From the moment the pandemic took hold in Spring 2020, libraries and library workers have demonstrated their fortitude and flexibility by adapting to physical closures, social distancing guidelines, and a host of other challenges. Despite the obstacles, they’ve been able to stay connected to their communities—and helped connect the people in their communities to each other, as well as to the information and services they need and enjoy. Ostman and ALA’s Public Programs Office (PPO) here present a handpicked cross-section of successful programs, most of them virtual, from a range of different libraries. Featuring events designed to support learning, spark conversation, create connection, or simply entertain, the ideas here will inspire programming staff to try similar offerings at their own libraries. Showcasing innovation in action as well as lessons learned, programs include

• COVID-19 Misinformation Challenge, featuring an email quiz, to encourage participants to separate fact from fiction; 
• weekly virtual storytimes;
• community cooking demonstrations via Zoom;
• an online grocery store tour, complete with tips about shopping healthy on a budget;
• a virtual beer tasting that boasted 80 attendees;
• socially distanced "creativity crates" for summer reading;
• an online Minecraft club for kids ages 6 and up;
• a Zoom presentation about grieving and funerals during COVID, featuring the director of a local funeral home;
• Art Talk Tuesday, a one-hour, docent-led program; 
• a virtual lecture on the history of witchcraft, presented by a public library in partnership with a university rare book room, that drew thousands of viewers;
• "knitting for knewbies" kits for curbside pickup;
• Songs from the Stacks, an ongoing virtual concert series in the style of NPR’s “Tiny Desk”;
• a pink supermoon viewing party that included people howling at the moon together from their homes on Facebook Live;
• and many others

Winner of the 2020 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)

Futurists predict that in the next ten years the profession of “lawyer” will splinter into job titles like “legal process analyst” or “legal knowledge engineer.” And some in the field are already taking a proactive approach ⁠— in fact, more than two dozen law schools have developed innovation centers to explore artificial intelligence (AI) and the law. In a competitive marketplace, both firms and individuals need to familiarize themselves with the dazzling array of new products and enhanced features capable of improving efficiency. Written by leading practitioners and visionaries like Robert Ambrogi, this groundbreaking survey of current practices and future trends offers an incisive examination of the evolving roles for law librarians. Readers will learn how AI technology is changing law school curricula, lawyer practice, marketing, and other key aspects of the field through coverage of such topics as

• the benefits of AI to law librarianship, including areas like legal research, contract review, compliance, and administration, and their associated risks;
• four professional ethics rules that apply to the use or (non-use) of AI;
• how lawyers and staff work side by side with AI, utilizing intelligence like RAVN ACE or FastCase to attack the drudgery of due diligence and document review;
• surprising machine-learning insights from tokenizing, stemming, and lemmatizing the text of Shakespeare’s plays;
• the potential for chatbots and new natural language processing products to improve access to justice; and
• ways to develop sought-after skills through new technology departments, practice management groups, and legal innovation labs.

Reading this collection will give you a firm grasp of the innovations, tools, benefits, and risks of AI in law librarianship.

This all-new edition gathers a range of contributors to explore real-world uses of library marketing technology, perfect for novices ready to dive in as well as practitioners on the lookout for ways to improve existing efforts. Inside, librarians share insights on how they use their favorite social media tools to promote their library and build community. Applicable to all types of institutions, this guide

• covers popular tools such as Snapchat, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter;
• shares four easy-to-use tools for creating memes, tips for creating short videos, and ways to integrate blogs into social media;
• demonstrates how to use reaction GIFs and tagging to boost your Tumblr posts;
• shows how to tailor messages to communicate effectively with different generations and audiences; and
• includes screen shots, illustrations, sample social media policies to help you navigate controversies, and free online training resources.