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The editorial discusses the importance of values-based communication in libraries, featuring insights from library professionals from various institutions. They emphasize the significance of aligning communication with organizational values to navigate controversies effectively. Examples include handling challenges related to controversial programming, book banning, and community engagement. The professionals stress the need for transparency, empathy, and commitment to core values to maintain trust and uphold the library's role as a trusted community resource. [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of an 18-day summer tutoring program in which graduate student tutors delivered 15 minutes of differentiated reading instruction (DRI) and a 30-minute interactive read-aloud (IRA) lesson each day. Students in grades K-5 (N = 179) attending a summer program at one urban elementary school completed a lesson-specific combination of pretest and posttest measures of letter-sound knowledge, decoding skills, oral reading fluency, and academic reading attitudes. Students were assigned to groups targeting phonemic awareness and word recognition (PAWR), word recognition and fluency (WRAF), fluency and comprehension (FAC), or vocabulary and comprehension (VAC) based on skill profiles. Paired-samples statistical tests were used to analyze pretest and posttest measures, and tutors were observed with a checklist to document implementation fidelity. Results indicated significant gains on specific subskill mastery measures of letter-sound knowledge for students in PAWR groups and decoding skills for students in PAWR and WRAF groups. Results were not significant for a curriculum-based measure of oral reading fluency for students in FAC groups and were significantly negative for students in VAC groups. There were no significant differences in gains based on instructional group size. There was no evidence of summer learning loss on academic reading attitudes. Tutors were able to implement DRI and IRA lessons with acceptable fidelity. These findings suggest that a summer tutoring program delivered by graduate students can improve targeted reading skills without negatively impacting reading attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the literature on the US' and Cuba's 'conflicting missions' in Africa by focusing on a little-known (and failed) attempt by the Jimmy Carter administration, particularly between late 1977 and the summer of 1978, to mobilize the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to pressure Cuba 'out of Africa'. Based on a wide array of both primary and secondary sources, including declassified documents from US and French archives, this article shows that the Carter administration deployed a tactic, as yet virtually unexplored, to achieve its goal by attempting to bring about a diplomatic encirclement of Cuba in the Third World. This was particularly in the Non-Aligned Movement, of which Havana was scheduled to host the Sixth Summit conference in 1979. This essay enriches our understanding of Carter's approach to one of the issues which defined his presidency and sheds new light on his administration's interactions both with Cuba and with the NAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to illustrate the complex relationships between reading motivation and reading comprehension for Black girl readers. There is an urgent need for research that explicitly centers on the reading motivations of Black girls through a humanizing, asset-oriented lens. Through a Situative Black Girlhood Reading Motivations lens, which integrates a situative perspective on motivation and the tenets of Black Girlhood Studies, this multi-year study focuses on a group of Black girl readers participating in a summer reading program. Qualitative data, including video observations, student work artifacts, and small-group artifact-elicited interviews, were analyzed through a generic inductive approach to answer the research question, "How are relationships between Black girls' reading motivations and their reading comprehension evident in their reading engagement and enactments?" The findings demonstrate that the participants' most salient reading motivations in this instructional context (meaning-oriented, collaborative, and liberatory reading motivations) (1) were a precursor to their comprehension, (2) worked in tandem with their comprehension, and (3) stemmed from their comprehension. These findings contribute to models of reading by illustrating the need for additional complexity when describing the relationship between reading motivation and comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article from Florida Libraries features an interview with the leaders of James Songster Emerging Leader Training, a company founded by former Disney employees. The interview discusses topics such as dynamic leadership, fostering creativity, workplace culture, and the importance of creating a safe environment for taking risks. The leaders also share their experiences working with libraries and the challenges they face, including communication and lack of support for different perspectives. The article concludes with book recommendations and insights into the structure of their workshops, which focus on self-reflection, teamwork, problem-solving, and purposeful culture creation. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers information on attitudes towards leveling systems among children's librarians in the US. Topics include varying opinions and practices regarding the use of leveling systems in libraries, survey results indicating preferences and methods used (including DIY systems and publisher-assigned levels), and regional differences in approach across suburban libraries in the Midwest, Northeast, and West Coast.

The article emphasizes the crucial role of families in children's literacy development and academic success. Topics include practical strategies for encouraging reading at home, building vocabulary through talk, making reading visible, promoting interactive and fun reading experiences, and expanding literacy beyond reading to encompass writing, listening, and speaking activities.

The article focuses on the origin and evolution of the "Crabby Librarian" character, created by Melanie Lyttle at Madison Public Library. Topics discussed include the character's inception from a summer program catalog, its impact on summer reading engagement, and its recent adaptation with a new sidekick, Bailey Bee, in the summer of 2023, highlighting the character's enduring popularity and marketing effectiveness.

In the summer of 2017, wildflower seeds were spread on a large, empty open space close to a motorway flyover just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. This was an effort to use non-mechanical methods to prepare the soil for an 'urban forest' to be established on the site, since the flowers' roots would penetrate the ground and enable the planned new trees to settle. As a result, the site was transformed into a gorgeous meadow, and all summer long Copenhageners were invited to come and pick the flowers. In this article, I critically examine different aspects of this project – including the role of design, the perception of nature–culture relationships, climate change, and flower-picking as an event – in relation to my personal experience of visiting this meadow both on-site and on social media. The different temporalities that clash at the site give rise to conflicting interpretations, and I suggest that the meadow can be seen as a living plant archive of the Anthropocene, both physically and digitally. In doing so, I introduce and critique key conceptual pairs, including archive/death and bloom/decay, suggested by Lee Edelman's queer cross-reading of Jacques Derrida's 'Archive Fever' and Shakespeare's Hamlet. I thereby contrast flower motifs pertaining to the cycles of blooming, decay, and nature's (failed) eternal return in the meadow with the expansive futurity of the digitally mediated archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we describe a teacher educator's first experience implementing a service-learning project in a children's literature course in which pre-service teachers helped provide read-alouds for the local public library's summer reading program. We sought to examine the impact the project had on the seven participants. Data was collected through reflective journals and an end-of-course debrief. Four themes were identified in the data: Initial Feelings, Preparation and Planning, Lessons Learned, and Barriers and Challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that traditional reading intervention programs position students as deficient and fail to improve their reading skills. Topics include an alternative approach focusing on engagement and identity development can be effective in embedding skills instruction into the work of finding, processing, and sharing information; and Tutors helped students find alternative sources of information for promoting engagement and identity development of students.

Many colleges have a common reading program. This paper looks at one business school's implementation of a common reading program into the school's required Introduction to Business course. The benefits of such a program are outlined, as well as how the common reading is integrated into the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a comparative reading of Margaret Fuller's Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 (1844) and Julia Martin's A Millimetre of Dust: Visiting Ancestral Sites (2008), travelogues that explore erstwhile frontier zones in view of a changing social landscape inflected with the rhetoric of democracy. The comparison is based on the thematic parallels between literature from the American Renaissance and post-apartheid South Africa in which the landscape is portrayed in metonymic relation to the nation. Drawing on the field of world literature and the notion that texts might undergo transformation in the way they are interpreted due to their movement across space and time, the article employs a 'bifocal' lens that produces a contrapuntal engagement between mid-nineteenth century America and post-apartheid South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used qualitative research methodology and a case study design to explore the impact of multicultural texts on teaching and learning within a summer reading program, through the lens of four preservice teacher candidates. Semi-structured interviews and weekly journal entries were the primary data collection methods and were later analyzed using thematic analysis. James Banks’ “Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content” was the theoretical framework that guided this study. It was found that multicultural texts supported the teaching and learning of diverse learners. The major themes included content reflective of the reader, an extended cultural scope, and social consciousness and advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on best resources available for summer planning is the annual posting of the Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP) Manual at Georgia Public Libraries. It mentions CSLP manual is updated annually by contributions from volunteers from libraries across the country. It also mentions memorable program have done for summer reading and programming plays a crucial role in connecting caregivers to a variety of early literacy resources.

The narrative weaves between lengthy quotations of Marley's uncensored thoughts and Sojoyner's inner monologue, processing his friend's story on the page. It is at the Southern California Library (SCL) that he meets the beating heart of "Joy and Pain", a young man called Marley who is born and bred of the Vermont Corridor in South L.A. Marley comes to the SCL looking for rent assistance. The A side chapters depict Marley's personal life in his own words, often as he and Sojoyner sit in city traffic together. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers news briefs related to libraries. Topics include Danielle Evans' new role as the affordable learning librarian at Georgia Tech Library and Susan Wells Parham's retirement from the digital curation librarian position and the Summer Reading Book Bash hosted by Augusta-Richmond County Public Library System, which distributed 3,500 books to combat summer learning loss, and the library's engagement with the community through this event.

"You think libraries are totally outdated since the internet came along? Well, watch this!" It quickly becomes clear in the film about the ZHAW University Library that the library has much more to offer than yellowed books and musty reading rooms. The film, made in summer 2020, uses strong images combined with low-threshold information and anecdotes to show that libraries move with the times, are innovative and modern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on surveillance capitalism including company's tracking system, the librarian giving the children stickers and registering for the online summer reading program.

In the summer of 2020, The Ohio State University Libraries was asked by The Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) to collaborate with them to provide expanded access to antiracism book content in support of continuing education, reading groups, and professional development across the university. The Libraries' African American and African Studies Librarian worked with ODI's Director for Strategic Diversity Planning, Training, and Assessment to identify antiracism book titles of interest to recommend to the Collections Strategist for purchase or expanded access. The African American and African Studies Librarian created research guides to supplement the reading lists, expanded them to support campus-wide antiracism educational opportunities, and iterated the collection practices. This paper details not only the process of collaboration with another unit within the university, but also outlines challenges and opportunities faced with budget management, publishing and vendor practices with antiracism resources, and COVID-19 implications. It also addresses critical approaches to antiracism within library collaborations to university campus communities, including outreach, teaching, and collections as part of the evolving Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summer reading programs (SRP) have long been a staple in almost every public library. One of the primary reasons for SRPs is that they contribute to overcoming or mitigating summer reading loss or setback. Yet, the original research that led to the pronouncement of summer reading setback has been called into question. This suggests that the resources public libraries devote to SRPs might be better spent on working with other community organizations on assisting every child to become ready for kindergarten. Public libraries are encouraged to engage with other community organizations in order that summer reading programs will have a broader and greater impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on administrative data and reading achievement data provided by two Midwestern school districts for three schools, we analyze the literacy impacts of a replicable summer reading program, Kids Read Now. The program includes both school-based and home-based components that together encourage students to remain engaged in reading high-quality books over the summer months. We apply propensity score matching methods to match participating Kids Read Now students with similar comparison students. Our results suggest that Kids Read Now participants outperformed comparison group students, with a mean effect size of d =.12. Additional model estimates of the impacts for those students who read more of the books provided by Kids Read Now revealed that those who received all 9 books realized an effect size of d =.18 relative to the outcomes for matched comparison students. We discuss how these results might be considered in light of prior findings on summer learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, there has been concern about students losing reading ability over extended breaks from school, commonly in the summer, but studies of this phenomenon have produced inconsistent results. We applied exploratory visual analysis of multiple datasets to examine whether students in Grades K‐5 appear to lose or improve in various reading abilities over the summer and across consecutive school years. Archival data were obtained on students of different U.S. school districts who did not participate in a formal summer reading programme. Data were disaggregated by groups considered most vulnerable to summer loss: those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and those identified with disabilities. Given the variety of measure types and scores, we centred scores on each measure's cut point for proficiency in a particular grade level to depict how students' scores deviated from the proficiency classifications before and after a summer break. Overall, students' scores relative to the benchmark appeared on average to have maintained or improved, and there was no observed accumulated decrement in reading performance across years. For anomalous instances of summer loss, we offer possible alternative explanations such as measurement artefacts and unrehearsed learning. Visual analysis of the datasets suggested that summer breaks were not associated with systematic losses of students' reading ability, even among those considered most vulnerable to the phenomenon. However, available assessments and benchmarks are not designed to measure summer learning specifically, and little is known about the kinds of literacy experiences students not in formal programmes might be having. Thus, more research on summer maturation and degeneration is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]