage, and was recently awarded Platinum distinction in the LibraryWorks 2021 Modern Library Awards. To learn more about Syndetics Unbound, visit Syndetics.com. While there, be sure to visit their “News” tab to check out the Syndetics Unbound Blog for news and analysis, including a break-down of 2020’s most popular titles in public and academic libraries.

SHOW NOTES:

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Change the World with Social Media