When Oliver began work as a school librarian she felt qualified for the job. What she learned was that librarians are expected to serve as mediators and mental-health-crisis-support professionals, customer service reps and administrators of overdose treatment, fierce loyalists to institutionalized mythology and enforced silence, and arms of state surveillance. Here she highlights the national problems that have existed in library since they were founded:...

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, patrons and staff outside of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie.'" The fire was disastrous, reaching 2000 degrees and burning for more than seven hours. It consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more....

It has been several months since monsters last plagued the town of Stermont, and frankly Alexander Bopp (leader of the Super Secret Monster Patrol) is bored, and misses his friends Rip (immersed in video games) and Nikki (soccer camp), so when his father signs him up for a summer maker program at the library he is happy to go-- but soon he starts finding weird old-timey objects, and monster trading cards, and it starts to look like maybe monsters...

Something is stealing machine parts from all over Stermont, including a wrecking ball from a local construction site, and Alexander and his fellow monster hunters, Rip, and Nikki, fear that it is building a Stermont-smashing machine--so the friends must use the resources of the summer maker program at the library to stop this monster, and perhaps even solve the mystery of who is leaving monster trading cards where the Super Secret Monster Patrol can...

Emily decides that what the town of Pitchfork needs is a library, and comes up with a plan to make it happen.

Here come the library babies, ready to give you a tour of their favorite local library! There's no place more magical than a library, where adventures can be had both inside the pages of a book and out. Here you can find hidden nooks for reading, encounter new worlds during story time, and take the big step of signing up for your very first library card. From puppet shows to getting to take out towering stacks of books to enjoy at home, this joyful...

Delivering books to the housebound residents of the Thumb Islands, just a short boat ride from the town of Briar Creek, library director Lindsey Norris has befriended two elderly brothers, Stewart and Peter Rosen. She enjoys visiting them in their treasure-filled, ramshackle Victorian on Star Island until she discovers that Peter has been killed and Stewart is missing. Now she's determined to solve a murder and find Stewart before he suffers his brother's...

Josh Hanagarne was born to Mormon parents in rural Utah. Large for his age, Josh was playing the role of Tree in a school play when he suddenly started twitching uncontrollably. Turns out the tree had Tourette syndrome. By the time Josh turned twenty, his tics were too drastic to ignore. Desperate for liberation, Josh tried all possible treatments, but the results were dismal. It turned out to be weight lifting that provided the most lasting relief,...

"A decades-overdue book puts library director Lindsey Norris hot on the trail of a cold case. When the Briar Creek Public Library holds its first overdue book amnesty day no fines for late returns the volume of incoming materials is more than Lindsey and her staff can handle. In a bind, Lindsey drafts the crafternoon ladies to help check in and sort the stacks of books. But one tardy tome catches her attention a copy of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher...