Infophilia: A Positive Psychology of Information | April 21, 2026 | Vol. 4, Issue 22 | Bonus edition — National Library Workers Day

Civic Infophilia | Infophilic Information Styles | Intellectual Freedom | Library and Information Science | Wellbeing

✨ Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly serial and a living lab exploring how our love of information and connection can help us thrive, individually and collectively. This is avant-garde research in how we engage with knowledge, meaning, and each other.

📌Access & Attribution: This serial offers free previews always and occasional open access essays to keep scholarship accessible. Students and those facing financial barriers can request complimentary access. If you find value here, please cite the original work and consider supporting the public scholarship through subscription. Proper attribution sustains this work and models healthy information engagement.

Cite as: Stephenson, G. (2026). The living library: The Maidan, the Ainu, and the ethics of preservation. Infophilia: A Positive Psychology of Information, 4(22).

From the Editor

Last year, when I applied to be one of the delegates to the American Library Association’s 2026 National Library Legislative Day (self-funded) in Washington D.C., I wrote in my application that I would be a multiplier: one participant, three platforms. Infophilia was one of those platforms. This is what that promise looks like.

Shining a spotlight on emerging voices in library and information science is one of my joys. And publishing Infophilia's first bylined guest essay, in Gaby's own voice, is a joy too. This is what mentorship looks like in public scholarship. It is the companion piece to Those Who Read to Their Heart, Win, published on Saturday April 18th.

Gaby Stephenson is a graduate student pursuing her MLIS at San José State University’s iSchool, where she is also completing a Digital Assets Management Certificate and serving as an iSchool Book Ecosystem Intern. Gaby’s volunteer experience includes Digital Scriptorium (a national union catalog/database of global pre-modern manuscripts) and Huntington Beach Public Library. Her research centers on contested information spaces, oral history, and the ethics of preservation.

This essay is published on National Library Workers Day, April 21, 2026, part of National Library Week (April 19-25), whose theme this year is Find Your Joy. For Gaby, a library worker in formation, joy lives in exactly the places her essay explores: the contested living library, the ephemeral, and the preserved.

Gaby and I are both proud members of the ALA.

Happy National Library Week — and Find Your Joy! 🌟

Enjoy Gaby’s story, Anita

P.S. Gaby’s first essay in Infophilia deserves to be read as widely as possible, so we’re making it open access. Read it. Share it. Enjoy our libraries and the people who make them possible!

The Living Library

The Maidan, the Ainu, and the Ethics of Preservation

By Gaby Stephenson

On Library Workers Day, we celebrate the stewardship that underpins our collections. Yet studies of contested spaces remind us that preservation is never neutral; it is an intentional practice shaped by community needs and political realities. From the barricades of Kyiv to the sacred riverbanks of Hokkaido, preservation becomes an ethical commitment to protecting identity against erasure.

The Maidan Library: Shelter and Nation-Building

The Maidan Library emerged in 2014 during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity as a “protest library,” a physical collection within a temporary activist encampment. Occupying the Ukrainian House in Kyiv, volunteers transformed a conference center into a space that offered both physical and emotional warmth amid violent conflict. In the chaos of an occupational encampment, the Maidan Library offered a space where protesters could construct a heterotopia — a space that exists outside normal social order, where alternative realities become possible — in the face of Russian oppression. It was not merely a warm, safe space for reading; it grew to become a site of defiant expression of identity. This was a library built by the people: a collection curated by activists, community members, and celebrated Ukrainian authors alike to dismantle state propaganda and provide the movement with its necessary ideological foundation.

This ad-hoc institution captured a collective memory that traditional institutions often miss: the phenomenological experience (the lived, felt reality) of a people in revolt. Today, as Ukrainian libraries and cultural heritage sites are directly targeted and destroyed by Russian forces, the legacy of the Maidan Library takes on a new urgency. When institutional buildings are leveled, the protest library model reminds us that the library is not just a building, but a community’s way to participate and assert their identity. Preserving these fleeting, informal narratives is a vital act of defense against the systemic erasure of Ukrainian identity and sovereignty.

The Nibutani Kotan: Preservation as Partnership

In Hokkaido, the Nibutani Kotan demonstrates how cultural institutions can move beyond the spectacle of colonial objectification. For much of the 20th century, the Ainu — the Indigenous people of Northern Japan — faced systemic marginalization and forced assimilation through Japanese policy and legislation. The status of the Ainu as an Indigenous minority in Japan was only formally recognized in 2019 by the Ainu Promotion Act. The Kotan rejects this erasure, functioning not as a static museum but as a site for active cultural revival.

Through institutions like the Urespa (”growing together”) heritage center, preservation is treated as a partnership. By focusing on regional-specific craftsmanship and the accurate representation of embodied narratives, the Kotan ensures that Ainu culture is viewed as extant and evolving rather than as a historic relic. This model is vital because it centers Ainu agency in the reclamation of their own history.

By protecting sacred lands like the Saru River basin, the Kotan ensures that these spaces continue to nourish the community’s spiritual and physical future. In doing so, it proves that libraries and archives are most powerful when they serve as living infrastructures for community persistence.

Mediating Memory: The Ethics of the Information Bridge

These case studies offer a unique perspective on the modern library worker. As information professionals in contested spaces, we must evolve beyond neutrality as Fobazi Ettarh has argued. Librarianship is shaped by power, labor, and the expectations placed upon those who sustain it. We must embrace our responsibilities as active mediators of often underrepresented narratives. Even in an increasingly virtual world, physical books and spaces can be mobilized for political and social expression. Among emerging technology, the physical artifacts of knowledge and the tangible spaces we take up to gather and form community remain essential.

When the Maidan encampment was dismantled, its books were not lost; they were redistributed to seed new ideas elsewhere. Community spaces do not need to be permanent to be powerful. If we preserve the spirit of these transient sites, their truths become indelible.

Ultimately, LIS work can be a refusal to let voices be pushed out of the historical record. Our profession exists in a vital liminality: we stand at the threshold between the fixed priorities of the institutions that employ us and the shifting, diverse needs of the communities we serve. That in‑between space, uncertain as it can be, expands our capacity to act. It positions us as ethical gatekeepers who choose to hold the door open, not closed, ensuring that those historically shut out are not excluded again. In this way, we preserve the ephemeral and contested histories that lie beyond the reach of traditional archives, anchoring them in the collective memory of the communities that created them.

This work carries special resonance in the wake of Fobazi Ettarh’s passing on January 28, 2026. Her challenge to neutrality and her insistence that librarianship must confront the power structures that shape it remind us that our labor is inseparable from the communities we serve. Ettarh’s voice sharpened our understanding of what ethical practice demands; her absence underscores the urgency of carrying that work forward.

On this Library Workers Day, we are called to sustain libraries and information systems that honor the communities who create knowledge. In carrying their stories forward with care, intention, and hope, we also carry forward the spirit of Fobazi Ettarh’s enduring call to build a profession worthy of the people it serves.

Notes

Fobazi Ettarh’s “vocational awe” paper cited below was required reading in the Issues in Academic Libraries (INFO-230), an elective course I am currently taking.

My understanding about the importance of “phenomenological experience” comes from what I learned during a marketing course as an undergraduate student. I was assigned a local vineyard and instead of doing demographic research my professor required our group to attend wine and wine tasting experiences prior to preparing the marketing profiles.

Ettarh, F. (2018). Vocational awe and librarianship: The lies we tell ourselves. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Frances, S. (2017). Maidan library: The emergence of a protest library within Ukraine’s revolution of dignity. Pacific Coast Philology, 52(2), 314–323. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/2/article/673301

Frances, S. (2020). Libraries amid protest: Books, organizing, and global activism. University of Massachusetts Press.

Creighton, M. (2003). May the Saru River flow: The Nibutani dam and the resurging tide of the Ainu identity movement. In D.W. Edgington (ed). Japan at the millennium: Joining Past and Future. (pp. 120–143). University of British Columbia Press. https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774850520-009

Sandall, E. (2021). Museum representations of contested spaces: The Kuril Islands. Connecticut College Digital Commons. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/slavichp/5

Gosart, U. (Instructor). (2025). Indigenous cultural institutions and practices of librarianship [Course]. San José State University.

These works ground this essay’s understanding of protest libraries as sites of identity formation and political expression (Frances), while situating the Nibutani Kotan within broader histories of Ainu resistance and Indigenous-led preservation (Creighton; Sandall). Ettarh’s critique of vocational awe and the myth of neutrality informs this essay’s call for librarians to act as ethical mediators rather than passive stewards. The principles of Indigenous librarianship, as taught by Professor Ulia Gosart, further inform the essay’s emphasis on community authority and preservation as an ongoing, living practice.

Related Essay

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information | April 18, 2026 | Vol. 4, Issue 21

Intellectual Freedom | Civic Infophilia | Adaptive Infophilia | Public Goods | Wellbeing

Welcome to Infophilia, a living lab and weekly serial exploring how our love of information and connection can help us thrive, individually and collectively. This is also where adaptive infophilia theory is being developed as public scholarship.

In this issue, we see adaptive infophilia in action and practice in library and information science; one of the smallest disciplines to claim expertise over "information," LIS has arguably done more than most others to make it a public good. Computer science optimizes. Data science extracts. Communication studies interprets. When information is scarce, librarians expand intellectual access; when information is abundant, they empower meaning-making.

📌Access & Attribution: This serial offers free previews always and occasional open access essays to keep scholarship accessible. Students and those facing financial barriers can request complimentary access. If you find value here, please cite the original work and consider supporting the public scholarship through subscription. Proper attribution sustains this work.

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2026). Those who read to their heart, win: ALA NLLD 2026, Little Free Libraries in Ukraine with Spider-Man comics, and one California LIS student’s unexpected journey. Infophilia: A Positive Psychology of Information, 4(21).

Infophilia Book Club / Office Hours

Infophilia Book Club and Office Hours resume April 22nd, Wednesday at noon. We’ll continue our discussion of The Privatization of Everything by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian. Cohen has also written a shorter, practical companion on the long game for the common good and we’ll be drawing on both. All are welcome. Contact me for the Zoom invite.

Puthandu, Earth Day, & the National Park Service Libraries

In the spirit of whimsical fresh spring, when all things are made new — in the days following Puthandu, Tamil New Year, traditionally celebrated on April 14th across South and Southeast Asia, and looking ahead to Earth Day this Wednesday, April 22 — a reminder that public goods are physical before they become digital, cultural before they become contested, and worth celebrating in any season.

American Libraries magazine recently published a striking set of statistics on the National Park Service and its connections to libraries: the NPS operates approximately 400 libraries, houses 3.5 million materials in its history collection at Harpers Ferry, and has digitized more than 350,000 objects through a collaboration with Clemson University — funded by IMLS, the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, located just outside Theodore Roosevelt National Park, is projected to open this year, 4th of July 2026. Roosevelt set aside approximately 230 million acres of public land while in office. That land, those libraries, that digitization funding: all public goods. All worth celebrating.

The Good and the Bad on IMLS

Good news: The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) won their lawsuit protecting the Institute of Museum and Library Services from dismantlement. The administration withdrew its appeal. Libraries prevailed.

Bad news: The same administration has proposed eliminating IMLS’s entire budget in FY2027. Yes, wiping out library funding entirely. For context, Congress funded the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) at $212.5 million for FY2026 and Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) at $30 million. We have been asking Congress to go just a tiny bit further and fund LSTA at its fully authorized level of $232 million and IAL at $50 million. The library budget crisis, child literacy crisis, the digital divide, and the war on cultural memory (in our own country and in Ukraine) all have the same root cause: unequal access to information. Less than $300 million. Removing this small amount is not a rounding error in a federal budget of trillions. It is a deliberate choice about what this administration believes the vast mass of people deserve.

And Now — Today’s Story

It begins with a girl who loves her mom, her dad, and Model UN. Now a young woman and a graduate student in library and information science, she is following that love all the way to a Little Free Library in central Ukraine, where children are reaching for Spider-Man comics in front of handcrafted wooden libraries.

Next week, we will turn to AI, capability, and the information commons — humor and halo. 🤣😇 Two men in their prime who wouldn't hold hands at the India AI summit.

But this week, we stay with people.

Gaby’s story is free to read and share. In a week when books are under threat everywhere, from library funding cuts in Washington to missile strikes on printing houses in Kharkiv, access to story is a human right.

Those Who Read to Their Heart, Win

ALA NLLD 2026, Little Free Libraries in Ukraine with Spider-Man comics, and one California LIS student’s unexpected journey

She hadn’t signed up for any of it. Not the D.C. legislative briefings, not the hallway conversations with Congressional staffers, not the slow realization that the federal money flowing into libraries — the money that funds after-school programs and rural bookmobiles and children’s literacy initiatives — was under serious threat.

Gaby Stephenson grew up in Huntington Beach, California — Surf City, as we locals call it — but we met on a morning in March 2026 at the Newport Beach Public Library, so she could share her journey as a Library and Information Science graduate student and iSchool Book Ecosystem Intern who’d discovered that her field reached further than she'd imagined. We had first met at the ALA NLLD in Washington D.C.

Gaby had come to NLLD because her professor told her she lived there, so she had to come.

“Dr. Chow told me I live in DC, so I have to come to this event with him,” she recalled, laughing. “I didn’t know if I wanted to do advocacy.”

The ALA National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) is an annual gathering where librarians, scholars, and students travel to Capitol Hill to meet directly with members of Congress and put a very human face on the quiet, unglamorous work of keeping libraries alive. In 2026 — the ALA’s sesquicentennial year — the NLLD marked its 50th anniversary this February. For Gaby, a remote graduate student at the School of Information, San Jose State University juggling coursework with a growing passion for international humanitarian work, it was the first time the abstract world of policy had become something she could touch.

“I was a remote student, so I don’t have this chance often,” she said. “It was lovely to talk to everybody and hear their story. That might even be more valuable than putting myself out of my comfort zone.”

The Back Road to a Book Drive

Gaby did not grow up expecting to become a librarian. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with an undergraduate degree in animal science, and worked at REI Co-op — moving from department manager to visual merchandising and inventory specialist — where years in innovative retail trained her to talk to anyone about anything. Her minors at Cal Poly in Religious Studies and Integrated Marketing Communications are, in retrospect, perfect preparation for work that is equal parts meaning-making and message-moving. She found her way to library science through a growing conviction that information access is a form of justice.

Her instinct for international work runs deep. Her mother is Japanese, her father Israeli, two people who bonded, she explains, over what it means to arrive in America as a foreigner and build a life inside a culture not entirely your own.

“We’re a big mix, the three of us, in very, very different cultures,” she said. “Both my parents bonded over being in America as foreigners and having foreign families.”

Her mother, in the way of parents who want their children to understand the world, “made” her join Model UN in high school. It worked. Gaby arrived at adulthood already fluent in transnational cultures and geopolitics, already attentive to the structures of international bodies, treaties and humanitarian frameworks that shape what happens to people in places far from Huntington Beach. Already convinced, in ways she was only beginning to articulate, that other people’s problems were also her problems.

At SJSU’s iSchool, that conviction found its intellectual home. Stephenson’s graduate research has centered on contested information spaces — protest libraries emerge during political occupations, from Occupy Wall Street to Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity. Physical collections are used to construct identity and claim space. She designed an oral history project around the Maidan Library, which arose from protest in Ukraine’s Independence Square, thinking carefully about ethics, translation, and how digital infrastructure can support collective memory in times of war.

“I just decided to talk to someone who was involved with the UN and was using librarianship in the UN,” Gaby said. “And so I love that class. And obviously things have happened and the war has been aggravated. I just wanted any opportunity to try and learn about library science and helping people during a humanitarian crisis.”

So when she enrolled in Dr. Ulia Gosart’s seminar on Indigenous Cultural Institutions and Practices of Librarianship at SJSU’s iSchool, it began to come together. Here was a professor who was not just teaching about international frameworks: she was living inside one. Dr. Gosart, a Ukrainian herself, was working with the Ukrainian Library Association to track war crimes in Ukraine, using the tools of librarianship as instruments of documentation and resistance.

In that class, Gaby profiled the Nibutani Kotan in Hokkaido — a center of Ainu cultural preservation — exploring what it means for institutions to collaborate ethically with source communities rather than simply preserving them. As someone with an intimate Japanese heritage, that research hit close to home.

It made Dr. Gosart’s seminar feel less like a discovery and more like a recognition.

When an email arrived asking if she wanted to be involved in the iSchool Book Ecosystem project in Ukraine, she didn’t hesitate.

“I jumped on that,” she said.

What Ukrainian Librarians Are Actually Doing

To understand what Gaby jumped into, it helps to understand the people already inside it.

Dr. Gosart has described the reality of Ukrainian librarianship during the war with unflinching clarity. Writing in the ALA’s International Relations Round Table newsletter International Leads, she documented what her colleagues on the ground are actually doing: Ukrainian librarians are providing shelter to displaced people, delivering humanitarian aid, offering emotional and legal support to their communities, and fighting “on the information front volunteering to bring the victory home.” During the war, Ukrainian libraries have become what their communities call “points of invincibility“ — 24-hour hubs where people charge their phones, find shelter, and access reliable information when everything else has gone dark.

Their courage, she wrote, “and invisibility is inspiring solidarity across library communities of the US.” That invisibility is part of what makes this story worth telling. The war in Ukraine generates enormous coverage, from satellite images of destroyed cities to casualty counts, and diplomatic summits. What gets less attention is the librarian in Cherkasy who unlocks her doors every morning to people who have nowhere else to go, or the regional director trying to keep a children’s collection alive while missiles fall on printing houses two hundred miles away.

The cultural destruction is systematic and deliberate. In May 2024, a Russian strike on the Faktor-Druk printing facility in Kharkiv destroyed more than 50,000 copies of books by Ukrainian publishers. And among them was the entire first print run of You Can’t Fight, You Can’t Retreat, a debut novel by soldier-author Pavlo Belianskyi, now approved by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the country’s highest cultural honor, the Shevchenko National Prize. Across Ukraine, 165 libraries have requested support for repairs, equipment, and replenishing collections. ALA’s Ukraine Library Relief Fund has raised $45,000 since 2022 and has distributed $15,000, including $1,500 each to nine libraries.

And it is not only buildings and collections that are being destroyed. Ukraine’s war literature — raw, precise, written between combat missions by authors who are also soldiers — is being rewritten in real time. As Yuliya Orlova, CEO of Vivat Publishing, one of Ukraine’s leading publishing houses, wrote earlier this year: this is a war of drones and trenches, artillery and TikTok, and the authors writing from inside it reject the universality of classical Western war narratives entirely. Twenty-five-year-old veteran-poet Artur Dron titled his debut prose collection Hemingway Knows Nothing; it’s a blunt argument that classical Western war narratives by Hemingway, Remarque, and Vonnegut simply do not apply to this war. The main novel about this war, Orlova writes, has not yet been written. But the books that will make it possible are being written now, in dugouts, in hospitals, between artillery strikes.

Books, in this war, are targets. Which makes putting them in children’s hands an act of resistance as much as education.

The Book Ecosystem

The SJSU iSchool Book Ecosystem program is built on a simple premise. The IMLS — the federal agency whose survival Gaby and her fellow NLLD advocates had just been fighting for in Washington — has identified three core barriers to childhood literacy: cost, convenience, and culturally relevant materials. The Book Ecosystem is designed to dismantle all three simultaneously, and the Ukraine effort, centered in Cherkasy, a regional capital in central Ukraine and Dr. Gosart's hometown, illustrates each principle in action.

Culturally relevant materials were curated in partnership with Ukrainian library associations — people who knew what the children actually wanted to read. The answer, it turned out, included Spider-Man, To Catch a Ghost, and The Air I Breathe — comics and graphic novels that crossed the language barrier and landed in the hands of teenagers who had earned the right to lose themselves in a story for an hour.

Convenience was built in by design: the libraries are placed where families already go — schools, Head Start centers, children’s libraries. The book comes to the child. And cost was addressed by hiring local Ukrainian artisans to build the little free libraries themselves. Larger, sturdier, imprinted with local identity, and recognizable to the communities they serve, built by neighbors, for neighbors.

The community ownership model — families, schools, and neighborhood organizations all sharing responsibility for restocking and maintaining the collections — is what makes the program self-sustaining rather than dependent on the next donation cycle. Everyone is invested because everyone built it. The model has domestic roots too: Reading Nation Waterfall, an IMLS-funded program bringing the Book Ecosystem model to Indigenous communities across the United States, is where the framework was first proven — and where Gaby is also working, writing grants to replicate it in additional communities.

The program’s goal is concrete: ensure each participating child receives 100 age-appropriate books by 3rd grade, before the critical literacy window closes. Children who fall behind in reading by 3rd grade rarely catch up. In a country where schools have been bombed and routines shattered, that window is narrowing faster than anywhere else.

September 17, 2024

The books arrived in Cherkasy at the beginning of August — close to 2,000 titles, half of them comics. They had been collected at the previous ALA Annual Conference, donated by librarians at a book drive organized by iSchool students; the students had made flyers and bookmarks drawn from Children Draw War, Not Flowers, an exhibition of drawings by Ukrainian children who see and experience the war. Children as young as four draw them and the exhibition is curated by Dr. Gosart and currently touring universities across the United States. The children's own art became the thing that brought books back to them.

On September 17th, six Little Free Libraries opened across Cherkasy, serving three schools and the young patrons of the city’s Youth and Children Libraries. “We are sincerely grateful to our American friends,” said Luidmyla Diadyk, director of the Cherkasy Regional Universal Library, “for giving us the opportunity to develop librarianship, preserve cultural values, and nurture spirituality during such a difficult time for the Ukrainian people.”

“Library communities are strong because of the solidarity,” added Daniel Gumnit, CEO of Little Free Library, another key partner who made this possible, and is himself of Ukrainian descent. “It’s holding not only library communities together, but I think it’s holding our whole world together.”

Back in Washington

At NLLD, Gaby sat in briefings about the IMLS and learned how federal funding flows, or doesn’t, into libraries across the country. She absorbed the political reality that none of this is guaranteed.

She had gone in thinking the experience wouldn’t be relevant — nothing she’d done before. She came out understanding it was already affecting her, not just as a future professional but as a student, right now, through the grant projects she was working on. Even the broadband internet access at her campus library, a lifeline when a natural disaster displaced her from her dorm and she needed to get her homework done and maintain her grades, suddenly made sense. “The services, and in this case, broadband internet access, the library provided — they’re not luxuries,” she said.

“I was reading articles about how the funding was changing,” she said, “and going to NLLD kind of complemented how I understood how whoever is in the White House is going to very strongly influence how much money we get and how much support we’re going to get from the federal government.”

The mechanisms that support a book drive for Ukrainian children are the same mechanisms that support a rural library in Monterey County or a school library in South Los Angeles. They are all part of the same ecosystem, and they are all vulnerable to the same political winds.

She also carried a direct, living connection to the human cost of what happens when those systems fail. She knew that even Dr. Gosart had been having difficulty reaching partners on the ground as the conflict intensified. Unanswered phone calls. Emails that disappear into the noise of a country managing a war on every front.

That knowledge made the legislative conversations feel different. Concrete, not abstract. Weighted, not procedural.

That, in the end, is what NLLD is for. Beyond the briefings and the talking points, to the moments when a graduate student from Huntington Beach, shaped by a Japanese mother, an Israeli father, and a high school Model UN table, walks into a Congressional office and makes the case that libraries matter. That children deserve to read. That the federal dollars at stake are not abstractions. They are Spider-Man comics in the hands of a teenager who has been living through a war.

Next: Chicago

This summer, at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, Gaby will help organize another book drive for an initiative that has already spread to village libraries in the Kyiv region's Boyarka area and to Kherson, where efforts are underway to restore accessible collections after wartime damage. The goal this time is not just more books, but proof: metrics that show what community-owned literacy looks like when it works.

Orlova suggests that Ukrainian war literature bears witness to the present moment and the warning is clear: if these voices go unheard now, they may one day be retold from other countries, in other languages, against the same enemy.

The children reading in Cherkasy are not waiting for the war to end. They are reading now, in libraries built by their neighbors, stocked by strangers across an ocean who believe — as librarians have always believed — that access to a book, access to information, is access to a future.

Those who read to their heart, win.

How to Help

The 2026 ALA Annual Conference book drive for Ukrainian children takes place this summer in Chicago. Children’s book donations will be collected at the conference.

To support the drive directly, scan the QR code on the flyer above or visit www.gofundme.com/f/support-literacy-for-ukraines-waraffected-kids

To support Ukrainian libraries more broadly, including the nine libraries already funded for repairs, equipment, and restocked collections, donate to the ALA Ukraine Library Relief Fund at ala.org/aboutala/ukraine-library-relief-fund. Donations are tax deductible.

To learn more about the iSchool Book Ecosystems Program globally, visit newmedialearning.org.

Notes

On the Title

Those Who Read to Their Heart, Win is drawn from the artwork of Anastasiia, age 14, from Cherkasy, Ukraine. She is one of more than 450 children who contributed to Children Draw War, Not Flowers, the traveling exhibition curated by Dr. Ulia Gosart. Her drawing became a bookmark, the bookmark became a book drive, and the book drive became this story, Gaby’s story. This title is in honor of Anastasiia.

To view the children’s drawings, Children Draw War, Not Flowers, from Cherkasy, visit the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online gallery: gallery.sucho.org/exhibits/show/cherkasy-childrens-drawings/introduction

On adaptive infophilia in action

This issue’s story — Gaby’s journey, Gosart’s life work, the children’s art, the iSchool Book Ecosystem, the NLLD advocacy — is also a methodological demonstration of adaptive infophilia theory across seven simultaneous scales. From a four-year-old reaching for crayons in a war zone to a federal agency fighting for survival in Washington, every layer of this story shows humans adapting their information seeking, sharing, and meaning-making in response to crisis. That demonstration will appear in Infophilia Unbound, my forthcoming book. Stay tuned.

On Puthandu

A colleague I’m interviewing for Infophilia Unbound reminded me that Puthandu had just passed — “it was yesterday,” she said. That offhand remark became this section. It’s a good reminder with lots of evidence from human information behavior research: people prefer other people as sources and the richest information often travels person to person, not page to page. I'll have more to say about her recent book in a future issue.

On meaning-making vs. Brenda Dervin’s sense-making

Regular readers of Infophilia know the intellectual debt we owe Brenda Dervin, who showed us how people bridge gaps. Adaptive infophilia includes what happens after the bridge is crossed, and why some people keep building bridges. I’ll write a future essay on this.

On IMLS funding

IMLS’s core budget in recent years has been just under $300 million — a very small federal line item — and while the IAL program is administered by the U.S. Department of Education, the LSTA grants are administered by IMLS. Congress has overridden repeated White House attempts to eliminate IMLS because there is strong, bipartisan, district-level support for what IMLS funds. Lawmakers view the agency's cost as modest but its value as high: a small budget line with an outsized community return. That support has been reinforced by sustained advocacy campaigns led by ALA and partner organizations.

On Federal Funding for Libraries

Federal funding mechanisms for libraries are interconnected. At NLLD we also advocated for sustainable, predictable, long term funding for E-rate, a Federal Communications Commission program supporting broadband access in schools and libraries, alongside LSTA and IAL.

On “points of invincibility”

This is what many people here in the US experience in their public libraries too — during extreme weather events, disasters such as the California fires and floods, and in the daily lives of older people living on fixed incomes or with limited devices or technology skills who depend on their local public library for internet access. Consider how much of daily life now requires connectivity. The library as point of invincibility is not a wartime metaphor. It is a description of what public libraries already are, quietly, every day. We heard this directly at NLLD when we listened to the stories people shared with the staffers in our advocacy meetings.

Read the full story of Ukraine’s emerging war literature at Publishing Perspectives: After Hemingway: How Ukraine Is Redefining War Literature. https://publishingperspectives.com/2026/02/after-hemingway-how-ukraine-is-redefining-war-literature/

See the 2026 Shevchenko Prize laureates, including Pavlo Belianskyi. https://unn.ua/en/news/the-laureates-of-the-2026-shevchenko-prize-have-been-announced

Read the original ALA International Leads book drive story: https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/2025-10/202509.pdf

Read Drawing Strength, Dr. Gosart’s profile at Southern Connecticut State University. https://news.southernct.edu/2026/04/13/drawing-strength/

Dip into the American Libraries National Parks numbers here: americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2026/03/02/by-the-numbers-national-parks

If you asked your senators to support FY2027 library funding — the deadline for the Senate Dear Appropriator letters was April 17th — many thanks to you and please thank your senators too. Both CA senators have supported FY 2027 LSTA and IAL. Visit ala.org/advocacy/federal-resources/fund-libraries to see if your Representative and Senators signed the Dear Appropriator Letters supporting LSTA and IAL funds.

IMLS was hard-won. Its founding story and our story why it matters now more than ever is coming in May (see below). In the meantime, read White House FY27 budget proposal repeats threats to eliminate IMLS. www.ala.org/news/2026/04/white-house-fy27-budget-proposal-repeats-threats-eliminate-imls

Check out the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opening on Independence Day in Medora, North Dakota. https://www.trlibrary.com/

Coming this spring:

We promised a “light” spring - how do these sound to you?

• April 25 — Two Men in Their Prime Who Wouldn’t Hold Hands and Raised Fists in India: Mythos, GPT-5.4-Cyber, and the privatization of the information commons

• May 2 — Zuboff’s Surveillance or Varian’s Service? Making Decisions and Everyday Life with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini

• May 9 — Why Firefox: what the ALA Core Authentication and Authorization Committee’s notice about impending browser technology changes really means — and why Chrome and Safari are not the answer

• May 16 — How IMLS Found Its Voice and Nearly Lost It Twice: Robert Martin, NCLIS, and the Fight for Federal Information Policy.

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Infophilia is the positive psychology of information — exploring what happens when humans and information find each other, even across a war. If this story moved you, consider sharing it. And if you’re not yet a subscriber, Infophilia would love to be part of your information life.

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of information | February 16, 2026 | Vol. 4, Issue 11 | Local News

✨ Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connection can help us thrive, individually and collectively.

Biophilia | Civic Infophilia | Intellectual Freedom | Technophilia | Toolbox | Wellbeing

Stay warm and dry this Presidents Day Monday as Southern California winter rain arrives! Sun returns Tuesday and Wednesday before more rain Thursday.

I continue with community stories about Irvine public libraries: the people, the places, and today’s story explore the philosophy and practice behind 34,000 library cards.

📌Access & Attribution: This serial offers free previews always and occasional open access essays to keep scholarship accessible. Students and those facing financial barriers can request complimentary access. If you find value here, please cite the original work and consider supporting the public scholarship through subscription. Proper attribution sustains this work and models healthy information engagement.

📚 Book Club Announcement

• Date: Feb. 18 Wed. 12 noon Pacific Time

• Book: The Privatization of Everything by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian (The New Press, 2021). Chapter 2

• Free for all readers.

• Contact me for the Zoom invite.

  ---

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2026, February 18). Rediscovering the neighborhood library: One boy’s story, 34,000 more. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 4 (11).

Rediscovering the Neighborhood Library

One Boy's Story, 34,000 More

Read more

Intellectual Freedom | Civic Infophilia | Technophilia | Toolbox | Wellbeing

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections can help us all thrive, individually and collectively. Avant-garde research.

📌Access & Attribution: This serial offers free previews always and occasional open access essays to keep scholarship accessible. Students and those facing financial barriers can request complimentary access. If you find value here, please cite the original work and consider supporting the public scholarship through subscription. Proper attribution sustains this work and models healthy information engagement.

📚 Book Club: Join Tim Blackwell and me Feb. 11 Wed. 12 noon Pacific Time for a discussion of The Privatization of Everything by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian (The New Press, 2021). Free for all readers. Contact me for the zoom invite.

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2026). Meet California’s 2026 NLLD delegation: Advocating for libraries on Capitol Hill. Infophilia: A Positive Psychology of Information, 4(9).

There’s a lot of good news to share: we highlight the perspectives of two of our readers, embrace the “granny core” movement, and dip into the legal profession’s insights on generative AI. Our main story brings it back home: in California, thirteen librarians are mobilizing—turning libraries into democracy’s shield. They’re part of the ALA, American Library Association’s 235 librarians from across the USA converging on Capitol Hill later this month. This issue is open access in their honor.

Signal & Noise

Katharine Phenix’s Insight

I’m delighted to welcome a new reader: library history scholar Katharine Phenix.

Though I don’t know Katharine personally, I’m aware of her extensive scholarly output. Colleagues describe her as a “veteran librarian” and a “brilliant scholar” focused on library history, particularly the role and status of women in librarianship.

Katharine’s words—sharp, honest, and deeply resonant—shed light on a critical conversation that we, as lovers of knowledge and democracy, are all a part of.

Thank you for trusting us with your powerful take and for allowing me to share it. This is why I keep writing.

Tim Blackwell & Infophilia Book Club

I’m thrilled to invite you to our next Infophilia Book Club discussion—not just about privatization, but about how it reshapes trust, power, and public life—with a unique perspective: Tim Blackwell’s experience and expertise as a federal contractor now.

At our online book club this week, Tim, a retired Army officer with 27 years of service, provided memorable examples of how privatization reshapes public services from a contracts perspective including the government ADA program, Boeing, NASA, Space X, Nvidia, and Government AI. (video clip is 41 sec of Tim.)

Why you’ll want to join:

• Tim’s stories connect theory to the real-world erosion of public trust—one of the themes we explore using Cohen and Mikaelian’s The privatization of everything.

• He’s a faithful Infophilia reader, since our beginning, whose perspective aligns perfectly with our mission: exploring ideas through lived experience, infophilic curiosity, and professional expertise.

• Join us to discuss how privatization impacts you—a slow and thoughtful journey through the book’s urgent questions.

Next Wednesday: Our discussion will be framed by Chapter 2, ‘The Roots and Reasons of Privatization: A Very Brief History’ (no need to have read it).

Granny Core

“Grandma hobbies” are having a moment—and this isn’t just nostalgia. Book reading clubs are part of a broader generational awakening as younger people (and older folks, too) intentionally step away from digital screens to embrace slower, analog rituals. They turn to reading, gardening, crocheting, knitting, and puzzling—acts of reclaimed agency that speak to a deep and urgent need for wellbeing in our hyperconnected age.

The shift also crystallizes adaptive infophilia theory: our evolutionary drive, an innate love of information and meaningful connection can thrive, despite extractive data practices and surveillance capitalism. These hobbies are quiet resistance—reclaiming attention, artisanal craft, and authentic community on our own terms. They underscore an important truth: libraries are democracy’s indispensable shield.

While platforms commodify attention, libraries fortify knowledge as a public good:

• Knowledge without surveillance

• Community without commodification

• Information as a commons

In a world where data extraction erodes trust, these analog practices and library-led commons are not just hobbies; they’re a quiet revolution reclaiming our humanity.

From the American Bar Association

Recently, we engaged with the American Bar Association’s writings on generative AI, and highlight two fascinating developments:

Law librarians as AI concierges: Law librarians aren’t being replaced by AI. Instead, they’re becoming the legal world’s AI concierges. They provide ethical cheat sheets while sitting at every table. And yes, they’re present at every AI meeting. Law librarians at the forefront by Amanda Robert (2026).

“Curiosity prompt” as ethical junior associate: A former BigLaw attorney says stop treating AI like a search bar! Ditch the guesswork and ask it what else you need to know. Your ethical junior associate is already waiting to help you think smarter, not replace you. The curiosity prompt by Brooke Loesby (2026).

While law librarians are serving as ‘AI concierges’ at every table, the ALA is channeling the expertise of diverse library voices into action. The Office of Public Policy and Advocacy has announced the state delegations heading to Washington D.C. to advocate for libraries as democracy’s shield.

Read more

Infophilia, A Positive Psychology of Information | ISSN: 3069-6526 | October 4, 2025 - Vol. 3, Issue 60

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly publication that celebrates our love of information and the connections it sparks. Its goal is to help us thrive, individually and collectively.

Announcements and Updates

ALA Strengthens the Fight for Library Access

The American Library Association (ALA) advocacy team, working through the Library Copyright Alliance, has joined two new amicus briefs this September. Both are aimed at protecting libraries of all types from overly broad copyright rules, while keeping the core mission of access intact.

• Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment - 5 September, in support of Cox

A win would free libraries from having to monitor or block patrons who share music or movies on Wi‑Fi or campus networks.

• Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre & West Publishing v. Ross Intelligence - 26 September, in support of Ross Intelligence

A victory would allow libraries to offer AI-driven research tools and text‑mining services without prohibitive licensing costs.

Both briefs reinforce that libraries are focused on providing access, not policing user activity.

ALA Amicus Brief Survey Results

Part 1 of our survey results has been published: Does the ALA’s amicus brief in Bartz v. Anthropic protect intellectual freedom and public goods? Stay tuned for Part 2 which will dive deeper into the implications for libraries.

Why This Matters

Infophilia explores how our love of information can be both healthy and harmful — think bibliophilia vs. bibliomania, biophilia vs. biophobia, technophilia vs. technolust. The ALA’s amicus briefs are a concrete example of how our cultural “philias” shape intellectual freedom and the public good:

1. Libraries as gatekeepers of public goods - resisting privatization and monopolization of knowledge.

2. Technology as a double‑edged sword - expanding access while creating new barriers (e.g. AI training, ethical and environmental concerns of generative AI).

3. ALA’s ethical mandate is clear - protect intellectual freedom, safeguard public goods, and ensure that technology serves the public interest.

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2025). Huntington Beach library censorship: Erin Spivey’s fight and the Freedom to Read Act. Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information, 3(60).

Huntington Beach Library Censorship

Erin Spivey’s Fight and The Freedom to Read Act

On the one‑year anniversary of California’s Freedom to Read Act, September 29, 2025, I sat down with librarian-activist Erin Spivey to hear the story that’s reshaping the nation’s approach to book bans. In 2023, a new Huntington Beach (HB) city council passed a series of ordinances that gave local officials sweeping power to remove “inappropriate” books — wiping out ~100 titles from shelves and a 21‑member review board that could strike titles outright.

Erin’s triumph, now a landmark case and victory, shows how a single city’s policy can ignite a nationwide legal shift. The ALA’s recent amicus briefs, the aptly titled PEN report The Normalization of Book Banning: Banned USA 2024‑2025 (released just this week), and the patchwork of state Freedom to Read Acts all converge on one question: What happens when the right to read is under attack?

The year 2025 feels dystopian, with protracted global wars, political theater, AI‑driven job loss, widening inequities, environmental crises, cultural battles, and book bans all vying for our attention. Yet, in spring 2024, John Oliver reminded us that ‘the freedom to read is a winnable fight,’ even as he made us laugh. Erin’s story proves that even in a dystopian world, the fight for intellectual freedom can still ignite hope and renew optimism.

Read more

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information | August 5, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 48 | Bonus edition - Free, Open Access

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections helps us all thrive individually and collectively. This is one of the places where I’m pioneering a positive psychology of information, avant-garde research.

Developing adaptive infophilia as a shared vision of a “grand” theory of information is personally healing and liberating for me. Keenly aware of the materiality of texts and the benefits of digital access, I still find the physicality of public library spaces to be comforting and enriching experiences beyond measure. This is especially remarkable considering my entire career has been punctuated by the challenge: Physical books are going away; why are you buying them?

The book, in paper and various digital forms such as audiobooks, however, is proving to be a surprisingly robust and enduring form. And so is the American public library. In a few days, August 9, 2025 we’ll celebrate National Book Lovers Day. In its honor, I’m delighted to share an old memory and new pictures of how my hometown public library has been transformed from a county public library system branch to a city-run municipal library. Yes, libraries are understandably expensive to maintain, but their value as vital public spaces continues to grow.

Cite as: Coleman, Anita S. (2025, August 5). Heritage Park Library: grand opening. Infophilia, A Positive Psychology of Information, 3(48).

I have so many memories of Heritage Park Library as a young mom that it’s hard to select just one. But if I had to choose, it’s one of four boys on the grass in front of the library, books open around them, backpacks strewn around. Eucalyptus trees cast long shadows and the skies are blue. Not too far away from the children, I can see geese swimming around lazily in the pond. The background scenes are vivid. Cars are coming and going in an endless stream. A woman and child are returning books. A few teenagers are huddled in a group. I don’t recall exactly why the children were seated outside. It could have been for any number of reasons. Perhaps all the seated space inside this library that had been built less than a decade earlier was already taken. Perhaps, there weren’t enough quiet rooms for study. This was after all the busiest branch in the county public library system. It could also have been that the young boys just preferred learning outdoors. No matter what, on Sunday, August 3, when the library building reopened as part of the Irvine Public Library system, I enjoyed seeing the library full of families, children, teenagers, and adults, once again.

It was also good to see crafts and activities balanced with books, digital media, and welcoming, smiling librarians at mobile stations. All of the art in the library features Irvine’s history too (more on that another time).

These photos of Heritage Park Library showcase adaptive infophilia in action: the library’s ability to foster a sense of community, promote learning, and imagination in ways that resonate deeply with its patrons. Librarians are nurturing curiosity and creativity, adapting to the needs and preferences of its patrons, young and old.

Library Future Planning continues with community sessions this week: Tuesday, August 5, 6-7:30 pm, Quail Hill Community Center and Thursday, August 7, 6-7:30 pm, Deerfield Community Center. Details here.

Related:

Infophilia, a positive psychology of information | July 21, 2025 - Vol. 3, Issue 42 | Bonus edition - Free, Open Access

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections can help us all thrive, individually and collectively.

The Wedding of Katie and Vincent

A Story Book Romance at Arlington Public Library

Imagine beginning a new life with your loved one in a place filled with knowledge, history, and endless possibilities. That’s the essence of this <3 minute video clip — There’s Good News Tonight — from NBC Nightly News, July 20, 2025.

Summer reading is in full swing and many communities are participating in book clubs and contests. This story is one of the most exciting winnings!

Katie and Vincent’s love story began in college thirteen years ago, in Chicago, the Windy City, the City of Broad Shoulders. After graduation, she moved for a job in historic Boston. Vincent pursued his PhD in sunny California. Despite the distance, their shared love of literature and culinary adventures kept their bond strong.

Now, they’ve started their new life together in Arlington, Virginia, where they were married by the Library Director, Diane Kresh, in Arlington Public library. Their wedding celebration was a mix of family, friends, and complete strangers. The library provided art workshops and flower arrangement lessons to help with the decor, and music on the big day. It also gave them a Guest Book filled with well wishes from visitors, including strangers.

Romance was the theme of 2025 Arlington Reads which included a contest where a special couple would win a free wedding hosted by Arlington Public Library and sponsored by the Friends of the Arlington Public Library. 50 couples applied. Katie and Vincent’s was the first public and only wedding for the library.

Is this the best destination wedding you’ve heard of this year? It certainly is for me! I’ve heard of dream weddings in library venues and wedding vow renewals, but this is the first public library wedding contest I’ve come across. Wishing Katie and Vincent well.

Have a great week,

Anita

More here: The Library Wedding Approaches! Love is in the air. June 2025. Arlington Public Library. https://library.arlingtonva.us/2025/06/26/the-library-wedding-approaches/

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of information | June 9, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 33 | Local News (Bonus edition)

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter on how our deep love of information and connection can help us live wisely and well. Here, I explore the hyper-evolving terrain of our digital lives with care, curiosity, and conviction, asking how we might shape information lifestyles and knowledge cultures that sustain ourselves and society. These letters are my living lab, and a space to refine my writing voice and reach new readers who, like me, believe knowledge should nourish, and information should heal, not harm. More about what I write is here.

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2025, June 9). Irvine Public Library launch continues: Library cards, new books, and a digital library. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 3 (33).

The excitement surrounding Irvine Public Library, the newest public library system in the USA as of the summer of 2025, continues to grow. The transition is successfully underway!

Read more

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of information | June 6, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 31 | Local News (Bonus edition)

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections can help us all thrive, individually and collectively.

Recently, a friend urged me to watch the Irvine City Council meeting on May 27. The meeting which lasted over 7 hours had ~129 public comments on a single resolution: for Irvine to establish a veterans-serving municipal cemetery in the Great Park. Some of the public comments show some classic examples of blunting, a type of information avoidance. Given last week’s exploration of commemoration cultures and our interest in knowledge resistance, I share this story. It’s useful for understanding how civic infophilia is different from civic participation and engagement.

Additionally, information avoidance, which was first widely studied in the context of health information, is increasingly being researched in areas like cancer genetics and similar health concerns, including mental health. This makes it an important topic in well-being and flourishing.

This essay is dedicated to veterans, especially some special ones who read Infophilia.

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2025, June 6). Information avoidance and the politics of remembrance: A veterans cemetery in Irvine. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 3 (31).

A Veterans Cemetery in Irvine

Information Avoidance and the Politics of Remembrance

In the heart of Southern California, Irvine stands as a master-planned city widely celebrated for its multicultural vibrancy and polished suburban aesthetics. No single racial or ethnic group forms an absolute majority (over 50%) and a global harmony of languages, religions, cultural celebrations, and cuisines enriches daily life. In 2012, Piggot coined the term 'suburban cosmopolitanism' to describe how it represents new forms of multiculturalism and American culture, and analyzes Irvine as a leading case of diverse, globally-connected communities.

Read more

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of information | June 2, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 30 | Local News (Bonus edition)

✨ Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connection can help us thrive, individually and collectively. For new readers (or if you're just dropping in), this is my living lab for developing the adaptive infophilia theory. I explore and explain how human information styles vary on a spectrum — from healthy to maladaptive — depending on context, literacy, emotional engagement, and so much more!

Cite as: Coleman, A. S. (2025, June 2). Library without a library: Meet the Irvine librarians redefining community through healthy infophilia. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 3 (30).

Dear readers,

This story brings adaptive infophilia theory to life, showing how librarians nurture healthy information behaviors that support curiosity, belonging, and lifelong learning.

I’ve said this many times in many ways, and last week I was thrilled to meet the first librarians hired by my home city of Irvine. These remarkable professionals embody healthy infophilia in action. As Allison Tran, the city’s second official librarian (after the City Librarian), puts it: “We’re doing library without a library.”

🚧 The transition from the Orange County Public Library (OCPL) system to a City Library is underway!

Two libraries are temporarily closed: Heritage Park and University Park will reopen August 4. Katie Wheeler, still operated by OCPL with limited hours will close June 30th, and reopen later.

📣 Meet the New Irvine Public Librarians

I’ve already introduced you to Julie Zeoli, our first-ever Irvine City Librarian. Now, I’m excited to spotlight four more of Irvine’s new public librarians.

Each brings their own “library superpower” and though they come from diverse backgrounds and cities, they share a passion for building community through imagination and access.

👶Megan – Our New Children’s Librarian

• 📚 Favorite Books: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

• 💬 Why: “I’m currently reading them to my own little one — who’s very feisty! It’s all about calmness and growth.”

• 🦸🏻‍♀️ Library Superpower: Storytime Sorceress — casting spells of wonder, one book at a time.

• ✨ Her Ask: “Littles need their tribe and families — bring them, stay with them, grow with them.”

• 💫 Fun Fact: Megan knew since she was little that she wanted to work with young children and connect people through stories. Storytime isn’t just her job — it’s her “calling.”

• 👋 Formerly at Rancho Santa Margarita Library, Megan now leads storytimes in the park this summer.

💻 David Cheung – Heritage Branch Library Supervisor

• 🦸 Library Superpower: System Sensei — builds safe, smooth, sustainable systems and writes documentation that actually works.

• 📖 Favorite Book: The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng

• 💬 Why: “It captures Singapore’s transformation. Originally academic nonfiction, the author reimagined it as historical fiction — and it still feels powerfully real. There’s even a love story!”

• 🎯 Fun Fact: David’s no stranger here. As a former OCPL librarian, he knows this branch like the back of his hand.

• 🤓 Bonus Fun Fact: Heritage Park is the busiest branch in the county!

• 👋 Most recently Library Services Manager in Brea. Ask him for tech tips and book recs!

🎉 Jessica Young – Principal Librarian for Community Engagement

• 📚 Favorite Book: Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

• 💬 Why: “I was a reluctant reader until my teens. This fantasy novel hooked me with its strong heroine and great story.”

• 🦸‍♀️ Library Superpower: Program Powerhouse — Jessica’s already planned 140 amazing fall events for all ages, from toddlers to seniors!

• 🌟 Fun Fact: Jessica is a 2025 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, awarded for launching Library of Things, reducing senior loneliness, and enhancing community well-being.

• 👋 Formerly Senior Librarian in Yorba Linda Public Library. Say hi and find your next great read — or your new community!

💗 Allison Tran – Library Services Manager

• 📚 Favorite Book: The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton

• 💬 Why: “My dad read it to me when I was a kid. It’s the first book I remember that evoked real emotion. I felt the little house’s loneliness, and I was happy when it was moved and found its place again.”

• 🦸‍♀️Library Superpower: Culture of Care Champion — uplifting her team, celebrating their strengths, and making eveyone feel, seen, valued, supported. She even thoughtfully echoed Julie Zeoli, who wasn’t in the room: “There’s no good time to close a library.” That quiet truth, delivered with compassion, tells you everything about how Allison leads — with care, clarity, and community at heart.

• 🎉 Fun Fact: Helping Julie bring Irvine’s new system to life from the ground up, from hiring (one librarian a week!) to testing library cards!

  • Library cards will come in 3 beautiful designs inspired by Irvine:

    🌸 Lily of the Valley (city flower) | 🌳 Camphor Tree (city tree) |

    Asparagus – (yes, the official city vegetable)!

  • 📝Get yours! Bring a photo ID and proof of California residency.

    • University Community Center (Lexicon Way off Sandburg or 1 Beech Tree Lane)

      • Wednesday, June 11, 4 - 6 pm | Wednesday, June 25, 4–6 p.m.

    • Heritage Community Center (opposite end of Heritage Park Library lot)

      • Wednesday, June 18 , 4–6 p.m | Wednesday, July 2, 4–6 p.m.

  👋 Allison studied and worked at UCI and was most recently Youth Services Librarian at Mission Viejo Library. Say hi to Allison when the libraries reopen. She’s helping bringing them back to life with joy and empathy

All four librarians hold Master’s degrees in Library and Information Science. David, Allison, and Jessica are alumni of San Jose State; Megan earned hers from the University of North Texas.

Welcome, Allison, Jessica, Megan, and David. We in Irvine are very lucky to have you and can’t wait to grow with you. 🌱

🌞Summer 2025 Irvine Library Services

Even while buildings are closed, Irvine’s librarians are offering vibrant programming at community centers:

📍Deerfield, Heritage, Lakeview, Las Lomas, Northwood, and University.

🎒 Offerings include:

• Virtual Summer Reading

• Pajama Storytime

• Pop-Up Library

• Teen Study Hall

• Family Saturdays

• Book Clubs

📅 Community Planning Meetings

Come help shape the future of Irvine’s libraries!

📅 First meeting: Monday June 2, at Deerfield Community Center from 6-7:30 pm.

More dates online at the Irvine Libraries Transition Plan.

✨ See you there!

Warmly,

Anita

Related essays:

Infophilic Information Styles

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information | February 24, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 9

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections can help us all thrive, individually and collectively. 🤗

Cite as: Coleman, Anita S. (2025, February 24). Library updates from California: Irvine, San Diego, and Huntington Beach news Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 3 (9).

Corrections

Corrected with above newsletter intro and citation: 02/24/2025

Irvine Libraries

The City of Irvine is continuing its series of community meetings about the transition of its three library facilities from the Orange County Public Library (OCPL) system to a new city-operated Irvine public library system. This change aims to provide more tailored services for Irvine's growing community, as the city's libraries are among the most heavily used in Orange County. Moving from a county-wide system that serves many cities to local management will allow for programs and resources better aligned with Irvine residents' needs.

Upcoming information sessions:

• Monday, February 24, 6-6:45 p.m. at the Portola Springs Community Center

• Tuesday, March 4, 6-6:45 p.m. at the Las Lomas Community Center

The first information meeting was on January 30, 2025; the same information will be presented at the February and March meetings. For more details, please visit the Irvine Libraries webpage: cityofirvine.org/community-services-department/irvine-libraries where you can also sign up to get updates.

Government Information Resources from UCSD

The University of California San Diego's Key Issues website offers valuable resources that extend beyond its campus community. Federal Updates, managed by the UC Office of the President, provide comprehensive government news from Washington, D.C., including weekly updates, an executive order tracker, analysis, and myth-busting factsheets. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/federal-updates

UCSD also maintains a LibGuide on U.S. Government Information, curated by librarian Kelly L. Smith. A LibGuide is a research guide designed to help users navigate and access reliable information on a given topic. This guide serves as a gateway to authoritative government data and websites. To help manage political information overload, its Weekly RoundUp delivers a curated selection of significant government publications from the previous week. Readers can subscribe to receive it by email. Visit: https://ucsd.libguides.com/WeeklyRoundupArchive/02082025

Huntington Beach Library’s 50th Anniversary

The Huntington Beach (HB) Central Library's new 50th anniversary plaque is becoming the center of a public debate. The plaque features an acrostic with the words Magical, Alluring, Galvanizing, Adventurous. The city commission voted unanimously to accept the design despite protests that the acronym MAGA is referencing the political slogan "Make America Great Again."

The issue gained national attention when former NFL player Chris Kluwe (Minnesota Vikings) was arrested at a recent city council meeting while protesting the plaque. During the meeting, Kluwe spoke against the plaque's placement in the library as “propaganda.” After approaching the council bench in what he described as an act of "peaceful civil disobedience," Chris was arrested and charged with disturbing an assembly. He was detained for four hours before being cited and released.

The incident has intensified ongoing discussions about political messaging in public spaces, following earlier debates about the HB library's children’s book collection policies. Kluwe has said that his protest aimed to highlight the significance of the issue and how to protest peacefully rather than change the minds of the council members. You can read more on: KTLA News, here; LA Times, here; Orange County Register; Yahoo News, here; Washington Post, here.

Read more

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information | February 13, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 7

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections can help us all thrive, individually and collectively.

I’m delighted to share such exciting Local News with you today—one that perfectly aligns with multiple celebrations around the world on February 14: Valentine's Day, International Book Giving Day, National Library Lovers' Day, and Read to Your Child Day. It's also National Black Literacy Day and National League of Women Voters Day, reinforcing the crucial role libraries and literacy have played in advancing education and democracy for all.

In a historic moment for Irvine, the city's first-ever City Librarian Julie Zeoli is leading an ambitious transformation of three libraries into what she envisions as some of the finest community spaces in the nation. This landmark transition will see our beloved Heritage Park, University Park, and the Katie Wheeler libraries move to city operation, with Julie at the helm of reimagining what modern libraries can mean for the community. The significance wasn't lost on her as she led her first informational meeting—which became a vibrant community engagement session—where she asked residents to dream alongside her.

Read more

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information | February, 1, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 5

Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. Whether you’re a returning reader or a new one, I’m grateful and glad to have you here. To learn more, check out the About, Archive pages, Most Popular, AI, Infophilic Info styles essays, and Local News.

Cite this as: Coleman, Anita S. (2025, February 1). LAPL librarians share personal stories: resilience through the 2025 Los Angeles Fires" Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information, 3 (5).

Without slowing our pace, we tried to decipher the words in the wrought iron fence that separated the grounds of the Richard J. Riordan Central Library building from the 5th street sidewalk (LA). It was a perfect Southern California day, temperature in the 60s, a golden sun shining brightly above, and I wanted to make a small gesture of support by visiting the LA library's main branch. Cervantes’ "The pen is the language of the soul" resonated the most with me in our tumultuous and tragic beginning to 2025.

Read more

Infophilia, a positive psychology of information | January 11 2025 - Vol. 3, Issue 2

Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. Last week, I traced the origins of information literacy, but today's planned discussion of Christine Bruce's contributions must wait. A more urgent story demands attention: the devastating LA fires affecting our Southern California communities, and the parallel spread of misinformation complicating relief efforts.

The Gardens at the Getty Villa: Truth and Misinformation about the Los Angeles Wildfires

Cite this as: Coleman, Anita S. (2025, January 11). The Gardens at the Getty Villa: Truth and Misinformation about the Los Angeles Wildfires. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 3 (2). https://infophilia.substack.com/

Gardens of Memory

The images of some of the popular Los Angeles communities on our TV screens are of devastation and ruin —charred cars, homes burned, thick smoke, jumping fires. The Santa Ana winds, which get their name from a canyon in neighboring Orange County, have been exceptionally strong this week and have played a crucial role in the fires that continue to rage in Los Angeles (LA) and Ventura counties. My mind drifts to clearer days at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, where my son and I often enjoyed unforgettable moments among its four meticulously recreated gardens and the ancient art and sculpture in its library and museum. I believe that the gardens are key to the survival of the Getty Villa from the LA wildfires. Now, as misinformation spreads about the fires threatening this cultural treasure, among others, I'm drawn back to the truth and beauty we discovered there.

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Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. Yay, Infophilia is officially in it’s second year. I am super excited! 😊

After introducing infophilia and infophilic information styles spectrum at the Library Research Seminar 8 this week I continued visiting family and friends in the bluegrass state. Now, I share a tapestry and a poem from the William T. Young Library, Uni of Kentucky, Lexington which first opened in 1998. Enjoy the infophilic connections! 🖇️

My photo does not do justice to the stunning beauty of the tapestry. Swedish-born Helena Hernmarck’s work has won many awards in her native Sweden and the USA and been shown in museums like the National Museum of American Art (Washington D.C.), MOMA (NYC), and LACMA (LA). Over 700 colors were used for this large scale tapestry and it took three weavers and two assistants nine months. The tapestry weighs 200 pounds approximately, which is amazingly light considering its size!! In case you’re curious about her work, here’s a bibliography and her website.

McKinnell invited Helena to create a work for the library and she spent many hours at Overbrook Farm. She calls her technique in this tapestry “free, rose path.”

Overbrook Farm which has bred many winners was founded in the 1980s by Lexington native William T. Young who created and manufactured Big Top peanut butter, and is a major benefactor of University of Kentucky and the library. His peanut butter company was bought by Procter & Gamble in 1955 and rebranded as JIF.

The stallion in the tapestry is Storm Cat a leading sire of 89 winners. Storm Cat was on his way to becoming a winning race horse when he was injured and missed the races for the three-year olds. Retired to stud at Overbrook Farm, he became the highest paid stallion and commanded $500,000, the highest stud fee at that time. 🤩 Well known Tony Leonard was the equine photographer of Storm Cat for the tapestry.

The poem “Seedtime in the Commonwealth” on the wall in the library’s majestic central rotunda is by Frank X. Walker, Associate Professor and Kentucky Poet Laureate.

There is no vaccination against ignorance but there is us.
There is this university. 
And we still have heavy doors to open, unmet obligations to the land and its people. There are still leadership opportunities to advance the Commonwealth, this nation, and our world towards fulfilling its potential, towards meeting its lofty promises.

Let men and women come here as seeds, let us invest
in them until they form sufficient roots and leaves to obtain 
their own food. Let them grow from here not just trees
but a fruit-bearing, deeply rooted forest.

The poem is also etched into a wall in the Gatton Student Center which is where Library Research Seminar 8 took place.

☕I was also told that “Willy T,” as the library is called, has the largest Starbucks on any college campus. It certainly was the largest Starbuck’s I’ve ever been in and it extends outdoors as well. 🌳 The indoor spaces alone total 6, 200 square feet.

Remember biophilia, rethinking it, Marsh’s Library, from technostress to eustress? Look for information health connections via the library spaces at Willy T - https://libraries.uky.edu/spaces-technology/find-dining-wellness/exploring-library-spaces Or watch Frank X Walker the poet and catch the beginning of his poem with the meaningful metaphor of trees and teaching. 🌲

I’ll be back to my usual Infophilia writing next week. Until then, have a good weekend, Anita

Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. This is the Local News. 😊

Cite as: Coleman, Anita S. (2024, July 24). Irvine Public Library System: Unanimously approved by City Council. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 2 (33). https://infophilia.substack.com/

On Tuesday, July 23, 2024, the City Council of Irvine unanimously approved an agreement transferring library services from Orange County Public Library (OCPL) to the City of Irvine with funding provided through an exchange of property taxes. The agreement aims to improve library services for Irvine and the transition is expected to be completed by June 30, 2025. The council meeting video below shows Director of Community Services Chris Slama’s presentation and the unanimous vote in favor. (11 mins video)

During public comments, all residents who spoke were in support of the transfer. One resident, who did not speak, but whose email to the City Council was included with the agenda item did express disappointment that the $9 million being transferred by OCPL for 2025-2026 was not larger. The council discussion was robust with all the members expressing their support for the transfer and the staff recommendations.

I am delighted that I will actually get to see libraries that are worthy of our well-planned and modern city. It’s been sad and depressing to see the outdated and underwhelming libraries that we’ve had in Irvine.

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May 25, 2024 - Vol. 2 Issue 24

Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. This is one of the places where I’m developing an evolutionary, social, positive psychology of information, avant garde research. If this is your first time here, I’m glad to have you. To learn more, browse the roundup in Jan or the Archive, watch the April video or read Local News - today is one such! Use the Substack app to listen or read. As always, thanks for reading!

Cite this article in APA as: Coleman, A.S. (2024, May 25). Slow cars, fast train: Harmonizing the open road and mass transit with Councilmember Tammy Kim. Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of Information, 2 (24). https://infophilia.substack.com/

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May 10, 2024 - Vol. 2 Issue 21.

Welcome to the Local News section of Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. This is one of the places where I’m developing a positive psychology of information, avant garde research. If this is your first time here, I’m glad to have you. Once in a while I share an extra - local news and literary essays from wherever I am or have been! Today is one such. To learn more, please check out Local News and the Archive. This is also a good time to remind everybody that you can use the Substack app to listen to Infophilia, including Local News. As always, thanks for your attention and engagement.

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