ALA released its State of America’s Libraries Report today, which captures usage trends within various types of libraries.

ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS are embracing new responsibilities in such areas as scholarly communication, digital archives, data curation, digital humanities, visualization and born-digital objects. Other emerging areas include bibliometrics and altmetrics, e-learning, custom information solutions and research data management.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES nationwide are taking action, using signs and social media to proclaim “everyone is welcome”; creating reading lists on demographics, voting, social justice and other hot topics; partnering with community organizations to combat Islamophobia and racism and to connect with disenfranchised populations; and developing programs to help community members spot “fake news” (such as false or misleading statements, video or images shown out of proper context, dubious statistics, manipulated content, partisan propaganda or satire) and evaluate information online.