Two librarians lead high-energy sing-alongs at the Cambridge (MA) Public Library. From the July feature story "Why Your Library Needs Music."

Welcome back. If you’re just catching up after the long holiday weekend, here are some highlights. There was plenty of news this past week. The loss of a giant in the field, author Walter Dean Myers, is juxtaposed against the ongoing tension around print/digital and our popular feature on music’s role in early learning in our top 10 stories of the past week on slj.com.

1. Eight Reasons Why Print Trumps Digital for Reading
2. Why Your Library Needs Music
3. Nashville Public Library Reinvents Its Summer Reading Model, Sees Early Success
4. Diverse Books: Don’t Categorize as “Special Interest”
5. Walter Dean Myers, Award-Winning Author and Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Passes at 76
6. Scenes from the American Library Association Annual Meeting | ALA 2014 
7. What’s Your Online Persona?
8. Too Soon for Technology?: The latest on digital use by preschoolers
9. Neil Gaiman at Carnegie Hall: Finding “Truth” in Caves and Comics
10. Free Online Curriculum: ABCMouse.com for Libraries Launches at ALA | ALA 2014

And just before the holiday, Library Journal posted the results of its annual salary survey. Among the notable trends, school librarians earned the highest median salary ($58,000) in 2013 over their peers in public and academic libraries. Details regarding job satisfaction and gender (yes, the pay gap persists in this female-dominated profession) appear in the article "Payday | LJ Salary Survey 2014". Look for more news out of the 2014 ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas posting this week.

Ellen Oh, author