Since it’s National Library Week 2026, I am required by my vows as a Master of Library Science to celebrate. Find your joy!
ITEM: Albany city residents go to the polls on Tuesday, May 19, to vote on the library’s 2026-2027 operating budget tax levy. Voters will also elect three new library trustees. Note that the poll locations may vary from the primary and general election locations.
ITEM: Albany Public Library is currently developing a Strategic Plan with the help of Library Strategies to guide its priorities over the next three years. In order to craft this long-range roadmap, the Library must determine what residents need, want, and expect from their libraries – now and into the future. For that reason, this survey was developed to collect your valuable input.
On average, it takes just 8-10 minutes to complete the survey. The information you provide will help the Library and its consultants scope and prioritize areas of focus that maximize the Library’s return on investment. You will remain anonymous unless you actively choose to self-identify.
ALA
ITEM: From the American Library Association-
This month, ALA prevailed in our lawsuit against the government to protect the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The settlement, alongside our co-plaintiff AFSCME and represented by Democracy Forward, ensures that the only federal agency dedicated to library services will continue to carry out its critical work.
ALA has been showing up for libraries on fronts beyond the IMLS lawsuit and Fund Libraries campaign:
- In defense of the federal E-Rate program from new legal threats, ALA filed an amicus brief to preserve broadband funding for libraries.
- A bill was introduced to protect these passport services in all libraries, which ALA worked quickly to support.
- ALA denounced the federal book-banning bill, House Bill 7661, upon its introduction. It uses broad, confusing language about “sexually oriented” material that targets the LGBTQIA+ community and takes the power to choose what kids read away from their parents.
NYSWI
ITEM: Join New York State Writers Institute on Wednesday, April 22, at 4:30 p.m. at Page Hall, UAlbany for a conversation with Heidi Boghosian, lawyer, podcast host, writer, and surveillance and privacy expert, and the author of Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy (2025), which argues that our best chance of thriving in the digital era lies in taking care of our “smart” selves as diligently as we maintain our “smart” devices.
She will also discuss the looming challenges to democracy posed by AI and other emerging technologies.
Boghosian is executive director of the A.J. Muste Foundation for Peace and Justice, a charitable organization providing support to activist organizations, and the former executive director of the National Lawyers Guild.
FFAPL
ITEM: The Friends of Albany Public Library and, later, the Friends and Foundation of Albany Public Library, have sponsored free Tuesday Book Talks almost every week of the year at the Washington Avenue branch at 2 pm.
April 21 | Book Review | The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics by Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, & Mark Olshaker. Reviewer: Bryon Backenson, Director, Bureau of Communicable Disease Control, NYS Dept. of Health.
April 28 | Author Talk | David Ricci, from the Berkshires, discusses & reads from his book of photographs, Hunter Gatherer: Salvaged Stories of American Culture, with text by Cheryl Finley.
May 5 | Author Talk | Jessica Treadway, Albany native & child patron of the Pine Hills Branch, discusses & reads from her short story collection, I Felt My Life with Both My Hands.
May 12 | Book Review | The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Book Lover’s Adventures by Josh Hanagarne. Reviewer: John Edvalson, APL librarian.
May 19| Book Review | The Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller. Reviewer: Charles Hailer, Empire State Fellow with the NYS Urban Development Corporation.
May 26 | Book Review | The Fear and the Fury: Bernie Goetz, the Reagan ‘80s, and the Rebirth of White Rage by Heather Ann Thompson. Reviewer: James Collins, PhD, Prof. emeritus, Anthropology Dept, Program in Linguistics & Cognitive Science, U at Albany, SUNY.
Photos
ITEM: Locally, the show of FFAPL treasurer David Brickman, Neighborhood Abstracts, has been extended through mid-May at McGreevy ProLab and ProPress in Albany (link here for hours and address).
First Presbyterian Church of Albany is