Steve Zalusky's blog

With a Feb. 4 deadline looming, members of the library community worked to ensure that 25,000 people signed the White House petition on behalf of school libraries.

Paolo Bacigalupi, author of Ship Breaker, a 2010 young adult novel by Paolo Bacigalupi set in a postapocalyptic future, talks passionately about libraries and their role in society in this video interview.

by Steve Zalusky

Libraries are creatures of adaptation. This is particularly true as people drift away from hardcover and paperback books and move toward getting their reading done on electronic devices.

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Libraries play a valuable role in bringing communities together.

And that includes ways in which community members act toward each other.

Illustrating this will be several public libraries that were selected by the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office and the Fetzer Institute to host a series of programs as part of the Building Common Ground: Discussions of Community, Civility and Compassion initiative, which is supported by the institute.

Sara Zarr, author of How to Save a Life, shares her thoughts about libraries in this week's video interview.

Zarr describes how libraries played a crucial role in providing her with books during her childhood in San Francisco.

"We didn't have money. We relied on hand-me-down clothing, food stamps. So the whole idea of idea of buying a book was completely foreign to me," she says.

The Michael L. Printz Award is bestowed annually to a book that exemplifies excellence in literature for teens. The award, sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association (ALA), and administered by ALA's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the YALSA.

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Much of the news coverage swirling around libraries focuses on how libraries are adapting to the digital age.

But print is still very much in the picture, as American Library Association (ALA) President Molly Raphael emphasized in her recent remarks at the 15th Annual FIL (La Feria Internacional del Libro) in Guadalajara.

On her website, best-selling author J.A. Jance writes, "As a second-grader in Mrs. Spangler’s Greenway School class, I was introduced to Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series. I read the first one and was hooked and knew, from that moment on, that I wanted to be a writer."

A big part of her development involved libraries, especially school libraries, as she describes in this interview. 

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Among their many roles, public librarians serve as guardians of our cultural heritage.

Such is the case in Pima County, Ariz., where, as this article in the Tuscon Citizen notes, the Pima County Public Library, along with the Arizona Historical Society, is creating a photo exhibit depicting barrio life in Tucson.

The term refers to the predominantly Hispanic historical neighborhoods in Tucson

Spending quality time with our kids and teens is critical to their growth and development—and it fosters strong bonds and relationships. But, in our fast-paced lives, finding opportunities for quality time together can be a daily challenge.

Fortunately, there are a variety of things to do, new adventures to begin and amazing things to learn—right at your library.

In this video, three authors (Julie James, William Joyce and Andrea Davis Pinkney) discuss ways in which they connect with their kids at the library.