American Library Association

Roy M Carlisle recently attended his first American Library Association (ALA) national convention in Chicago as a library science student and scholarly book publisher. Surprisingly, he finds out that being a book editor for 36 years did not prepare him for the astonishingly complex and diverse world of libraries in the U.S. Everyone from Oliver Stone to Barack Obama pays homage to this national institution and there are a million reasons why. And wait until you hear about the Digital Public Library of America: now we know the future is here! Here is Roy’s extensive and insightful ALA report.

New York, NY (July 1, 2013) — Fans of Harry Potter today revealed the new cover for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – the fifth of seven new trade paperback editions illustrated by New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, Kazu Kibuishi.  After discovering the image on the Scholastic website, the fans quickly shared the news and the stunning image on fan sites, Twitter and other social media sites. The cover of the first five books in the new trade paperback format can be found at http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/harrypotter .

June 17, 2013---The winners of the fifteenth annual ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago at the American Library Association Annual Conference, June 28, 2013, at 6pm at The Pop Top Stage. Books receiving ForeWord’s awards are recognized as some of the best books produced by independent, academic, and small presses over the past year. The awards ceremony is open to all ALA Annual Conference attendees.

ForeWord Reviews, a literary review journal celebrating its fifteenth year reviewing independently published books, is helping a growing number of consumers discover great works by small presses.

Penguin will introduce its new Book Truck and the Book Pushcart at BookExpo America this week, crossing a mobile library with a food truck.

The 27-foot-long Book Truck contains two bookshelves with 96 feet of shelf space, LED lighting, awnings and café tables and chairs. The Book Pushcart was “inspired by the design of the classic New York City hotdog cart.”  The mobile booksellers will travel the country, you can track them at the Penguin Book Truck site. Here’s more from the release:

The standoff between publishers and libraries over e-books is rapidly easing.

On Wednesday, Hachette Book Group became the fourth major publisher this year to announce it was expanding its digital offerings to libraries. Hachette, whose authors include Stephenie Meyer and Malcolm Gladwell, will offer its entire e-catalog to libraries after two years of pilot programs. New books will be available simultaneously in paper and e-editions, a policy also recently adapted by Penguin Group (USA). Hachette, Penguin and other publishers had previously restricted newer works out of concern for lost sales.

Here’s a list “Fifty Shades of Grey” was destined to make: The books most likely to be removed from school and library shelves in the U.S. The E L James’ multimillion-selling erotic trilogy has placed No. 4 on the American Library Association’s annual study of “challenged books,” works subject to complaints from parents, educators and other members of the public. The objections: offensive language, and, of course, graphic sexual content.

No. 1 was a not a story of the bedroom, but the bathroom, Dav Pilkey’s “Captain Underpants” books (offensive language, unsuited for age group), followed by Sherman Alexie’s prize-winning

From Kodiak to Key West, Concord to Carlsbad, Grand Forks to Galveston, in 6,200 towns and cities across America, more than 25,000 World Book Night U.S. volunteers will go out and personally hand out a half million free books to new or light readers on one day: April 23, 2013.

Libraries and library staff continue to respond to the needs of their communities, providing key resources as budgets are reduced, speaking out forcefully against book-banning attempts and advocating for free access to digital content in libraries, with a keen focus placed on ebook formats.

Led by the American Library Association (ALA), libraries offer resources often unavailable elsewhere during an economic “recovery” that finds about 12 million Americans unemployed and millions more underemployed. And the library community continues to rally support for school libraries, which seem destined to bear the brunt of federal budget sequestration.

These and other library trends of the past year are detailed in the ALA’s 2013 State of America’s Libraries Report, released today during National Library Week, April 14 – 20.

The publisher of Khaled Hosseini, Harlan Coben and other popular authors has decided that it's comfortable with letting libraries offer e-book editions of brand new releases.

Starting Tuesday, libraries can offer e-books from Penguin Group (USA) at the same time that the hardcover comes out, a switch from the previous policy of delaying downloads for six months, the publisher told The Associated Press. While vastly more e-books are available to libraries compared with a few years ago, Penguin and other publishers have limited digital access for fear of losing sales.