Pamela Goodes's blog

The email below was sent January 27 to all ALA members with email addresses. The goal is a mere 6,344 signatures away from reaching the 25,000 goal: the magic number that allows the petition to reach the desk of President Obama.

Booklovers ended yet another Midwinter Meeting Monday afternoon sipping tea and dining on finger sandwiches while listening to a group of authors tell stories and read from their works before attendees lined up for autograph copies at the Gala Author Tea, hosted by the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends, and Foundations.

In a session that ended nearly two hours early Tuesday, Council III took action on measures that covered such issues as the refusal of some publishers to sell ebooks to libraries and the threat to intellectual freedom in the Mexican American Studies Program of the Tucson (Ariz.) Unified School District.

ALA Council approved programmatic priorities in line with the ALA Ahead to 2015 strategic plan and as a guide to the preparation of the fiscal year 2013 budget, as presented by Treasurer Jim Neal (Council Document #13.0), during its second session on Monday.

With a voice that echoed the melodious tone in sermons and speeches delivered by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Dr. Lewis V. Baldwin, an ordained minister, addressed the theme “Honoring a Legacy That Still Inspires” during the annual King Sunrise Celebration on Monday.

“We live in serious times,” Richard C. Harwood, president and founder of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, told the audience at the start of his presentation at the ALA President’s Program on Sunday about the condition of the United States.

Support and education for today’s youth is the key to liberation. That was the overall message delivered by Jamal Joseph, author of the newly released Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention (Algonquin Books), who delivered the 13^th annual Arthur Curley Lecture Saturday.

Dallas Public Library is moving to a more community-based, content-driven approach “not necessarily owning stuff anymore, but providing access to information,” DPL Interim Library Director Corinne Hill told the audience attending the “Reimagining the Public Library in a Post-Recession Economy” program Saturday, part of the ALA Masters Series.

The lone resolution on the agenda of the first session of ALA’s governing Council Sunday was postponed until the second session Monday as councilors sailed through the agenda, ending a half-hour early.

Social issues and fiction were the overall themes of the Exhibits Round Table/Booklist Author Forum January 20 featuring authors Helen Schulman and Hillary Jordan and moderated by Booklist Adult Books Editor Brad Hooper.