EDITOR'S NOTE
Global Perspectives
by Brandi Scardilli
As 2020 enters its last few months, we’re focusing on topics that we may have covered a little differently had it been any other year. The pandemic is still a dark cloud, over the U.S. especially—but, globally, organizations are finding a way to create a new normal.
Wanda Kay Brown spoke with Dave Shumaker about her just-passed tenure as ALA president, during a year that was “one of the most tumultuous in the 144-year history of ALA” (page 10). At every ALA Annual Conference, I look forward to meeting that year’s winner of the ALA/Information Today, Inc. Library of
the Future Award. Of course, the conference was virtual in 2020, so there was no awards ceremony. I still wanted to learn about Broward County Library’s Project Welcome program for recent immigrants and English-language learners, so I interviewed Vonda Ward Bryant, learning services coordinator (page 13).
Kelly LeBlanc did an analysis of the past 2 years of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including how it has been affected by the pandemic (page 16). And I talked to the head of Zendy, a new digital library available in the Middle East and North Africa, about the need for affordable access to research, which the pandemic has accelerated (page 18).
EContent, starting on page 32, explores content marketing strategy best practices, optimizing content marketing for localization effectiveness, the importance of seeing data as an infrastructure asset, and simple ways to find and assess freelancers.
Happy reading,  |
