JCLC 2026 Early Bird Registration has been extended to August 31st!

JCLC is a conference for everyone to enjoy! Held every four years, this national gathering is a collaborative effort organized by AILA, APAL, BCALA, CALA, and REFORMA. This year, we're excited to mark the 5th iteration of the conference. We hope to see you there!

Date and Location of the Conference:

The 5^th national Joint Conference of Librarians of Color will be held October 7-11, 2026, at the Spokane Convention Center in Spokane, Washington.

Who Should Attend and Why Is It Beneficial?

JCLC is a conference for everyone! JCLC brings together a diverse group of librarians, library staff, library supporters, and community participants to explore issues of diversity in libraries and how they affect the ethnic communities who use our services. JCLC is a unique and unparalleled opportunity for participants to share successes, opportunities, and challenges while networking and attending cutting-edge programs on pressing issues affecting both librarians and communities of color. The conference includes speakers, skills-building workshops, research-based panels, networking opportunities, and exhibits. In addition, JCLC deepens connections across constituencies and beyond, and unifies and strengthens the voices of each association.

Register Today!

Early registration rates are valid until August 31, 2026.

Article: Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot

According to the Associates Press, "A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot." 

While this is a win for the authors, commenters note that companies have been training their AI systems on other data where creators/owners have not been compensated. This reminds me of the era when Google, Microsoft, and others were gobbling up books and other texts to train their search engines. Did all creators receive compensation then? Will all creators receive compensation now? 

Reposting about Widerstand Consulting Resources Being in the Public Domain

I am posting again about Widerstand Consulting's anti-racism resources being available in the public domain.  We are doing this so that others can benefit from our work as we close the organization. All of these resources can be used by any organization or group as they work to become more anti-racist. These resources (12 in total) are available in the Internet Archive and in this Google Drive. You can download what interests you. Please tell your colleagues about this and encourage them to use our materials.

What do I mean that these can be used by anyone? We have placed a license on each of the documents which denotes that they are now part of the public domain. This enables you to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions. We have done this so what we have learned will continue.

If you are unaware of what the Internet Archive is, it was begun in 1996 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit that is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. The Internet Archive contains webpages, newspapers, audio, video, books, images, and software programs. Like a paper library, the Internet Archive provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public. Today the Internet Archive contains more than 1 trillion items, which now includes materials from Widerstand.

I have been involved with Widerstand for several years and am disheartened to see that the focus on DEIA has decreased in the U.S. as priorities have shifted. This work does have its ebb and flows, and so I look forward to when organizations are again eager to eliminate systemic barriers in their structure. In my sadness as Widerstand closes, I am also overjoyed that our documents may help others continue this work. May these documents become part of the building blocks for the future.

Webinar: Still Standing: Fifty Years of the Copyright Act and the Path Ahead

 From the Copyright Clearance Center:

Date: 14 July 2026  
Time: 10:00 am EDT | 16:00 CEST 

Location: LinkedIn Live 

As it approaches its 50th Anniversary, how has the U.S. Copyright Act addressed an evolving world?

Join our panel of legal and copyright experts David Carson, Suzy Wilson, Pippa Loengard, and CCC's Catherine Zaller Rowland as they explore not only what the law says, but how it has adapted over the past half-century and how well equipped it is for the next wave of technological, legal, and market disruption.

This engaging session will feature: 

• How the U.S. Copyright Act has evolved since 1976 
• Areas where it is straining today under the impact of new technologies including AI 
• What the major challenges will be in the years ahead 

Register on LinkedIn! LinkedIn will tell you the time of the webinar in your time zone. This event is free.

 

Widerstand Anti-racism Resources are Now in the Public Domain

I have written a few times about my role with Widerstand Consulting, which is a non-profit [501(c)(3)] focused on helping organizations with addressing systemic barriers within their environments. Since its inception, Widerstand has worked with many organizations across the U.S. by providing training and anti-racism audits/assessments. However, over the past 18 months, shifting priorities and external pressures have led many organizations to step back from diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility (DEIA), and anti-racism work, making it difficult for Widerstand to continue its mission. Therefore, the organization has closed.

As part of our closing procedure, we decided to place 12 of our anti-racism resources - including a resource list - in the Internet Archive. All of these resources can be used by any organization as they work to become more anti-racist. I encourage you to use this link and review what we have put in the Internet Archive. You can download what interests you. Please tell your colleagues about this and encourage them to use our materials.

What do I mean that these can be used by anyone? We have placed a license on each of the documents which denotes that they are now part of the public domain. This enables you to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions. We have done this so what we have learned will continue.

If you are unaware of what the Internet Archive is, it was begun in 1996 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit that is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. The Internet Archive contains webpages, newspapers, audio, video, books, images, and software programs. Like a paper library, the Internet Archive provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public. Today the Internet Archive contains more than 1 trillion items, which now includes materials from Widerstand.

I am sad that focus on DEIA has decreased in the U.S. as priorities have shifted. This work does have its ebb and flows, and so I look forward to when organizations are again eager to eliminate systemic barriers in their structure. In my sadness, I am also overjoyed that our documents may help others continue this work. May those documents become part of the building blocks for the future.