Y’all, the end of May and the beginning of June have been bonkers. As libraries gear up for summer reading programs across the country, they’re also dealing with more uncertainty surrounding the IMLS, mass resignations, and a nationally published summer reading list where over half of the recommended titles are entirely made up. Read on for more.
Get Your AI-Hallucinated Summer Reading Recs Here!
The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Enquirer published a syndicated summer reading list written by AI, where over half of the listed titles were entirely made up. There are so many things wrong with this that I barely know where to start. Of course, there’s the sloppy journalism of it all, at a time when there is a lot of public distrust towards mainstream media. There’s the fact that authors have a hard enough time competing for readers’ attention without having to deal with completely made up books on top of that. But this list also devalues the expertise of teachers and library staff who create thousands of reading lists yearly without resorting to AI garbage. Not to mention, it creates extra work for library staff who now have to explain to their patrons that they won’t be able to get The Lost Algorithm by Andy Weir because it does not exist.
Another IMLS Legal Update
Trump and his administration have requested a stay pending the appeal in Rhode Island vs. Trump. This means that a judge ordered the administration to reverse course on the executive order dismantling the IMLS, but the Trump administration wants to continue doing nothing to reinstate the agency’s workforce or grant money, so they’re trying to kick the proverbial can down the road. However, if you ask the administration, they’re merely “attesting to the difficulty of reinstating the workforce and previously awarded grants” and asking for more time to “implement all provisions of the preliminary injunction.”
Patmos Library Temporarily Closes After Mass Resignation
The Patmos Library in Michigan temporarily closed due to the resignation of five librarians, which came after a recent dispute between library staff and the library’s recently elected conservative board of directors. However, the library announced that it is ready to reopen to its regular operating hours. The Patmos Library has been through it over the last few years. It was defunded because it dared to have LGBTQ+ books in its collections, and then it received a $50,000 donation from Nora Roberts to help keep its doors open. Something tells me this library’s saga isn’t over yet.
Copyright Chief Sues Trump Administration in Federal Court
Shira Perlmutter, the recently removed Register of Copyrights, is suing in federal court to have her job reinstated. Specifically, “Perlmutter is seeking an emergency temporary restraining order and injunctions that would prevent Blanche from exercising the powers of acting librarian of Congress, prevent Perkins from exercising the powers of acting register of copyrights, void any actions taken by these improperly appointed officials, and order that Perlmutter cannot be removed from her office or obstructed from accessing her office resources and carrying out her duties as register of copyrights unless removed by a lawfully appointed librarian of Congress.” Sounds extremely reasonable to me!
Source : IMLS Updates, Fake AI-Generated Reading Recs, and More Library News
