Tara Blair

Tara Blair is a Digital Marketing Specialist for Gale, a Cengage Company. In her spare time, she is a total crime junkie and spends her days listening to podcasts—especially those of the unsolved.

SLC Public Library Considering Opening 24 Hours a Day

Beginning in early 2015, a two-year pilot project may enable the Salt Lake City Public Library’s downtown branch to stay open 24 hours a day. According to John Spears, executive director of the library, the goal of the project is to give homeless people a safe place to go at night, while also serving other … Read more

A Nationwide Outpouring of Support for Tiny Ferguson Library

Despite the recent violent protests that followed the grand jury verdict in Ferguson, Missouri, the Ferguson Public Library stayed open. Library director and sole employee Scott Bonner, who describes himself as having a “very broad definition of librarianship,” has received significant contributions that may enable him to hire additional help. He also plan to purchase … Read more

50 million reasons to give thanks for school programs

In this pre-Thanksgiving post, Richard A. Carranza, president of The San Francisco Unified School District, thanks voters who recently passed the Children and Families First Initiative (Proposition C). The initiative provides $50 million in additional funding to San Francisco Schools in areas such as music and art, sports, wellness, and libraries. Proposition C supports the … Read more

A Slice of Maker Pie: Stories from Three Learner Labs

This article explores how three libraries have “navigated a more serious route toward which slice of ‘maker pie’ would be most palatable to their communities and staff.” The libraries featured include the Simla branch of the Ebert County District Library (Colorado), the Middletown Free Library (Pennsylvania), and the Billings Public Library (Montana). Each library has … Read more

How Libraries Are Advancing and Inspiring Schools and Communities

The Aspen Institute Dialogue on Public Libraries, which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has recently released a report, Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries, that asks us “to reconsider how the library can serve communities in the 21st century.” The report focuses on the Chattanooga and Nashville public libraries for … Read more

19th Century Nitty-Gritty: 19th-Century Rules for Achieving Happiness this Holiday Season

By Melissa Rayner

These days it’s a difficult feat to so much as step out of your home without being hit by the ubiquity of the holiday season. Lights, decorations, crowded shopping centers, and–if you’re one of the lucky ones–heaps and heaps of snow.

Sure, Christmas is heavily commercialized these days, but don’t we still love it all the same? Whenever I find myself stuck in a mob of angry shoppers, I take a deep breath and do my best to remind myself of the many things I love about this time of year. And where’s the easiest place to find a heaping stocking full of warm fuzzies?

HINT:  With this series, the answer is always enthusiastic, and it’s always “The 19th century!”

Why, it’s the 19th century, of course! And after all the recent Black Friday hullabaloo, I think we need our favorite century more than ever. Let’s go there now…

Read more19th Century Nitty-Gritty: 19th-Century Rules for Achieving Happiness this Holiday Season

In Other News: Thanksgiving

A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.

By Michelle Eickmeyer

In fourteen-hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue… and then the guy who realized that Columbus had not, in fact, found a new route to Asia. But thus began the discovery, colonization and evolution of the United States of America. This week, Americans gather. We’ll watch football. We’ll eat too much. We’ll give thanks for everything we have. We’ll shop til we drop and kick off the holiday shopping season.

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“Redeployment” Wins National Book Award for Fiction

The National Book Foundation has awarded former Marine, Phil Klay, a National Book Award–his debut short story collection Redeployment, took home top honors as the winner in the fiction category.

Established in 1950, the National Book Award is an American literary prize administered by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization. Their mission is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of great writing in America.

Read more“Redeployment” Wins National Book Award for Fiction