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Library leaders, staff, and boards need to be prepared for increasingly sophisticated attacks on readers’ rights.

When a planned event came under attack, Downers Grove Public Library staff handled the hostilities, keeping safety a priority.

A bill that explicitly prohibits Illinois libraries from banning books is speeding its way toward passage by the General Assembly, and the Illinois Secretary of State said he wants “every librarian in the country to know we have their backs.”

Censorship efforts in the 2020s have moved beyond concerned parents to include restrictive legislation, library board power plays, and defunding.

The employees working the front desk are the ones who face the parent angry about a book’s content, the delegate of a group challenging the library’s right to select and shelve titles as it sees fit, or the media looking for an impromptu comment.

UPDATE: On March 31, a Federal District Court Judge in Texas handed down an injunction stopping the ongoing removal of books from the Llano County library system. The decision will immediately reinstate books that government officials have already removed from the system. The court found that library officials violated the First Amendment because they had targeted nationally acclaimed books based on their viewpoint and content. The Court’s order states: “The Court finds it substantially likely that the removals do not further any substantial government interest—much less any compelling one.”

Connecticut's Senate Bill 2, “An Act Concerning The Mental, Physical And Emotional Wellness of Children,” would, among many other things, allow every Connecticut municipality to designate a single sanctuary library—a place where patrons are promised access to books banned or challenged elsewhere.

Library directors often bear the brunt of intellectual freedom challenges from community members—even from their own boards—and some have chosen to leave.

According to Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s website, the intent of his online form for reporting graphic sexual content in libraries, created in late November 2022, is to protect minors. But the form—which has been called a “tip line” by the news media—has fueled criticism that it promotes censorship, targets the LGBTQIA+ community, and could escalate threats against library workers.

Brooklyn Public Library's Nick Higgins, Amy Mikel, Karen Keys, Jackson Gomes, and Leigh Hurwitz have been named LJ's 2023 Librarians of the Year for their work on Books Unbanned, providing free ebook access to teens and young adults nationwide to help defy rising book challenges across the country.

The EveryLibrary Institute, the companion organization of library advocacy group EveryLibrary, commissioned Embold Research, a nonpartisan research firm, to poll 1,223 U.S. voters on book banning. The survey found that nearly all (92 percent) have heard at least something about such censorship, and at least 75 percent will consider the issue of book banning when voting this November.

The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 attempts to ban or restrict library resources in K–12, higher ed, and public libraries in all of 2021, targeting 1,597 unique titles—itself the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began keeping track of challenged books more than 20 years ago.

As book banning and censorship continues to ramp up across the country, particularly of work aimed at teens and young adults, New York City public libraries are stepping up to help young readers connect with challenged books. 

The press freedom nongovernmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF, after its French title, Reporters Sans Frontières) has created a way for readers everywhere to access and read documents that have been banned or censored in the countries where they were published—through The Uncensored Library, a collection of articles and books housed in the virtual world of Minecraft.

Book challenges are here; here’s how to respond.

Book challenges are not new. But what has changed, according to several people interviewed for this article, is the scope and tactics of the challenges.

The literary website Book Riot has teamed up with library political action committee (PAC) EveryLibrary in the battle against censorship in libraries. Through December 22, Book Riot will match donations to EveryLibrary up to $5,000 to help the organization combat the book challenges and proposed censorship measures that have ramped up across the United States this year.

Book challenges are, of course, nothing new to libraries. But they are ramping up in both frequency and intensity, and will take teamwork to resist.

A vote by the Lafayette Public Library, LA, Board of Control to reject a grant for a discussion on voting rights, which resulted in former director Teresa Elberson abruptly opting to retire, has highlighted longstanding issues between the board and library administration, and fears for the library’s future.

A bill filed this week in Missouri would give a specially appointed parental board oversight over public library materials deemed inappropriate for minors and proposes legal ramifications for librarians who don’t comply—leaving library leadership, workers, and supporters up in arms.

UPDATE: A similar bill in Tennessee, the Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act (H.B. 2721), was killed in the House Cities and Counties subcommittee on March 11. The Senate companion bill, S.B. 2896, is expected to die as well.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on February 12 introduced the Data Protection Act of 2020, new legislation that would create the Data Protection Agency, an independent federal agency that “would serve as a ‘referee’ to define, arbitrate, and enforce rules to defend the protection of [U.S. citizens’] personal data.”

At an early Saturday session at the American Library Association (ALA) 2020 Midwinter meeting, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) weighed in on several areas where libraries and their leaders and staff may have questions regarding their rights, offering resources for both public and academic libraries.

In response to a January 17 Washington Post article by reporter Joe Heim, the Washington, DC–based National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) has restored an altered promotional photograph in its lobby to its original state and published an apology on its website .

On October 29, writer Meghan Murphy spoke at a rented theater space in Canada’s Toronto Public Library (TPL) Palmerston branch. The discussion—“Gender Identity: What Does It Mean for Society, the Law and Women?"—was booked by an outside group, Radical Feminists Unite, and was not part of library programming. The appearance sparked protests against the library’s decision to rent the space to Murphy, particularly from the transgender and broader LGBTQ communities, as well as a barrage of criticism on social media.

Politics spurred a library budget and spending decision in Citrus County, FL, in October, when the Citrus County Commission withdrew a motion for the Citrus County Library’s request to purchase a digital New York Times subscription. While library acquisitions are often scrutinized from a budget perspective, this refusal raised attention when county commissioners went on record with non-financial reasons for voting against the electronic subscription.

The Leander Public Library (LPL), TX, has drawn criticism for proposed changes to meeting room and speaker policies—instituted not by the library, but by city government of this suburb north of Austin. LPL has been run by private library administrators Library Systems and Services since it was established as a city department in 2005. In the wake of several recent instances of programming deemed “controversial” by city leadership, amendments to library policy have drawn the attention of residents, city council members, and library and civil rights associations.