American Library Association kicks off National Library Week with the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024 and the State of America’s Libraries Report | ALA
The American Library Association (ALA) today released the highly anticipated Top 10 Most Challenged Books List.
Naval Academy removes nearly 400 books from library in new DEI purge ordered by Hegseth's office
U.S. officials say the U.S. Naval Academy has removed nearly 400 books from its library after being told by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to review and get rid of books that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
Iowa law banning school library books that depict sex acts on hold again after a new federal ruling
A federal judge says Iowa for now cannot continue to enforce part of its book ban law. The decision Tuesday gives major publishers that sued the state their latest temporary reprieve.
Lakota People's Law Project on Instagram: "🚨 They’re banning history. Read it anyway. Books that share truths about Indigenous land and Native history are disappearing from U.S. schools and libraries as part of a nationwide ban on books. One banned book example: “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.” Ask yourself why. 💡 It’s not just about banning a few classics or a single book—it’s about erasing the real histories and controlling the narrative. 🚫 We created the Decolonized Reading List for 2025—a curated selection of 25 nonfiction books that challenge colonial myths and highlight movements of resistance, including Indigenous sovereignty, Black liberation, LGBTQ2S+ rights, abolition, and the fight for reparations. Read them. Share them. Pass them down. 📚 Explore the full Decolonized Reading from the link in our bio. 📢 Amplify your impact. Petition for truthful education in U.S. schools. 🔗 Teach Real History Link in Bio 👉🏾 For the most current infor
4,196 likes, 34 comments - lakotalaw on March 13, 2025: "🚨 They’re banning history. Read it anyway.
Books that share truths about Indigenous land and Native history are disappearing from U.S. schools and libraries as part of a nationwide ban on books. One banned book example: “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.” Ask yourself why. 💡
It’s not just about banning a few classics or a single book—it’s about erasing the real histories and controlling the narrative. 🚫
We created the Decolonized Reading List for 2025—a curated selection of 25 nonfiction books that challenge colonial myths and highlight movements of resistance, including Indigenous sovereignty, Black liberation, LGBTQ2S+ rights, abolition, and the fight for reparations.
Read them. Share them. Pass them down.
📚 Explore the full Decolonized Reading from the link in our bio.
📢 Amplify your impact. Petition for truthful education in U.S. schools.
🔗 Teach Real History Link in Bio
👉🏾 For the most current information on book bans, follow @americanlibraryassociation
#BannedBooks #DecolonizeYourBookshelf #IndigenousHistory #TeachRealHistory".
Report of the Prejudicial Materials Working Group - RBMS Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group, June 2024
The Prejudicial Materials Working Group (PMWG) of the RBMS Controlled Vocabularies
Editorial Group (CVEG) was convened in the summer of 2020 to review, revise, and generate
new terminology in the RBMS Controlled Vocabulary for Rare Materials Cataloging (RBMS
CVRMC) that would be useful for indexing works that are prejudicial in nature, or that are the
byproduct of prejudicial and hateful systems and ideologies. This work included review and
revision of scope notes and relationships between terms.
The EveryLibrary Institute is collecting and analyzing polling and surveys about book bans, anti-access legislation, and the perception of libraries/librarians to help advocates quickly find and interpret results.
Archivists Work to Identify and Save the Thousands of Datasets Disappearing From Data.gov
More than 2,000 datasets have disappeared from data.gov since Trump was inaugurated. But analyzing exactly what happened and where it went is going to take some time.
ALA to U. S. Department of Education: Book bans are real | ALA
The American Library Association responds to the Department of Education's dismissal of complaints about censorship and discrimination: the "effort to terminate protections... advances the demonstrably false claim that book bans are not real."
Censorship Beyond Books | American Libraries Magazine
Challenges to nonbook materials -- such as displays, social media posts, reading lists, and programs -- are on the rise. What should libraries do in the face of these attacks?
Judge rules Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against librarians is unconstitutional
A federal judge has struck down key parts of an Arkansas law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing so-called “harmful” materials to minors.
Every library — academic, public, and school (public, private, charter, independent, and international) — should have a comprehensive written policy that guides the selection, deselection or weeding, and reconsideration of library resources. The most valuable selection policy is current; it is reviewed and revised on a regular basis; and it is familiar to all members of a library’s staff. The policy should be approved by the library’s governing board or other policy-making body and disseminated widely for understanding by all stakeholders.
Democratic state lawmakers back bills protecting individual freedom to read and think • Rhode Island Current
Democrat Rhode Island lawmakers on Wednesday promoted a suite of bills motivated by the Freedom to Read movement — an assertion of libraries’ right to hold controversial books, amid an ongoing culture clash over the written word.
Beyond Book Banning: Efforts to Criminally Charge Librarians
Both the Indiana and Iowa State Legislatures have introduced legislation regarding criminally charging libraries and librarians over “inappropriate” material. These bills are closely related to widespread book challenges occurring at schools and public libraries across the nation, with people trying to remove books that address certain topics relating to gender, sexuality, and race from library collections. In many cases there is already a clear process for reconsidering materials in a collection, so how do legal defenses play a role in this and what do the bills change?
That librarian : the fight against book banning in America - Amanda Jones.
One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss "book content," she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing. Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns--funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians--in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and "Christian." But Amanda Jones wouldn't give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.
Banned Books Week starts with mixed messages as reports show challenges both up and down
Two new reports provide a mixed but compelling outlook on the wave of book removals and challenges as the annual Banned Books Week begins for schools, stores and libraries nationwide.
The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has released new data documenting book challenges throughout the United States, finding that challenges were nearly double that of 2021, reaching the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago.
Publishers File Additional Amicus Brief Supporting First Amendment Rights of Llano County Library Patrons in Full Court Rehearing of Little v. Llano County - AAP
On September 10, 2024, AAP and allies filed a second amicus brief in support of Texas public library patron plaintiffs in Little v. Llano County following the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ order of a full court rehearing of its June 6, 2024 decision. That earlier decision largely—but not entirely—upheld a preliminary injunction against the unconstitutional […]
The Internet Archive lost their latest appeal. Here’s what that means for you.
As Publishers Weekly reported this week, the Internet Archive, nonprofit home to a robust digital library, has lost its latest appeal in a case brought by publishers. A panel from New York’s …