James LaRue - myliblog

Garfield County has some wonderful libraries, most of them built about a decade ago following a successful public vote on a bond issue. But 10 years is long enough to call for a second look and to freshen things up. Our first building refresh is the New Castle Branch. Branch manager Ana Gaytan cut the ribbon on May 28, 2025. Jenn Cook, former New Castle branch manager (now Technical Services Director for the district) held one end and I held the other. Just beyond was a couch, chairs and Spanish materials for all ages. I recommend a visit. The project, completed on time and on budget, reflects the changing use of the public library. We still check out a lot of books — over half a million a year. And just try to get through our displays without grabbing something. The book will endure. But these days just over 50% of our checkouts are virtual. That includes ebooks, audiobooks, and movies. It also includes electronic research tools: a vetted list of information sources for anyone from st...

This month I’d like to write about two related issues: government information and threats to children. First is the purging of data on federal websites. Beginning in January of 2025, according to NPR , “several webpages from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with references to LGBTQ+ health were no longer available. A page from the HHS Office for Civil Rights outlining the rights of LGBTQ+ people in health care settings was also gone … The website of the National Institutes of Health’s Office for Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office disappeared . (Most of these pages could still be viewed through the Internet Archive .)” So I went to the Health and Human Services website about vaccination. There was a link to a video about the pros and cons of vaccines. First the video went down. Then the link was gone. Today? Best check. This is disturbing for several reasons. Government performs many functions. Gathering ongoing reports about everything from census numbers t...

I don’t mean to brag, but since about 5th grade, I have developed — dare I say? — a superpower. I can read and walk at the same time. I’m not just talking about audiobooks. I mean I can stroll along busy streets, through intersections, and around natural hazards, all while actively reading a book in my hands. I can follow the story. I have trained my peripheral brain to alert me to physical threats. Why did I need to develop this skill? To put it simply: some books I just can’t set down. It’s not a surprise that I can still follow the story while strolling. Sometimes I can’t get out. The first books to completely capture my attention were science fiction. I discovered Robert A. Heinlein somewhere around 5th grade. I got so into that story (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel) that I was glued to it from my first awakening to final, heavy-lidded blink. I learned that there are very few things you actually have to stop reading to do: showers and sleep, mainly. Walking to school and back was easy...

My partner and I just finished co-teaching a leadership institute for librarians in the Western States. But I keep thinking about it. Some people, I know, think leadership is all about power. But I always wonder: power to do what? To make or to break? Over my 40-odd years of administrative experience — and some of them have been very odd indeed — I’ve boiled my idea of leadership down to three things. Know thyself . That is, have a relatively clear-eyed assessment of your strengths. Build on those strengths. But also learn how to recognize in other people the strengths that you do not have. Play well with others . Leadership begins with listening and paying attention. Then it moves into emotional intelligence — the ability to read and respond appropriately to human communication. The good news is that emotional intelligence is a skill set. It can be learned. The bad news is that a lot of people don’t bother. Make it better . There’s no point in leadership that makes things worse. Good ...

Librarians are generally a deliberate lot. We keep calm and gather information. But many of us are genuinely alarmed about recent actions by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Back on March 20, DOGE and Department of Homeland Security officials showed up unannounced at the headquarters of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). They appointed a new Acting Director in the lobby — Keith Sonderling, who is also the Secretary of the Department of Labor. By March 31 all the employees were placed on 90-day administrative leave, with no access to their government email. What is IMLS? IMLS was established in 1996 by a Republican-led Congress. Its mission is to “advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.” It was actually the merger of two previous government agencies, including the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and the Institute of Museum Service...

I know you do. Everything changed in 2010. Patrons handed library staff their shiny Christmas present: Kindles. “Make them work!” Despite the many predictions of a paperless society, eBooks really hadn’t caught on. But suddenly it was possible to carry 15 or 20 or 100 books around with you in your preferred font type and size. That same year, 2010, also marked the beginning of a big shift in the publishing landscape. At that time, there were about 300,000 new titles published a year by “the Big Five” (Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster). There were roughly 60,000 new titles per year published by small and independent publishers who just couldn’t match the distribution system of the major publishers. There were about 10,000 so-called vanity press titles a year. Today we call them “self-published,” even though the platform usually belongs to someone else — Amazon, Apple and Barnes and Noble, probably. Almost overnight regional, small and ind...