By all accounts the 2024 Public Library Association (PLA) conference, held April 3–5 in Columbus, OH, was a resounding success. The 7,573 participants—including 5,702 attendees, 1,518 exhibitors, and 353 virtual registrants—packed the show floor, programs, and speaker sessions with palpable enthusiasm. Despite the cancellation of the April 2 welcome reception at Columbus Metropolitan Public Library because of a tornado warning, the mood was upbeat and engaged. Publishers reported running out of galleys, and many of the sessions were standing-room-only.
At the 2024 Public Library Association (PLA) conference, held April 3–5 in Columbus, OH, presentations were notably targeted and useful. And, as a number bore out, those concerns overlap in many areas. “Intellectual freedom and diversity, equity, and inclusion—it’s not an either or, it’s an and,” noted PLA President and CEO of Baltimore County Public Library Sonia Alcántara-Antoine. “Both of those concepts exist side by side.”
In close collaboration with its customers and the broader community, Ex Libris develops solutions that increase library productivity, maximize the impact of research activities, enhance teaching and learning, and drive student mobile engagement.
The Greater Columbus Convention Center’s exhibit halls were full of activity during this month’s Public Library Association (PLA) 2024 conference in Ohio. Here are a few of the topics LJ had the opportunity to discuss in person at the show, as well as other announcements within recent weeks.
The number of audiobooks borrowed through libraries around the world has more than doubled since 2019—a telling statistic that speaks to the exploding popularity of books in audio format..
It was the start of a beautiful love story. That’s how Michael Reynolds, editor-in-chief of Europa Editions, described IndieLib, a conference hosted on April 2 by the Independent Publishers Caucus and the Digital Public Library of America. He saw libraries and publishers as star-crossed lovers that have been kept far apart for as long as possible, now finally meeting in one room in Columbus, OH, the day prior to the 2024 Public Library Association Conference.
“We wanted to provide them the ability to be able to recharge their batteries and to affirm to each other, and to ourselves, why it is that we chose this profession, why it is that we do this work. And I felt like the PLA 2024 conference really delivered.”
Emil Ferris grew up during the turbulent 1960s in Chicago, where she still lives, and is consequently a devotee of all things monstrous and horrific. She has an MFA in creative writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Encourage environmentally friendly living with a display full of books that offer ideas on wasting less and helping the planet. Find the full list of 44 titles here.
The International Booker Prize shortlist and PEN America Literary Awards longlists are announced. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump will write a series of crime novels. How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin and Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra go head-to-head for a chance to be named the new Fallon Book Club pick. Earlyword’s April GalleyChat roundup arrives. Ina Garten previews her forthcoming memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Renée Zellweger will return as Bridget Jones in a new adaptation, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, based on the novels by Helen Fielding.
By Joseph Jones, Kimberly McGee, Emily Plagens, and Leigh Verburg
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron; LJ starred review) is the top holds title of the week. LibraryReads and Library Journal offer read-alikes for patrons waiting to read this buzziest book.
The winners of the Whiting Award for emerging authors are announced. Also announced are the shortlists for the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards for British food writing and the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Romantic Novel of the Year Awards, the longlists for the League of Canadian Poets Prizes, and the nominees for the Doug Wright Awards for best Canadian comics.
The winners of the Oregon Book Award are announced, as are the shortlists for the Tolkien Society Awards for excellence in Tolkien scholarship and fandom. PBS News Hour reports on the librarians fighting attempts to ban books. Plus Page to Screen.
A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci leads holds this week. Also getting buzz are titles by James Patterson and Candice Fox, Anthony Horowitz, Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke, and Sara Paretsky. People’s book of the week is My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me by Caleb Carr. Salman Rushdie speaks about the attack that almost took his life and writing his new book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. As Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns 50 this year, fans will re-create his famous motorcycle ride. Plus, NYT celebrates 100 years of Simon & Schuster.
Tasha Coryell's debut novel Love Letters to a Serial Killer is a starred mystery. "Witty, shocking, and wild, this is a must-have mystery." Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe’s Command is a starred fiction selection. "Cornwell again makes writing flawless historical prose seem effortless." And Masters of the Nefarious: Mollusk Rampage, by Pierre La Police, is a starred graphic novel. "Parisian cartoonist La Police’s English-language debut pokes fun at tropes drawn from the pulpier genres, with a thrillingly unique blend of deadpan humor and surreal silliness that is both uproarious and evocative of a fascinating, singular vision."
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