The woman making the new sworn statement to BuzzFeed News, a former executive assistant, said that she often had to deal with the fallout from Robbins’ inappropriate behavior during her employment. The experience began when Robbins placed his hand on her knee during a job interview in the late 1990s, she said. “I felt uncomfortable and that it was not professional,” she said. Robbins apologized after she shoved his hand away, she said, and she went on to accept the job. The self-help coach never touched her inappropriately again and was “good” to her during her employment, she said, but she eventually quit after receiving a stream of phone calls from other women saying Robbins had groped them.

“Rarely was there a day when our team didn’t get calls from women saying that Robbins had touched them inappropriately,” she said. “After events across the world, the phone calls would pour in.”

Three other women who have worked as assistants for Robbins have previously told BuzzFeed News that he exposed himself to them. A fourth said that Robbins asked how she felt about nudity during an interview for a personal assistant job, which felt “sexually inappropriate, almost predatory.” And two former bodyguards told BuzzFeed News they were sent out to trawl audiences for attractive women on Robbins’ behalf.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...top-honor.html

ALA 2019: ALA Votes to Strip Melvil Dewey’s Name From Its Top Honor

Jun 24, 2019

Citing a history of racism, anti-Semitism, and sexual harassment, the council of the American Library Association on June 23 voted to strip Melvil Dewey’s name from the association’s top professional honor, the Melvil Dewey Medal. The ALA Council approved the measure after a resolution was successfully advanced at the ALA membership meeting, during the 2019 ALA Annual Conference in Washington DC. The resolution states:

Best known by the public for creating the Dewey Decimal Classification System, Dewey was one of the founders of the American Library Association in 1876, and has long been revered as the “father of the modern library,” despite being ostracized from the ALA in 1906 because of his offensive personal behavior.

In an article last June in American Libraries, Anne Ford questioned why the ALA and the library profession still associates its highest honor with a man whose legacy does not align with the profession’s core values. This week, some 88 years after his death, Dewey’s #TimesUp moment appears to have finally come.

The move comes a year after the ALA Council made headlines at the 2018 ALA Annual Council for voting to rename the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, a prestigious honor that recognizes an author or illustrator whose books have made “a significant and lasting contribution to children's literature." The award is now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.

But while both moves reflect the ALA’s desire to better align the organization's honors with its core values, the moves differ in at least one crucial way. The Wilder decision came months after an ALA task force delivered a detailed report on the scholarly debate surrounding Wilder’s work, with ALA officials acknowledging that “Wilder’s legacy is complex.” Dewey’s legacy is not so complex—despite his professional achievements, his personal behavior was recognized to be abhorrent during his lifetime.

The council vote to strip Dewey's name from the ALA award was reportedly approved "overwhelmingly" and with no debate.

At press time, it was unclear what the next steps will be in terms of renaming the Melvil Dewey Medal, and ALA officials had yet to comment.

UPDATE: American Library Association officials told PW on June 25 that the resolution to rename the Dewey Award, which was approved by Council, will "now be referred to the ALA Award Committee for next steps, including discussion with the award’s sponsor. When there is a new name to announce, we will share that news with you at that time."