2026-01-29
Faye O’Reilly
The Digital Accessibility Handbook for Libraries is a comprehensive how-to guide on making libraries more user-friendly for patrons with disabilities. The intended audience is librarians, library students, and other library professionals beginning their accessibility work. Many of the insights related in this text would be helpful to professionals in institutions working to design new spaces or services for their constituency. Institutions embarking on usability testing of their physical and online spaces would also benefit from the insights in the Handbook, especially chapter 7. Although the overt focus of the book is on patrons with disabilities, the authors do an excellent job of establishing that accessibility benefits all patrons: “Go beyond
2026-01-29
Colin Higgins
This paper examines the ongoing relevance of DVD and Blu-ray Disc collections to libraries at a time of dominance by streaming video. Using the 2020 HBO Max removal of Gone with the Wind as a catalyst for discussion, the study explores the shift from physical to digital media consumption and argues that optical disc collections remain essential to library services. While streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney1 have transformed film distribution, they present significant limitations, including restricted catalogs, algorithm-driven curation, licensing vulnerabilities, and commercial prioritization over cultural preservation
2026-01-29
Maria Planansky
Assessing Academic Library Collections for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is a practical introduction for those who work in academic libraries who, as author Karen Kohn writes, “have a sense that they should be conducting some type of diversity assessment or audit but are unsure how to do it or are overwhelmed” (1). Kohn’s book reads like an intensive, asynchronous workshop and follows a project planning approach. The text is not prescriptive; it offers four different approaches (list checking, metadata searching, diversity coding, and evaluating institutional efforts) to assess collections’ diversity, with the reader selecting what works best for their institution and needs
2026-01-29
Kathia Ibacache, Arthur Aguilera
There is limited research on how academic libraries acquire Indigenous audiovisual media productions (IAMPs) from Latin American regions, and the representation of these materials is scarce in current vendor offerings. The purpose of this study is to understand how IAMPs are distributed from Latin American regions to universities in the United States. This study reports on interviews with thirteen individuals who work for production and distribution companies. The findings illustrate a distribution network that is difficult to navigate, characterized by complex licensing and underdeveloped relationships. The conclusion of this paper highlights the need for academic libraries to develop reciprocal collaborative partnerships with Indigenous creators and educational distributors to increase the representation of IAMPs in library collections and educational distributor product offerings