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Welcome to Check Your Shelf. I hope everyone can enjoy this upcoming long weekend, even though every person I’ve talked to has had an existential crisis about the fact that WE’RE ALREADY IN SEPTEMBER OH MY LORD WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!
Ahem.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
- Here’s the latest update on the REALM partnership test results…spoiler alert, a longer quarantine for returned items may be required.
- Douglas County Library Board of Trustees will investigate the library director and the staff over their statement of support for Black Lives Matter, voting to spend up to $30K on a third-party investigator. What the fork is this nonsense??
- And on the opposite end of the spectrum, a member of the Fairfax County Library board is facing calls for his removal after his critical remarks about the diverse titles featured on the library’s website.
- Loudon Co. (VA) officials have drawn a lot of negative press after deciding to close two library branches to serve as county day care centers without consulting library administrators first.
- Some libraries are being forced to roll back in-person services due to COVID cases on staff, community surges, or uncooperative visitors. Meanwhile, Lake County (IL) libraries are gradually restoring services, saying “We needed to ensure we could do it safely.” (This is the county I work in.)
- And in other news, this German library paid £2.5 million for a book 400 years after it first tried to buy it!
Cool Library Updates
- Libraries host learning pods to serve students in need.
- Libraries employ low-tech programming to engage children and families.
- The Harold Washington Library in Chicago offers a pop-up resource center to provide assistance to people experiencing homelessness.
Worth Reading
- Virus-responsive design for libraries.
- Supporting school librarians through COVID and beyond. Plus, how to boost the signal of school librarians.
- 10 non-partisan fact-checking websites, in case you need some additional resources to offer your patrons (ahem…or family members…)
Book Adaptations in the News
- HBO is doing a TV adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Sphere! I love this book so much – it’s probably my favorite Crichton novel next to Jurassic Park!
- The Game of Thrones showrunners are working to adapt Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem.
- Al Roker Entertainment is producing an adaptation of Beverly Jenkins’ Bring on the Blessings series.
- Netflix is adapting Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land, as well as The Noel Diary by Richard Paul Evans.
- NOS4A2 will not be renewed for an additional season.
- Emma Roberts signed a first-look deal with Hulu and plans to focus primarily on adapting books. Her first project will be adapting Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering.
- George R.R. Martin has filed a lawsuit over the film rights to his werewolf novella The Skin Trade.
- Here’s the first look at The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and is a follow-up to The Haunting of Hill House, which was terrifying as hell. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS!!
- Here’s the first trailer for I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If you haven’t read the book yet…it’s a trip.
- Teaser trailer for The Stand.
- The best movie and TV adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. (Although A Muppet Christmas Carol is clearly the top choice, and I refuse to hear a word against it.)
Books & Authors in the News
- Fauja Singh Keeps Going is the first children’s book by a major publisher to center on a Sikh character. On the one hand, this is really cool! On the other hand, SRSLY?! We’re still having firsts like this in the year 2020??
- Jesmyn Ward wrote a heartwrenching essay about losing her husband in January of this year.
- (TW: transphobia) JK Rowling returns an award given to her last year by the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights group, after the group criticized her increasingly fervent and problematic anti-trans viewpoints in August.
Numbers & Trends
- Library professionals: facts and figures.
- A look at all of the books published recently about Trump…how well do they actually sell?
Award News
- The Women’s Prize for Fiction is having an online ticketed celebration.
- Roundup of awards from the Poetry Foundation.
- The Barjeel Art Foundation announces its first Barjeel Poetry Prize for ekphrastic poetry for teens and adults. Click the link to learn more, and to find out what the heck “ekphrastic” actually means.
Pop Cultured
- Rest in power, Chadwick Boseman.
- Resident Evil is headed to Netflix.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- Dictionary.com releases its biggest update ever.
- Fierce Reads announces a new monthly YA book club.
On the Riot
- How librarians helped invent the YA category of books.
- How to get a Little Free Library sign.
- The elusive accurate Stephen King adaptation.
- The wide world of Jeopardy! contestant authors.
- Donating books during COVID.
- One reader on why they are too slow a reader for book clubs.
- The world’s first novel is older than you think.
Take a breath and take care of yourselves on this long weekend, folks. I’ll see you next week.
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.