Sam Helmick

Thank you, @newslit.org for such an amazing conference experience. I loved discussing ways to navigate The Content Age and deeply value all the new knowledge, ideas, and connections made at #NewsLitCon!

Awe, my career long mentor and friend accepted this incredible award on my behalf this morning. Thank you, Iowa Library Association, for the privilege of contributing to such a sacred mission with such a wonderful and caring community of professionals. #Leadership #humbled #LibraryLife

Rocking ALA Executive Board meetings from the comfort of my couch. Sad health required me to be virtual but grateful to connect & collaborate with my incredible colleagues in this important #workingweekend toward a stronger future for our members & profession. #SaturdayLibrarian #ForOurLibraries

It’s Taco 🌮 Day in the PR & Marketing Department! I’m bringing cookies that match my sweater. 🍪 🍂 🍁 #happymaking #librarylife #workculturematters

Circulating Ideas 322: The Case for a Professional Foundation in Librarianship, with @librarianbyday.bsky.social and @samhelmick.bsky.social circulatingideas.com/2026/09/16/3...

Headed to #ARSL2026 to connect with amazing colleagues and present “Law for Librarians Presents Privacy, Patron Policies, and the Limited Public Forum” with Sarah, Summer and Tyler! Excited to see old friends, make new ones, and fill my mind with more wonderful things! #LibraryLife ✈️ 📚

My last regular youth programming was about 15 years ago. I can hardly share how excited and honored I am to temporarily step into this program series for the Iowa City Public Library Childrens Department! Wish me well please! #LibraryLife ✍️ 🖼️ 💜 📚

I'm doing a thing. Opening up my #thoughtbunnies substack for subscriptions with the plan to use any proceeds to publish my first book of poetry. #nervous #excited #amwriting thoughtbunnies.substack.com

Turns out one of the perks of being an adult is after your leave the gym, you can have animal crackers for dinner and call it “recovery nutrition.” 🦁🐘🐒 I don’t make the rules, I just abide by them. #adulting #dinnertime

This third #SundayLibrarian shift in a row is brought to you by copious amounts of coffee and much Back to School Joy! #LibraryLife

Its little tail swivels back and forth! Friends, I hope something small and unexpected brings you incalculable joy today too. #SundayMorning #LEGOlife #buttercow

Thank you, Carter! I’m excited to assemble this #IowaStateFair exclusive LEGO Butter Cow!! Appreciate all my lovely friends who offered to grab one of these for me before they sold out! #HappyMaking #humbled #buttercow 🧱 🧈 🐄 🌽

Thank you, Lone Tree Community School! The Iowa City Public Library and Iowa City Public Library Friends Foundation loved welcoming your students Back-to-School and supporting their success with homework help and literacy resources! #BackToSchool #LibraryLife

While I'll be unable to join my colleagues in Bengaluru, I am beyond humbled and honored to deliver the S. R. Ranganathan Memorial Lecture virtually to the 2026 International Conference on Knowledge Organization and Library Information this year! #ickolis2026

This! Tyranny is often disguised as protection.

Starting the week with an #IntellectualFreedom presentation with @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social and @libraryfutures.bsky.social LibraryFutures dropped a third scenario TODAY!!! Check out The Pickle of the Persistent Press Hound at: imagineif.libraryfutures.net

Friends! *jumps up and down giddily* There are some many incredible local poets! I heard so much amazing art tonight and my heart is cracked open to the world in a new and exciting way tonight. Oh, and I read three poems and everyone was so welcoming and kind!! 🫰🫰🫰🫰🫰 #poetry #art #humbled

Super jazzed to be trying this tonight. Not sure which of my poems to read yet but thinking 2-3 covering different topics and forms. #poetry #TheSpokenPint #amreading

Des Moines/Iowa Friends! I work through the 10 days of the Iowa State Fair this year but am hoping one of you might grab a LEGO Butter Cow for me? It’s my mission to obtain one of these glorious exclusives! I’d be delighted to provide escrow/finder fees for anyone who could hook me up. 🧈 🧱 🐄 🌽

There's still time to register for Tools for Intellectual Freedom Training (Monday 8/17). Learn some stuff AND play a bit of the Pickle of the Persistent Press Hound with our own @librariansreed.bsky.social, @littlewow.online, and @samhelmick.bsky.social! elearning.ala.org/local/catalo...

Rocking a #nightbrarian shift on the Iowa City Public Library Help Desk with a shiny, new RFID pad! Let’s answer some questions, make some community connections, and check out some stories and knowledge! #LibraryLife

I'm privileged to keynote this year's @ulunyc.bsky.social Conference: Still Standing. I am looking forward to a deeply relevant and resonant time together. #resilience #librarylife #alwayslearning

The #alaac26 closing session featured a panel of ALA leaders discussing the current state of intellectual freedom, where it’s headed, and how to connect it to our other freedoms and to democracy. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/joy-as-an-act-of-resistance/

National Voter Registration Day is almost here: Is your library #ReaderVoterReady? Check out our ideas for resources, programming, and more! Register your library as an NVRD partner: bit.ly/ALA-NVRD26 More resources: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/initiatives/reader-voter-ready

"People often ask me how we keep going. The truth? We don't stop needing encouragement when we become leaders." My #thoughtbunnies on The Cost of Caring: Why Leaders Burn Out and How We Stay Whole. thoughtbunnies.substack.com/p/the-cost-o... #leadership #selfcare

Leisure reading is beneficial because it allows the brain to "decompress" by absorbing information that isn't tied to a particular purpose, said Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association. https://cnn.it/4ocSwJO

Meeting so very many amazing Illinois library workers from the Pinnacle Library Cooperative! #PinCon26 #LibraryLife #HappyMaking

Thanks for telling our federal representatives that we are not interested in a national book banning bill. This era of censorship and government overreach is scary and relentless and not at all addressing the needs of Americans. #FreePeopleReadFreely

Hey Friends! The @sxsw.com EDU Panel Picker is up and I'm kindly asking folks to vote for my panel "Beyond the Scroll: Teaching News Literacy in the Content Age" You can learn more (AND VOTE) here: sxswedu.com/panelpicker/ #SXSWedu

One of my favorite things about working in a college town is the opportunities it affords me to listen and encourage and dispense hope on members of a new generation filling up with amazing community builders, literacy advocates, and library workers. #happymaking #mentorship #librarylife

Thank you, librarians and library workers, for the opportunity to represent your care, expertise and impact to the communities we serve as @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social president. It has been the privilege of a lifetime. #OurStoriesAreWorthSharing #FreePeopleReadFreely

"I know firsthand what we’re protecting. I know who I’m protecting. And it makes me feel quite happy and validated to restore what belongs to them.” - Sam Helmick, Iowa City Public Library @samhelmick.bsky.social @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social #NEH

"After years of navigating shifting landscapes, there is no substitute for the hand-to-hand knowledge exchanged among colleagues." ALA President @samhelmick.bsky.social looks ahead to #ALAAC26. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2026/06/01/sparking-a-new-era/

Tune in to hear from @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social president @samhelmick.bsky.social! #alaac26 apple.co/4nVDIiJ

ALA President @samhelmick.bsky.social reflects on the Association's first 150 years, and looks forward to the next. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2026/05/01/ala-at-150/

„Terwijl we de Nationale Bibliotheekweek vieren, benadrukken we opnieuw dat bibliotheken plekken zijn voor kennis, die voor iedereen toegankelijk moet zijn.” @samhelmick.bsky.social @pinedonrc.bsky.social @nrc.nl #Bibliotheken www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...

It’s a beautiful day in the bookmobile, a beautiful day in the bookmobile, come on inside, there are stories to feel! It’s a beautiful day in the #bookmobile. 📚 🚍 💜 📚 🚍 💜 📚 🚍 💜

Letters to the Editor: An amendment to SF2432, affecting Iowa libraries, deserves open debate, says the president of the American Library Association. Story link in the comments. #iowa #sf2432 @samhelmick.bsky.social

Team Iowa City Public Library is training for our new ILS today! Learning so much and very excited about the features that will enhance patron service and automate circulation, communication, and reporting functions! I’m also really digging this Quote of the Day feature. 💜 📚

Soliciting petitions and prayers for travel mercies. Wonderful opportunity to rest, reflect, and restore from a rewarding whirlwind of a trip to champion information science and libraries and to remember the power of connection and community building everywhere we go. #travel #LibraryLife

I morgen kl 1430 vil Sam Helmick (@samhelmick.bsky.social) presidenten i American Library Association snakke om bibliotekenes betydning for ytringsrom, informasjonsfrihet og fellesskapsbygging på @oslomet.bsky.social. Pilestredet 48 eller strømming på film.oslomet.no/bibliotekene...

What a true honor and delight it is to have contributed to the 11th Edition of the @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social @oif.bsky.social Intellectual Freedom Manual. My copy has arrived and I can hardly wait to dive in and learn! #FreePeopleReadFreely #Freadom #IntellectualFreedom

I’m about a giddy as a goat that my post ALA networking/business cards have arrived and that there’s an actual thought bunny hiding in my jacket. #HappyMaking #ThoughtBunnies

Thank you, Oklahoma Library Association! It’s been such a blessing and bringer of joy to learn and network together with your members at #OLA26! Oklahoma Libraries (their library workers and their communities) ROCK!

#loving #travel #poetry #peoplewatching

Thank you @iowapublicradio.org for the opportunity to talk about the importance of local collaboration between Iowa’s city councils and community library trustees and how fundamental access is to parental choice in terms of reading and life long learning. #ialegis #librarylife

Thank you to the 200 library leaders at the Capitol today telling the stories about America’s libraries and to every amazing library worker supporting their communities today! #NLLD #ShowUpForPurLibraries

National Library Legislative Day is officially here! Library advocates are on the Hill in Washington to make their voices heard and urge support for our country’s libraries in Congress. Thank you to EVERY ALA member and advocate who’s here to show up #ForOurLibraries! #NLLD26 #FundLibraries