Reading list
Shortform reading
This is an incomplete list of the shortform reading (and listening and watching) I’ve been doing lately.
'What Dan Read': What a reading list of 3,599 books tells us about a library superfan
A public library in Ohio is celebrating the life of one of its most loyal patrons, a retired social worker named Dan Pelzer.
Library Startup 'Briet' Wants to Revolutionize E-Book Sales, Not Licensing
Created by a team affiliated with Brick House publishing cooperative, a platform known as Briet is inviting publishers to sell rather than license their e-books to libraries, and several independent publishers are on board.
#drm · #ebooks · #libraries
Why Would Trump Dismantle This Tiny Little Agency That Does So Much Good?
How the legal battle to get funding back for the Institute of Museum and Library Services is faring.
School board member admits to banning books without reading them, faces lawsuit
"I don't like them. I wouldn't read them. I'll be honest I've read the reviews on some of them…" With these words at a public meeting, Tennessee's Rutherford County School Board member Stan Vaught admitted to banning books he hadn't read — a revelation that kicked off a federal lawsuit.
According to the complaint, board members relied primarily on BookLooks.org, a website connected to the Hitler-quoting group Moms for Liberty, instead of reading the books themselves or considering their literary merit. The board repeatedly overruled their own librarians' recommendations to keep books like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, and Ernest Cline' Ready Player One because it has "characters discussing beliefs that heaven and god are not
real."
#books · #censorship · #extremism · #free-speech · #libraries · #us-politics
The ALA Sues Over the Scuppering of the IMLS
The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that the administration’s recent actions—which include firing most IMLS staff, terminating grant programs, and effectively shutting down the organization’s operations—are both illegal and, separately, unconstitutional.
Librarians Are Mad As Hell At The Trump Administration. They Think You Should Be, Too.
“Make no mistake about it, the elimination of funding for libraries is a political assault on First Amendment rights, access to information, and the freedom to read,” Schram told HuffPost. “It is a stark reminder of how easy it is for someone who has apparently never utilized the services that libraries provide, to deprive those who desperately need those services from accessing them,” she said.
The Institute for Museum and Library Services Is Now a Propaganda Machine
First and foremost, “steering this organization in lockstep with this Administration” is the antithesis of what museums and libraries do. These public, democratic institutions offer a breadth and depth of information and resources to ensure that users are able to understand a wide range of ideas and perspectives on any given topic. This allows people to think for themselves and draw conclusions based on evidence, rather than on what someone tells them to be the truth.
#doge · #extremism · #free-speech · #libraries · #us-politics
The consequences of shutting down the Institute of Museum and Library Services would be particularly dire for smaller museums and rural museums.
Cover to Cover: An Analysis of Titles Banned in the 23–24 School Year
In the 2023-2024 school year, there were more than 10,000 instances of banned books in public schools, affecting more than 4,000 unique titles. These mass book bans were often the result of targeted campaigns to remove books with characters of color, LGBTQ+ identities, and sexual content from public school classrooms and libraries. As book bans reached an unprecedented high in the last school year, PEN America sought to further understand the impacts of this censorship – the identities, content areas, genres, and types of books that are being erased from America’s public schools.
In November 2024, PEN America previously reported on the content of titles that had experienced two or more bans (1,091 titles); here, we include a more comprehensive analysis of all 4,218 titles banned during the 2023-2024 school year.
What have we found?
Book bans are not a hoax.
Iowa Rushes, Advances Librarian Criminalization Bill
Introduced last week, Iowa's librarian criminalization bill has already made it to the House floor.