Research & Academic Scholarship

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has released new data documenting book challenges throughout the United States, finding that challenges of unique titles surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022 numbers, reaching the highest level ever documented by ALA. Read the full announcement. OIF documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship, more than the previous two years combined (2,571 in 2022; 1,651 in 2021), as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources in 2023.

They care deeply and can't be fired. Retired librarians are bringing experience and passion to the cause of intellectual freedom. With advocacy skills training and opportunities to mentor, retirees could become even more powerful assets.

In the Past and Present, They’ve Fought Book Bans and Censorship.

What happens when large language models are asked to provide justifications for book bans? Do the same built-in guardrails that prevent them from generating ...

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, […]

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

From a Joint Announcement (via Harvard Library): The HBCU Library Alliance and Harvard Library this week announced a project to sustain and deepen capacity for the digitization, discovery, and preservation of African American history collections held in HBCU libraries and archives. Harvard’s support for the HBCU Library Alliance’s ongoing work is a step in addressing […]

UPDATED POST: A Tip Sheet for Librarians Facing Harassment (via PEN America) This guidance is intended to equip librarians with strategies to navigate online abuse. While this resource acknowledges the ways that online abuse can move offline, it is primarily focused on digital safety. For a discussion of physical safety in libraries, see: “We Need […]

The ABA Journal is read by half of the nation's 1 million lawyers every month. It covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.

From The Chicago Tribune: Last week, city and Chicago Public Library officials declared Chicago a sanctuary city for those stories, by establishing “Book Sanctuaries” across the city’s 77 distinct community areas and 81 library branches. That entails a commitment to expand local access to banned or challenged books through library programming. [Clip] Chicago Public Library […]