Industry News

The American Library Association (ALA) has released its preliminary data on the attempted censorship and restriction of access to books and other materials in public, academic, and K–12 libraries during the first eight months of 2023. Between January 1 and August 31, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 695 challenges to library materials to 1,915 unique titles.

Library telehealth programs launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are beginning to evolve and adapt to changing times.

OverDrive will soon debut several new features including OverDrive Hub, a portal designed to enable staff in a variety of roles to work with their library’s digital branch, the company announced during the “Forward Together: The Future of Your Digital Branch with the OverDrive Hub and Libby” panel at OverDrive’s biennial Digipalooza conference in August.

At a time when collaboration is endangered by conflict and critical thinking is often jettisoned in favor of the latest “hot take,” I can’t help but feel like library professionals are the leaders we need to secure a brighter future.

Judge Alan D. Albright indicates he will issue a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of HB 900, the state's controversial book rating law.

All eyes are on Texas as HB 900, the state’s controversial new book rating law, is slated to take effect September 1, 2023. Signed by Governor Greg Abbott on June 12, the legislation aims to prevent the sale of books deemed “sexually explicit” or “sexually relevant” to school districts by requiring book publishers and vendors to rate individual titles based on content.

Book banning groups are becoming more organized, but libraries are evolving new tactics to oppose censorship efforts, panelists said during the “#UniteAgainstBookBans: Advocate for your community’s right to read” panel with Emily Drabinski, Sara Gold, and Lisa Varga, with moderator Brian Potash, at OverDrive’s biennial Digipalooza conference in Cleveland August 9–11.

House Bill 1315, signed by the governor, regulates “pornographic media exposure” to K–12-aged children and “digital and online resources” provided by vendors to those children. The bill requires a vendor or provider of digital or online resources or databases to have safety policies and technology protection measures that prohibit and prevent a person from sending, receiving, viewing, or downloading content that officials consider “obscene.”

Most libraries don’t own their own ebooks. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to LJ readers, yet it’s a statement that continues to confound elected officials and administrators who get an astounding amount of say in how much money public and academic libraries are allotted. This is one of the reasons I, along with my coauthors Sarah Lamdan, Michael Weinberg, and Jason Schultz at the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy at New York University Law, published our recent report, The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy: How Publishers and Platforms Have Reshaped the Way We Read in the Digital Age.