Libfocus Link-out for April 2026

Welcome to the April edition of the Libfocus link-out, an assemblage of library-related things we have found informative, educational, thought-provoking and insightful on the Web over the past while.

Images featured in this month's link-out posts

Marion Stokes and the Archive of Resistance.
In this blog post, Naomie Tessier-Antoine writes about Marion Stokes’ television archive as a form of media preservation and resistance, highlighting the role of physical media in maintaining an unaltered record of events.

How to Make a Library Promotional Strategy.
In this blog post, Angela Hursh writes about developing a library marketing strategy, focusing on setting clear goals, identifying audiences, using storytelling, and aligning promotion with organisational objectives.

Manipulating the Law: Dismantling the Miller Test and Exploiting the “Government Speech” Doctrine.
In this Bookriot artice, Kelly Jensen and Sarah Lamdan look at how two legal concepts are being misused in the U.S. to make it easier to ban books in public schools and public libraries. The first is the Miller Test. The second, the “government speech” doctrine.

Hachette yanks horror novel Shy Girl from shelves after accusations of AI use.
Hachette Book Group has removed a novel from bookshops in the U.K. following accusations of AI use by the author. Following an investigation, the publishing group concluded that author Mia Ballard used AI to generate large sections of her book 'Shy Girl.'

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done?
Miryam Naddaf & Elizabeth Quill report in Nature that tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI.

The outputs we don’t count: making talk-based research contributions legible.
Ben Kaube asks in Research Information why research communication is not measured in a similar way to other research outputs.

An Unexpected Influence: Photostats in Special Collections Libraries.
Hannah Alpert-Abrams documents the influence of the introduction of Photostats on Special Collections Libraries since their inception in this Open Access article.

Are LGBTQIA+ Voices Being Pushed Out of Kid Lit?
Marlaina Cockcroft for Student Library Journal looks at how the publishing sector may be quietly rejecting LGBTQIA+ voices, as well as LBGTQIA+ voices self-censoring. An interesting look at how book bans in libraries may be forcing a chance in what is being published before it ever makes a library shelf.

When the archive breaks.
Elissa Malespina looks at why the threat to the Wayback Machine is really about disappearing data and who controls the public record.

Airport libraries take off.
Rosie Newmark highlights the emerging trend of having a public library space within airports stocked with physical books.

Operationalizing Minimal Computing Values Through Shared Computing-Platform Development: A Case Study of DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher.
Kalani Craig, Michelle Dalmau and Sean Purcell explore how minimal computing principles guided the parallel web development of two related but distinct publishing platforms, DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher.

Breaking Down Data Silos: SPARQuLb, An RDF Ecosystem to Mutualize Humanities Research Projects Needs.
Sébastien de Valeriola and Anthony Leroy present an original solution to effectively managing structured data collected or produced as part of their humanities research projects.