Lila Denning is a librarian in Florida specializing in Passive Readers’ Advisory for patrons of all ages. She is the Acquisitions Coordinator for the St Petersburg Library System and has worked in circulation, collection development, reference, and youth services. She serves the volunteer coordinator for the Horror Writers Association. You can find her on BlueSky @Vantine.bsky.social. On her blog, bookdisplays.blogspot.com, she talks about ideas for book displays and other forms of Passive Readers Advisory and how to best use it to serve your patrons.
Become the ultimate Game Master and deliver tabletop role-playing games with confidence!
For librarians, teachers, school staff, and parents who want to run a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) but who don’t know where to begin, this practical guide includes five tabletop role-playing adventures written so a first-time Game Master can jump straight in and start playing. Alongside the adventures the book includes
examples of safety tools to allow players to stay safe;
a comprehensive TTRPG glossary;
practical tips for helping new players at the TTRPG table;
practical tips for first-time Game Master and new players;
ideas on how to establish role-playing sessions and festivals in your school; and
lists of potions, magic items and non-player characters, including their motivations and occupations.
A companion to Maxwell’s bestselling Let’s Roll, this book is a must-read for librarians and teachers looking to deliver exciting and creative games and quests. Now roll the dice and have fun!
Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, Lucas Maxwell has been working with teens in public and school libraries for close to fifteen years. He is currently the librarian at Glenthorne High School in London, UK. He writes for Book Riot and has contributed to School Library Journal and American Library Association publications. In 2017, Lucas was named the School Librarian of the Year by the UK’s School Library Association.
Looking for a catalog solution on a tiny budget? TinyCat offers a powerful and professional catalog perfect for small libraries; from classrooms and churches, to schools and public libraries. The catalog is easy to use and easy to customize to your library’s needs. You can import library records or scan books in with the mobile app, track circulation, send reminder emails, and view detailed reports. TinyCat is powered by LibraryThing, and has served thousands of libraries over the last 10 years.
To double the length of your free trial, sign up at librarycat.org and say you heard about TinyCat from the Circulating Ideas podcast.
Together, librarians and specialists can create experiences to reach all learners in their buildings, including those with hidden needs and talents.
While school librarians are experts at collaborating with classroom teachers, too often they overlook the specialists in their buildings as key collaborative partners.
Focusing on the many specialists who work with students, Karla Bame Collins provides information about their roles and responsibilities and discusses how school librarians can collaborate to improve learning for all students, including those with hidden needs, disabilities, and talents that are not easily detected and may go undiagnosed. Because librarians work with every student, but may not always be informed about each student’s particular needs, it’s important for them to know whom in the school to turn to for information. Librarians will gain ideas for working with students to provide the best possible learning environment for each.
This practical book looks at the whole school library environment-collection, instruction, space, and programming-and offers many ideas for librarians to collaborate with other educators and specialists for the good of all students.
Looking for a catalog solution on a tiny budget? TinyCat offers a powerful and professional catalog perfect for small libraries; from classrooms and churches, to schools and public libraries. The catalog is easy to use and easy to customize to your library’s needs. You can import library records or scan books in with the mobile app, track circulation, send reminder emails, and view detailed reports. TinyCat is powered by LibraryThing, and has served thousands of libraries over the last 10 years.
To double the length of your free trial, sign up at librarycat.org and say you heard about TinyCat from the Circulating Ideas podcast.
Dr. Bradley Custer is a higher education policy expert in Washington, D.C. He was most recently an analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, where he resolved complex complaints from student loan borrowers. He was previously a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a student services administrator on public college and university campuses. He holds a Ph.D. in higher, adult, and lifelong education from Michigan State University.
We are suffering from a crisis of belief in our country today. So many people have lost faith in America—in our leaders, institutions, and even one another. The status quo is not working for far too many of us. Our central task today is to meet this historic moment. But how do we grow our belief that we can get things done together—not as Republicans or Democrats or Independents, but as Americans? How do we rebuild trust and reclaim agency?
In this deeply personal manifesto written while crisscrossing the country for his “Enough. Time to Build.” civic campaign, Richard C. Harwood reveals how we can address the fundamental challenges holding us back in America today. We must dedicate ourselves to forging a new civic path that grows our belief that we can move forward amid our real differences. The New Civic Path is a must-read for those who want to spark civic renewal and get our communities and the country moving again.
Richard C. Harwood, President and Founder of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, is an innovator, author, and speaker. For nearly 40 years, he has devoted his career to revitalizing the nation’s hardest-hit communities, transforming the world’s largest organizations, and reconnecting institutions to society. He has been recruited to solve some of the most difficult problems of our time, including being called into Newtown, CT, after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He has appeared in numerous national media outlets and has written scores of articles, groundbreaking reports, and nine books. In 2025, Rich and the Institute are running the Campaign for the New Civic Path, anchored by his manifesto, The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation.
Jack and Quint are trapped in the Monster Dimension! Their mission: prevent Rezzoch the Ancient, Destructor of Worlds, from reaching Earth and annihilating civilization. To do this, they must secure an audience with a creature more mysterious than any other. It’s a race against time—and a race through the monster dimension! But before they can get back home to June and Dirk, Jack will find himself in a confrontation that will change everything. . . .
A love letter to the horror genre from many of the most influential and bestselling authors in the industry.
For twenty-five years, Becky Siegel Spratford has worked as a librarian in Reader Advisory, training library workers all over the world on how to engage their patrons and readers, and to use her place as a horror expert and critic to get the word out to others; to bring even more readers into the horror fold.
Why I Love Horror is a captivating anthology and heartfelt tribute to the horror genre featuring essays from several of the most celebrated contemporary horror writers including, Grady Hendrix, Paul Tremblay, Stephen Graham Jones, Josh Malerman, Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Rachel Harrison.
The human resources (HR) function for libraries can range in size and scope, depending on the size of the library. The complexities of HR today call for a guiding manual to help keep the multitude of processes fair, legal, and accurate. This book provides the level of detail for new and seasoned HR leaders to use to staff and operate their libraries with the best employees they can find. It offers legal advice from labor law attorneys, and operational steps, policies, and processes from Dr. Steve Albrecht, a longtime HR consultant for municipal government.
Even with the support of an HR Department (however large or small), all library leaders who have supervisory responsibility over their staff (hiring, firing, performance evaluation, assigning job duties) must have a working, updated knowledge of HR issues related to employing people in their branches. (And don’t forget that even student interns, unpaid volunteers, and part-time employees have similar employment rights as full-time, paid employees.) This means that besides the myriad of other duties required to run a safe, efficient, useful library for the community, library leaders – from the Director, to the department heads, to the managers, to the frontline supervisors, to the PIC (Person in Charge on each work shift) – each must know what they can and cannot do when it comes to HR laws, policies, guidelines, and best practices.
This includes: legal issues related to screening interviewing, and hiring applicants; successful on-boarding and new-employee orientation programs; coaching for improved work performance or employee behavior; mentoring employees for both promotional opportunities and succession planning; the challenges of attendance, sick leave, ADA and FMLA issues; fair and legal performance evaluations; working with employees in a union or an association; HR practices related to testing, promoting, disciplining, or terminating library employees; and keeping all employees motivated and connected, using wellness, stress management, and programs to prevent burnout or “quiet quitting.” Other books for library leaders may touch on HR issues as part of a broader look at supervising employees. This book will focus on it.
Dr. Steve Albrecht is well known in libraries for his workshops, webinars, podcasts, and articles on library service, safety, and security. He has worked as an HR consultant and security trainer for several decades. He is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (www.SHRM.org) and has been board certified by them as “Professional In Human Resources” (PHR) since 1996.
Nicole A. Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and a Professor at the University of South Carolina. Her research and teaching interests include human information behavior, critical cultural information studies, LIS Education, and diversity and social justice in librarianship. She has been awarded the 2019 Association of Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2021 MLK Social Justice Award presented by the University of South Carolina, and the 2024 American Library Association (ALA) Lippincott award. She has edited and authored several books, including Information Services to Diverse Populations (2016) and Fake News and Alternative Facts: Information Literacy in a Post-truth Era (2018). She is the Founding Editor of ALA Editions/Neal-Schuman’s Critical Cultural Information Studies series, and her latest book is The Legacy of Black Women in Librarianship: When They Dared to Be Powerful (2025).
Addressing a topic of great concern with both urgency and clarity, this book offers a compelling vision for libraries to claim their central role as trusted stewards of knowledge and architects of a responsible and equitable AI-driven world.
In the form of generative AI, libraries are facing technological transformation of unprecedented speed and scale. Both controversial and disruptive, the sudden ubiquity of AI has already triggered uncertainty as well as the need for rapid adaptation. As AI reshapes how humans learn, work, and interact with information, libraries across the ecosystem—from public to academic, from school to special libraries—must resist the temptation to merely serve as static support and instead claim the center by becoming a dynamic, positive influence. Because, as the authors of this book persuasively argue, libraries are uniquely positioned to lead AI’s ethical and human-centered integration within communities. Blending theory and concepts with an unswervingly pragmatic approach, from this book readers will
be introduced to foundational principles and frameworks for navigating the so-called “Age of Intelligence” that provide useful guiderails no matter how AI technology actively evolves;
delve into the complex ethical considerations of AI, including bias, equity, privacy, misinformation, and the potential impact on human agency and dignity;
receive guidance related to stakeholder engagement, resource allocation, and the need for continuous learning and adaptation;
discover practical models for evaluating and implementing AI tools thoughtfully and effectively in ways that align with libraries’ values and mission;
become familiar with STACKS, an approach for learning, problem solving, and innovation with generative AI;
explore AI literacy as an expression of metaliteracy using seven frames for instruction and learning; and
walk away with a sense of how libraries can actively define their essential role as leaders and shapers of the AI landscape, ensuring their continued value and preventing marginalization.
As this book demonstrates, by embracing their unique position as ethical stewards and trusted guides, libraries have an unprecedented opportunity to shape how AI transforms society—not from the margins, but from the center of a shared future.
Michael Hanegan is the founder and chief research officer of the Center for the Future of Learning and Work. He is an adjunct professor at Rose State College and the University of Central Oklahoma. His research and practice spans K–12 schools, higher education, the library ecosystem, and industry to cultivate and sustain human-centered approaches to the future of learning and work. He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.
Chris Rosser is First Year and Transfer Experience Librarian at Oklahoma State University. From 2009 to 2024, Chris served as an instructional and Theological Librarian at Oklahoma Christian University. His expertise centers around pedagogy, instructional design, and innovative approaches to learning, including gamification, and AI-empowered learning. His work has been featured at the American Library Association annual conference, American Theological Librarian Association, Oklahoma Association of College and Research Libraries, Transformative Learning Conference, and Christian Scholar’s Conference. He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma.
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