To celebrate our 150th anniversary, we are inviting library luminaries who have retired from a life working in service to libraries, readers, and books to reflect on their careers, their experience with Library Journal, and their hopes for the future. We begin with Nancy Pearl, who created “The Reader’s Shelf” column, which we feature once again in the January 2026 issue.

This year marks Library Journal’s 150th anniversary. How many media companies can say they have been actively publishing for a century and a half? In an increasingly challenging media landscape, it feels almost miraculous to still be here.

The mission of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University is to collect, preserve, and encourage the study of comics. It’s considered one of the largest collections of comics and cartoon materials in the world.

The NASA Goddard Information and Collaboration Center (GIC2) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, MD, closed on Friday, January 2, by order of the Trump administration. In-person services and checkouts had ceased on December 9, 2025.

The preprint linked below was recently posted on arXiv. Title The ‘Big Three’ of Scientific Information: A Comparative Bibliometric Review of Web of Science, Scopus, and OpenAlex Authors Daniel Torres-Salinas EC3metrics, Universidad de Granada, Spain Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado EC3metrics, Universidad de Granada, Spain Source via arXiv DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2601.21908 Abstract The present comparative study examines the three […]

From the Canadian Urban Libraries Council: On January 30, 2026 CULC/CBUC released a first-of-its-kind National Social Impact Study on urban public libraries in Canada, exploring the role public libraries play in community life and social wellbeing by drawing on data and lived experience from more than 18,000 respondents across 26 Canadian urban public library systems. […]

Congratulations Brewster! Brewster is one of several recipients 2026 Fellow Award honorees announced yesterday. Here’s the full text of the Computer History Museum release. Annual award program recognizes honorees for significant contributions to the foundations of mobile computing, digital preservation, and open access to knowledge MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – January 29, 2026 –  The Computer History Museum (CHM), the leading institution decoding […]

The article linked below was published today by Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). Title How Multilingual is Scholarly Communication? Mapping the Global Distribution of Languages In Publications and Citations Authors Carolina Pradier Université de Montréal Lucía Céspedes Université de Montréal Consortium Érudit, Montréal Vincent Larivière Université de Montréal Consortium Érudit, […]

Art by AI? In this episode we look at AI filling our playlists, our literary magazines, and gulp, even our library shelves. Does an embrace of AI alienate institutions like libraries from their communities, or is it an embrace of a new creative medium? How do you draw the line between AI slop and AI assist?

In this episode, we consider the nature, joy and despair and the challenges and opportunities that we deal with every day in the digital age. Are we in control? Are we merely pawns in their game?

Crossover episode for 2 podcasts—Libraries Lead and Infoversity –explores the future of library education. Dr. Beth Patin, Associate Professor and newly appointed Program Director for the MS in Library and Information Science program, sits down with Dean Jeff Hemsley for an in-depth conversation about preparing the next generation of information professionals for an uncertain and rapidly changing world.

In today’s rapidly evolving academic landscape, libraries face the dual challenge of meeting diverse research needs while managing constrained budgets. The recent report from Clarivate, “Current trends in academic library holdings: The evolution towards aggregated content,” offers a timely and data-driven perspective on how libraries are responding to these pressures.

Amir Tibon’s The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands wins the Wingate Literary Prize, for the book that best conveys “the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.” PEN America reveals the finalists for its Literary Awards. Publishers Weekly explores ALA’s inaugural comics awards. NYT’s Book Review Book Club picks Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as its February read. LA Times asks critics and authors to share the books they can’t wait to read in 2026. Plus, Page to Screen and Susan Choi’s favorite books.

The National Book Foundation’s Science + Literature honorees are revealed: Ancient Light: Poems by Kimberly Blaeser, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, and Bog Queen by Anna North. Crime novelist Mark Billingham wins the UK Crime Writers’ Association’s Diamond Dagger. The Audie Award finalists and the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards are announced. Poets Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Cornelius Eady are elected to the board of chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. Plus, new title bestsellers and “abolish ICE” reading lists with free ebooks.

The Andrew Carnegie Medal winners are revealed, with A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar winning the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li winning the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The RUSA Book and Media Award winners are announced, including the Notable Books List, Reading List, Listen List, Essential Cookbooks, Dartmouth Medal, and Outstanding References Sources List; Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein receives the Sophie Brody Medal. LibraryReads and LJ offer read-alikes for top holds title Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden. Kirkus has a spring 2026 nonfiction preview.