Countering Censorship

If supporters won't show up to that Tuesday night meeting, the censors win.

From the Des Moines Register: The small farming community of Alta in northwest Iowa barely has 2,000 residents. The elementary school that shares its name has fewer than 300 students. Neither is big enough to have a quality library on its own. So for the last 20 years, the two have operated a library together, […]

No longer are just books under fire, but also the library administrators, teachers and long-beloved librarians who are defending them.

In a new report,  Booklash: Literary Freedom, Online Outrage, and the Language of Harm, PEN America warns that social media blowback and societal outrage are imposing new moral litmus tests on books and authors, chilling literary expression and fueling a dangerous trend of self-censorship that is shrinking writers' creative freedom and imagination.

Discussion Dens are consistently among my favorite programs at the AALL Annual Meeting, and Leslie Street’s Book Bans, Academic Freedom, and the Academic Law Library discussion was truly a highligh…

The campaign encourages people to get involved in efforts to protect libraries from book bans, and tools to help them do that. It comes as public libraries in Michigan and across the country are facing growing organized efforts to ban books some people object to, especially books that deal with themes like racism, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Betsy Gomez moderated a panel of librarians in "Libraries and the Challenges They Face" post-pandemic in countering book bans.

A federal judge in Fayetteville on Saturday temporarily blocked enforcement of two provisions of Act 372, a new state law on library materials, days before the law was scheduled to take effect on Tuesday.

I wrote a letter thanking librarians across the country for everything they’re doing to protect our freedom to read.

Two Los Angeles County supervisors will propose Tuesday that the county library system make its eBooks available to all California teens and residents.

Originally issued in 1953, the Freedom to Read Statement is just as important 70 years later. We invite all to sign onto the newly affirmed statement.

Funding will expand ALA’s intellectual freedom initiatives amid record number of book challenges CHICAGO (June 22, 2023) — The American Library Association (ALA) will distribute $1 million to support and expand intellectual freedom initiatives as the nation grapples with rising censorship challenges and seeks a greater array of resources to protect the right to read. ALA will use the funds to provide a major boost for its current efforts to support its members, library workers and libraries everywhere, as well as the communities they serve.

Tina Castelan took over as head librarian at the Llano Library last December. This month, she said she submitted her resignation to Library Director Amber Milum. On Monday, Castelan said she was as…

City leaders have declined speaking with the media about these matters but documents said a move to privatize the library was decided in an effort to help save money.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Library Association (ALA) applauds the Biden-Harris Administration’s steps announced today to address the rise in book bans and other attacks on LGBTQIA+ Americans. In a fact sheet released today, the White House announced that the Department of Education will appoint a new coordinator to address the growing threat that book bans pose for the civil rights of students, among other steps to protect the rights of LGBTQIA+ Americans.

With a lawsuit filed last week Pen America, Penguin Random House, authors, and parents began fighting book bans. Other publishers should help.

Local librarians face backlash, as the number of unique book challenges in Massachusetts quadrupled between 2021 and 2022.

EveryLibrary applauds the Office for Civil Rights at the UD DOE for issuing Title IX and Title VI Resolution Agreement and Finding Letter about the Forsyth County School District's book bans and school library censorship.

The publishing house, five of its authors, parents and an advocacy group allege that removing the books discussing race and LGBTQ people violates the First Amendment.

As seems to be the new normal, there is a lot happening in the news (*gestures vaguely around*). It’s easy to focus on a few issues at the expense of others or to get overwhelmed and check out enti…

From colouring books to abolition newspapers and Reader’s Digest magazines, thousands of titles are banned in prisons and jails across the country, often with opaque reasons and with little oversight, Alex Woodward reports

The number of reported challenges and attempted bans to books doubled in 2022 according to data released by the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom Monday.

Library boards, school boards and legislatures are becoming battlegrounds in a push to censor books. Communities are fighting back.

CHICAGO — Today, the American Library Association (ALA) kicked off National Library Week with the release of its highly anticipated list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2022 and the State of America’s Libraries Report, which tells the story of how libraries are innovating and adapting to improve the well-being of their communities in the midst of censorship challenges. This year, however, there were multiple books that received the same number of challenges – resulting in the expansion of the list to 13 titles.

National Library Week is April 23-29, 2023. This national annual observance celebrates the contributions of libraries and their staff to their communities and greater society. This year's theme is "There's More to the Story" - a reminder that while libraries are full of stories on their shelves, they are more than their collections of books.

Legal experts, librarians and some parents say House Bill 900’s language is so vague and broad that it could ensnare books that are not inappropriate.

A survey by Cilip shows members of the public using increasingly threatening behaviour about the removal of books on empire, race and LGBTQ+ themes

Unite Against Book Bans virtual event to honor a lifetime of free expression through story CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA) today announced a national day of action to protect libraries and the freedom to read, designating April 24, the Monday of National Library Week, as Right to Read Day. Right to Read Day also marks the first anniversary of the ALA-founded Unite Against Book Bans campaign, a public-facing advocacy initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship.

PEN America, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to free expression through literature, has created a dataset tracking books banned or restricted in school classrooms and libraries in the United States from July 2021 to March 2022. The dataset contains the book’s name and author, the schoo