Public Programs Office

Go “Beyond the Racial Stalemate” at the 2019 ALA Annual Conference

In his 2008 speech on race, titled "A More Perfect Union," then-candidate Barack Obama described a "racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years." He suggested that, if we don't do something different, "nothing will change." A decade later, we're still stuck. How do we move forward? 

Learn how your library can fight fake news at the 2019 ALA Annual Conference

Can your patrons spot fake news? Can you?

Join the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office and the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University for a one-day workshop to learn how your library can help adults in your community become eagle-eyed news consumers.

ALA announces participants in Racial Healing Circle workshop with AAC&U

Forty-two library workers and educators have been selected to participate in a two-day workshop to learn how to lead Racial Healing Circles, a transformative facilitation process, championed by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, that strives to help communities engage with storytelling, deep listening and relationship building that can support healing from the effects of racism.

K-8 school libraries invited to apply for $5,000 award recognizing outstanding programming

CHICAGO — School libraries are invited to apply for a $5,000 award recognizing outstanding humanities programming in kindergarten through eighth grade, the American Library Association (ALA) announced.

Nominations for the 2019 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming will be accepted until May 3, 2019.

Neil Gaiman to deliver 2020 Arbuthnot Honor Lecture

SEATTLE – Neil Gaiman will deliver the 2020 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture. The announcement was made today by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), during the ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits held January 25 - 29, in Seattle, Washington.

ALA joins W.K. Kellogg Foundation in observance of 2019 National Day of Racial Healing

CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA) will join the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and organizations across the country in observing the 2019 National Day of Racial Healing on Tuesday, Jan. 22. (Read the proclamation by ALA President Loida Garcia-Febo.)

50 public libraries selected for American Creed: Community Conversations programming grants

The American Library Association (ALA), in partnership with Citizen Film and the National Writing Project, has announced 50 U.S. public libraries selected to take part in American Creed: Community Conversations, a grant program that will invite audiences to consider what America’s ideals and identity ought to be through screenings of, and conversations about, the PBS documentary American Creed.

Public libraries invited to apply to host Thinking Money for Kids traveling exhibition

CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA), in partnership with the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, invites public libraries to apply to be part of a national tour of the traveling exhibition Thinking Money for Kids.

70 libraries named for ALA’s Great Stories Club series on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation

CHICAGO — Seventy libraries have been selected to participate in the American Library Association’s Great Stories Club series on Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT), a thematic reading and discussion program series that will engage underserved teens through literature-based library outreach programs and racial healing work.