I have a 40 year professional career as a librarian and I am appalled at the constraints placed on school librarians. Librarians face intense pressure from school boards and communities seeking to ban books exploring racial and LGBTQ themes. A few of the restrictions on librarians with masters degrees include a required parental review of all books, permission from the Principal to purchase a book, and in Florida librarians must undergo retraining programs on book selection. These limitations have a chilling effect on librarians, library collections and, most importantly, the students who are constrained in their ability to explore new ideas. If you share my concerns and live in an area where restrictions exist, please speak with leaders about your concerns.
Our Live @ the Library concerts sold out within a few weeks in large part to Eileen Savel’s skill at selecting outstanding jazz performers. Doors for all three concerts open at 7 p.m. for socializing and to shop at BFF for high quality used books. We reserved a few seats for individual and corporate sponsors. If you would like to become a sponsor, click the links above. For questions, please contact Kelly Ground at groundk@alamedafriends.com.
Look for information in this newsletter about the Mini Book Sale in March.
I look forward to meeting many of you at our Annual Meeting on February 27 to hear about FAL’s significant progress in 2022 and our plans for the future.
Some encouraging news. Paul Madonna, one of our Friends @ Home authors, is steadily recovering from a serious accident. It has been 12 weeks since he was hit head-on, while driving home from work, by an out of control driver in San Francisco. After many surgeries and reconstruction of body parts, he will soon begin rehab to learn to walk again. FAL was fortunate to have Paul speak about his book Come to Light in 2021.