Last year, I wrote about the conservative group CatholicVote organizing what they called “Hide the Pride,” which encourages people to check out all children’s and teen LGBTQ books in the library, especially on Pride displays, in order to make sure no one else can access them. They’ve now announced the second annual “Hide the Pride” campaign. CatholicVote Communications Director Joshua Mercer explained,

“The public backlash against Bud Light and Target has reminded Christians that they don’t have to sit down and surrender to the radical rainbow cult. Let’s keep up this momentum and prevent kids from being exposed to smut from their local public library by checking out these nasty books and getting them off of displays.”

While the official campaign involves checking out specifically children’s and teen books and leaving a letter with signatures, that isn’t the only form “Hide the Pride” attempts take. Many libraries (and bookstores!) report books being taken off displays and hidden without being checked out, and adult LGBTQ books, especially those on display, are often also targeted.

Libraries across the U.S. need to be ready for this. Even if your area is mostly queer-friendly, it just takes one person to clear the entire Pride display. So what can libraries and supportive library patrons do to fight these threats to patrons’ freedom to read?

Also, don’t be afraid to check those books out! That’s what they’re there for! Books being checked out shows that the display is worthwhile. There’s a difference between checking out books you’re interested in versus checking every book out solely to prevent others from being able to have access to them.

The biggest thing you can do to support your library is show up to library board meetings and speak out in support of Pride displays and carrying LGBTQ books. The people opposing these books are not in the majority, but they are loud. We need to show up to show they don’t speak for us. Not sure what to say? Here’s a template you can use.

Of course, most libraries will have enough LGBTQ books to replace the ones checked out from the display, even if they’re all checked out at once. (And if not, maybe you should start there.) That may not be sustainable, though, if it’s done several times over, and it’s made more difficult if patrons are also taking books from the general collection.

Consider incorporating more permanent aspects of your display. Put up posters or signs with the LGBTQ audiobooks and ebooks available in your collection, with QR codes to check them out. You can also place books in front of a sign with the cover of that book, including a QR code to place a hold on it. That way, it’s still on display even when checked out.

You can also include pamphlets with a list of some of the LGBTQ books available in the collection. You may want to consider only putting out a few at a time, so no one can take the whole batch at once.

Another option is to have some interactive part of the display, like a children’s display that asks, “What are you proud of?” with sticky notes to add their own to a rainbow. These can show that the displays are being used and appreciated.

These are just a few ideas: your strategy will depend on your collection and community. For even more, check out Kelly Jensen’s post on How to Prepare Library Pride Displays with censorship attempts in mind.

Queer and trans people across the U.S. — and the world — are facing increased discrimination in recent years, including life-threatening legislation. For LGBTQ youth, having just one supportive adult in their life makes them 40% less likely to attempt suicide.

I know it’s difficult to face hostile patrons, but your support matters. Having access to queer books can be life-changing, even life-saving for queer kids and adults. Libraries don’t just serve white, straight, cis, allo, conservative patrons. They serve the whole community, and everyone deserves to feel safe and welcome. I am grateful for the library workers who stand up to bigotry in order to represent their entire community.

Former child actor turned right-wing political darling and author Kirk Cameron and publisher Brave Books are planning public library events August 5 across the country. They’re calling on supporters to begin planning for these public events in order to “pray, sing, and read BRAVE Books and other books of virtue.” Imagine, they note, filling public libraries across the country with friends, family, pastors, and “your teachers” to turn the nation “back to God.”

The event aims to stoke the moral panic around public institutions like libraries no longer honoring “viewpoints that are foundational, time-honored, and true” in favor of “the more radical.”

Cameron has become a name among public librarians since late 2022. After being “denied” access to several public libraries, Cameron took to the media to claim discrimination, then victory, once he secured space in several U.S. public libraries to hold his own story time.

The story is, of course, more complicated.

Brave Books’s slate of titles aim to express a right-wing ideology, and each is written by a star within conservative circles. Among the titles are Little Lives Matter, Elephants Are Not Birds, and Unmuzzle Me, Please. Cameron has published two books with the company, and each has come with a “book tour” of story times in public libraries.

Public libraries often offer study spaces and program rooms for individuals to reserve; for the sake of simplicity, they’re often referred to as meeting rooms. In some libraries, the reservations are limited to those with library cards and in others, they’re open on a first-come, first-served basis. It is common that library-created programs take precedence over outside use. A teen program created and sponsored by the library would have priority to use a meeting room over someone outside the organization.

Over the years, meeting room policies have become hot topics in the world of libraries. Can anyone reserve one? Can limits be placed on the kinds of people who have the right to use them? What sorts of uses are protected and which aren’t? These questions all have merit and value, especially when it comes to considering how taxpayer money is being used. A for-profit business setting up an event in the public library meeting room may be in direct conflict with the values of the public library. Libraries articulate that the use of meeting room spaces does not imply library approval or sponsorship; groups cannot in their marketing or advertising note that it is a program being held by the library nor coordinated by it.

This is where the Cameron story sits.

For the release of his first title with Brave Books, the publisher and publisher’s marketing company Amplifi Agency attempted to rent rooms at several public libraries. They claim over 50 public libraries denied their offer to host story times. But this wasn’t true. Scarsdale Library in New York explained what happened: Cameron, Brave Books, and Amplifi thought they were above the policy and ignored the formal process for using a room.

Cameron then claimed victory when he successfully rented rooms at other public libraries. Among them were the Sumner Public Library in Tennessee, where the director was fired for “unkind pushback,” and the Indianapolis Public Library, where he was initially denied. Cameron claimed the denial happened because of his race and the messages in his book; the truth is, of course, far more complicated and related to policies that he and his team chose to ignore.

Seattle Public Library’s messaging is, of course, in direct contrast to what Cameron and Brave Books claim. The library made their room available and put the onus of safety onto the users, as it should be. As any institution upholding the First Amendment does, they made clear that the space can — and indeed, should — be a place for an exchange of varying ideas.

What gets tricky and is worth emphasizing here is when the Freedom of Speech butts heads against Freedom of Religion and more, where both intersect with the Separation of Church and State. This is why libraries emphasize that groups are responsible for their events and why it is they cannot suggest the library is hosting, sponsoring, or in any way connected to it.

So the August 5 events being mass-coordinated by anyone who wishes to set up a story time at their local public library are a ripe opportunity for all of these elements to clash and for right-wing “activists” to proclaim they’re being discriminated against by a taxpayer institution. Brave Books has developed a resource kit for anyone wishing to put together one of these story times, and they have set up a map for people to drop pins for confirmed events. Doing this inevitably connects the public libraries with Brave Books, and given how few people know the actual intricacies behind library policy — and indeed, with people of this particular persuasion not wanting to care about them — the flames are about to grow hotter.

If you’re a public library worker, now is the time to prepare for what could be either an onslaught or a big nothing burger. In hoping for the latter, preparing for the former will ensure that your library is indeed in a strong position to defend the choices it makes in the interest of its purpose, its staff, and its users. This includes reviewing your policies around meeting rooms and meeting with your legal representation on what requirements you can and cannot make of those requesting rooms (specifically around security — someone like Cameron, via his profile, is a public safety concern but also, knowing that increased law enforcement at the public library is antithetical to the tenants of librarianship and is an impediment for the use of the facility by marginalized individuals, what do you do?).

Take the time to talk with staff about responding to inquires about hosting events such as these and make sure everyone is on the same page. Prepare public statements to address questions and concerns which may arise, too: the statements above by both Scarsdale and Seattle Public Libraries are excellent public relations but more, they’re outstanding examples of libraries being institutions dedicated to facts and transparency.

It might also be worth your time to make sure all levels of library worker knows what’s at stake right now in institutions like them. These are coordinated efforts to prove a point; in the sake of Cameron and Brave Books, it’s to find a “gotcha” with censorship. If you don’t give them what they want, they can cry censorship, even if they themselves are the perpetrators who purposefully subvert the rules and policies.

As we’ve seen throughout the country, truth does not matter to those bent on their messaging and their right-wing values of authoritarianism. But your institution can continue to be a bastion of light by upholding your standards and policies, advocating for First Amendment Rights of all — not just those with the most money and political sway — and you can continue to educate your patrons about why some books get purchased and included in the collection while others, like those published by Brave Books, do not.

Failing to do these things only bolsters the argument that libraries are a drain on public resources and encourages further book bans, programming under false pretenses, and unmitigated attacks on one of the only institutions in the country which serves as a “third place,” without any consumerist or capitalist expectations, to anyone who would like to use it.

Cameron and Brave Books do not have good intentions with this. They have ideological plans and the support of well-connected right-wing media.

Libraries deserve better, but resting on the laurels of public perceptions won’t be enough to save them.

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Every public library across the United States is different. This is both a strength and a challenge of libraries: they can cater their services and offerings to their communities but in communities where funding is not robust, what the library can offer might be quite hindered. This impacts everything from the kind of staff who can be hired to the kinds of materials made available for borrowing to the array of programs offered throughout the year. That uniqueness, though, is something that can be easy to forget or overlook, especially if you’re a power library lover and user. In a recent staff education program for my colleagues and some recent work with my Friends of the Library group, I realized how many cool, often-forgotten, maybe not greatly publicized things U.S. public libraries off that you might not know about.

The above caveats matter for several reasons. Not all of the below are going to be offered everywhere, and while most people can enter any public library and utilize the services, there may be limitations on who gets priority for programs or materials (taxpayers to that library may get first crack at limited events or borrowing newly-released books and movies, for example). But even for those who don’t have top-rated libraries in the community, chances are one or several of these services or programs are available to you.

These things U.S. public libraries offer that you might not know about range from big things to small ones. I’m not including the bread and butter services here, such as reference or reader’s advisory, books or media, and so forth. Instead, this roundup highlights both those things that are convenient for being a person in the world, as well as tools and resources that you simply might not know about.

Social workers on staff at libraries should be standard practice, but the reality of funding does not allow for it. Where librarians can connect people with information, unless licensed as a mental health professional, they cannot help in filling out forms, interpreting information, or talking through challenges the same way a social worker can. Bonus: those social workers often are useful for librarians working with the public, which can be a career full of potential burnout, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

Another bonus is users don’t need to pull out their insurance card or navigate the complexities of managed care in order to take the knowledge of the library social worker. They’ve already paid for their work via taxes.

I hesitate to put food pantry under “community exchanges,” as a thing libraries do, but it really is. Many libraries offer a food pantry/clothing exchange for those experiencing economic challenges, and they’re stocked with the goods provided by those in the community. My local library has even gone as far as creating entire Thanksgiving meal bags for our poorest community members, all acquired via the donations of library users.

Again, every library will offer something different here, but among the most common databases are those to help you with your genealogy research, guides for car repair, consumer reports type guides, and my personal favorite, local newspapers. Don’t want to subscribe to your local paper for whatever reason? You might not need to because your library might pay for it via a local news database. Log into the database with your library card info, find the paper, and voilà — you’re reading the local news the same day as everyone else.

In the early 2010s, there was a big push to incorporate tinkering and creating in public libraries. As a result, libraries across the country created or expanded spaces within their facilities to allow people to do just that. In some cases, there are librarians who spend a lot of their workday helping people make and create in these places.

The goal of makerspaces is, of course, to create and to spark curiosity. But they have another goal: community. These spaces offer an opportunity to gather with friends or soon-to-be friends to collaborate and connect over trying something new. Your library might keep the makerspace open all hours for free exploration while others might keep the space to more limited hours and programs.

In some libraries, you might find a music studio. In others, you might find a room with a green screen you can use to take photos or create films.

Every library will have different policies on who can and cannot borrow rooms, as well as how far in advance they can be booked. In some cases, you might be able to rent a space in your local library when you’re in need of a place for a personal reason — think baby showers or birthday parties.

Your library can be your literal gateway to the world.

By no means is this comprehensive, and it’s not meant to be. What makes public libraries special is they cater to their unique community, so even in a major metropolitan area, the offerings at each branch might be totally different, depending on who is being served. This is instead meant to encourage you to spend some time poking around your own library’s website to see what they offer that you might not even know about.

Love your library? There’s no better time than now to let them know and to take advantage of all the services and resources they make available to you.

You’ll also love learning the secrets to becoming a library power user — the post might be almost 10 years old (!!) but it’s still relevant today.

I write a lot about Dungeons and Dragons and why I think it’s so great. I recently wrote about it’s impact on literacy for teens and I’m very fortunate to even have my own book on how table top roleplaying games can positively impact wellbeing and mental health, amongst other things. The game has really had a huge impact on my life and it is something I think about a lot, especially as someone who acts as a Dungeon Master for both teens and adults on a weekly basis. As a librarian, I’m also trying to find amazing books to get into the hands of kids and teens.

As we know, comic books and graphic novels are an amazing gateway into literature when traditional novels can feel overwhelming. Comics are, unfortunately, seen by many adults as “lesser” compared to traditional novels. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard that comics “aren’t real books.” It is a tired, and quite frankly, boring argument put forward by ignorant and boring people. With Dungeons and Dragons, comics are a natural partnership and it’s a lot of fun pairing up comic books with our Dungeons and Dragons fans in the school. Here’s a list of eight comics that will get any fan of D&D into the mood for rolling some dice.

Bone by Jeff Smith Bone is a wonderful mixture of comedy and fantasy with bizarre and terrifying creatures throughout. I regularly put Bone into the hands of students who are looking for something weird and different, and who I know like to play D&D. I love Jeff Smith’s work and the world he has created in the Bone series, which is 55 issues long, but can be purchased in one large book. It’s full-on adventure comedy that fits perfectly in the D&D universe.

Sea Sirens by Amy Chu & Janet K. Lee Trot is a surfer girl who is always seeking the perfect wave. Cap’n Bill is her grumpy cat who can always talk. As a D&D DM, I know that talking animals can play a huge role in a campaign and that they can provide hours of laughs and assistance in the game. Therefore, just learning that there is a talking animal will attract our D&D players. Throw in the fact that Trot and Cap’n Bill are plunged into an under water fantasy realm with deadly battles and bizarre creatures? You won’t be able to keep them away.

City of Dragons: The Awakening Storm by Jaimal Yogis & Vivian Truong Grace has recently moved to Hong Kong where she has been told to attend a posh new boarding school in the city. She is reasonably terrified of this prospect — new city, no friends, a new culture to absorb, it’s all very overwhelming. When her class goes on a field trip, she’s given a mysterious egg by an even more mysterious older lady. When the egg hatches and a dragon emerges, Grace finds herself in a battle to save the creature from nefarious forces. Any D&D wizards out there with a pet familiar? This graphic novel will be a must-read!

Wingbearer by Marjorie Liu & Teny Issakhanian This is an extraordinary fantasy adventure starring an unlikely hero named Zuli who has never really ventured far from home. However, when an ancient evil threatens her home, she must venture forth with her owl guardian to face off against a witch queen, an old dragon, and much more. It’s absolutely perfect for D&D fans, as the story blends comedy, action, and heroes who appear timid at first but prove themselves as brave warriors as the tale progresses. A great story.

Dungeon Club: Roll Call by Molly Knox Ostertage & Xanthe Bouma I absolutely loved this graphic novel. It perfectly mixes the comradery of D&D and how amazing it is. Jess & Olivia have their own little D&D club outside of school and in the library where they play. It’s just the two of them, but when Olivia’s popularity in the school affects her ability to commit to the game and she introduces a new player, Jess feels bitter, isolated, and even a little betrayed. This is currently being passed around to every D&D player we have, they are really loving it and I cannot recommend it enough.

Lightfall by Tim Probert This series is beautiful and deep in story. It is one that I always recommend to our Dungeons and Dragons players. When Bea’s grandfather goes missing, she teams up with an unlikely friend named Cad to go and find him. However, they soon learn that his disappearance is linked to something much, much more sinister than they have ever expected. I love this story because it feels like a first-level D&D campaign where the characters are finding their feet, learning both their skills and how to work together.

Dungeon Critters by Natalie Riess & Sara Goetter Anyone who has ever played D&D knows that you will laugh for hours, as long as you have the right DM and group of friends around you. This is what Dungeon Critters is, a group of misfits who love each other but also bicker constantly. They all have different powers, and some are more adept at them than others. In this adventure, the friends uncover a sinister plot by the royal family of the realm involving evil plants and deadly traps. Together, the group has to unravel the conspiracy before their team unravels at the seams. A perfect match for D&D fans.

Another Kind by Cait May & Trevor Bream For me, Another Kind is for fans of Stranger Things and as a lot of people know, Stranger Things is responsible for a huge surge in the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons. Six kids, all with strange, supernatural powers, are locked away in a sterile government facility where they are poked and prodded and watched almost every minute. Then an emergency strikes, an entity known as The Collector appears to be after them and they are whisked away to a location the government deems safe, but nothing is quite as it seems.

There are so many amazing graphic novels out there, but if you are looking for ones to pair with your Dungeons and Dragons club, these are it!

A couple of weeks back, I shared a roundup of pending legislation across several states and at the national level which would ensure the right to read. There is another bill worth highlighting during this legislative session that is making positive progress in Connecticut.

Senate Bill 2, called the Act Concerning the Mental, Physical, and Emotional Wellness of Children, is a wide-ranging one covering everything from children’s mental health coverage to public libraries. Most pertinent to the ongoing removal of books from public and school libraries, though, is the bill’s creation of sanctuary libraries across the state. The bill would allow every community within Connecticut to designate a public library as a sanctuary library, wherein books which have been banned, challenged, or censored will be readily available to anyone who would like to borrow them.

The bill would open up small grants for libraries which choose to take on the distinction as sanctuary libraries, coming in at about $1,200 annually. The bill has made its way through committees and has been slated for discussion on the Senate floor for this week. You can follow the progress here.

Senate Bill 2 signals to libraries across Connecticut that the legislators find access to information so vital that it belongs under the state’s child wellness bill. Connecticut’s Ferguson Public Library in Stamford was the second library in the country to declare itself a sanctuary library in January 2023, following the lead of Chicago Public Library last fall. Under the new bill, any city could designate one library a sanctuary. Those cities with more than one public library may meet criteria to become eligible as sanctuary libraries or may choose to remain “nonprinciple” libraries; the difference would be in ability to receive the grants earmarked for the purposes of sanctuary libraries.

The bill was a surprise to the Connecticut Library Association and to librarians across the state. It emerged following a meet-and-greet hosted by the Ferguson Library following its designation as a sanctuary library; Senator Cici Maher attended the event, and two weeks later, after hearing from constituents that book bans were among the biggest concerns of library workers, she returned to session and her committee and began drafting the proposal.

Tying state aid to such designations is similar to Illinois’s Right to Read legislation. Every library will be able to choose for themselves how to proceed, but there are benefits from the state to those who stand up for intellectual freedom and the First Amendment Rights of all within these public facilities.

Such bills will not end the onslaught of book bans. What they do, though, is offer opportunities for libraries to protect themselves one step at a time and ensure that the majority of people — who time and time again emphasize seeing book bans as inappropriate and unpopular — will have their libraries represent them. Moreover, these bills aid in rallying for more legislative action in other states and municipalities to protect the right to read.

• In Saline County, Arkansas, Republicans paid to put up a billboard claiming the public library is full of porn.
• Middle school students at Hempfield Area Public Schools (PA) staged a walkout over limiting access to books at school.
• “For nearly an hour of the more than three and half-hour school board meeting earlier this month, concerned citizens, most of which were with Moms For Liberty members, spoke on the appropriateness of certain books in Santa Rosa District Schools and questioned the process by which parents can make decisions about the reading material available to their children. Moms for Liberty claims that there at least 28 books found on the Santa Rosa District Schools website that had sexually explicit or culturally indoctrinating language in them.” This is Santa Rosa County, Florida.
• Three books have been pulled from shelves in Colorado Springs, Colorado’s Academy School District 20.
• Dorchester Schools (SC) will keep Stamped on shelves for students to access.
• Mansfield Independent School District (TX) just got a nice letter from the ACLU that their new anti-trans book policy is a danger to, well, trans students. This is a board that’s been influenced by ultra right-wingers and does not actually reflect the broader community. The school board is going forward with their anti-trans, anti-gender fluid policy anyway.
• A survey of book banning across Tennessee.
• “The Hambys argued the constitutional rights of parents and their religious liberties were being subverted by a ‘progressive woke ideology’ driven by Deidre Grzymala — director of the county Library System at the time — and her employees. They claimed this reported ideology was ‘normalizing and equating homosexual and transsexual lifestyles with heterosexual family units’ without parental consent or the ability to not participate.” Anyway, the Crawford County Public Library (AR) is making a committee who will determine a policy on where and how people can speak at board meetings.
• A Catholic church in Front Royal, Virginia, is working to get over 100 books pulled from the Samuels Public Library. Here’s the group’s cute little website.
• Laney Hawes continues to be the kind of anti-censorship advocate doing on-the-ground work that we need. The ongoing battle over books in Keller ISD (TX).
• Earlier this year, Ouachita Parish Library (LA) received complaints over two sex-themed books, including Let’s Talk About It (a favorite among the crisis actors). The library is waiting to hear from the attorney general (remember, the one who has a librarian snitch line) about what to do. In the interim, they’ve put the books behind the desk and only those over 18 can borrow them. Also not how libraries work.
• “Seven books will be returning to Beaufort County School District (BCSD) library shelves and one book, Identical by Ellen Hopkins, will be going back into the book review process due to a tie vote following the book review committee meeting on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at Okatie Elementary School.” The current status of the mass book review process happening at a South Carolina school district.
• A pastor and member of Turning Point USA (y’know, super unbiased) thinks that It’s Perfectly Normal needs to be removed from Asheville, North Carolina schools.
• There are lots of news outlets still thinking we need to legitimize Moms when they talk like this.
• “In a FOX23 exclusive, we obtained the entire controversial email State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent to lawmakers last month with explicit content shown in books that he says are in some Oklahoma public schools. On the front page of the email, it said he wanted to be completely transparent to leave people with zero doubt that his administration is doing all they can to protect children from ‘demented ideologies.'” Shocker that it’s a lot of made up stuff packaged as a crisis that doesn’t exist.
• Tricks will remain on shelves in Carroll Community School District (IA), though the vote was very close.
• Western Placer Unified School District (CA) will keep The Hate U Give as part of their 9th grade curriculum.
• Paywalled because the media is complicit, but the Columbia County Board of Commissioners (GA) heard complaints about where books are located in the public library this week.
• Boundary County Library (ID) is holding its first reconsideration meeting of four book titles this week on Thursday — we’ll likely have an update next week.

When Ariadne Hui comes home to find a gorgeous man camped out in her living room, her roommate explains that her cousin, who freshly arrived from Seoul to mend a broken heart, just needs a few weeks to rest and heal. It isn’t long before Ari’s falling hard and finds herself thrust onto the world stage: not as the steely lawyer she’s fought so hard to become, but as the mystery woman on the arm of a man the entire world claims to know. With everything on the line, is Ari ready to discover who she’s finally ready to be?

I was an occasional library visitor at best until I was laid off from a job in 2018. While I did most of my applying to jobs from home, I also found myself spending a lot of time at the library. I would stand at circulation for just a moment too long because that was all of the human interaction I was likely to get that day. That summer, I also convinced my friend to put her two kids in the car and join me so that I wasn’t the lone adult at the library petting zoo. Our society doesn’t have a lot of third places, spaces where people can just spend time without spending money, and that is only one of many reasons why libraries are so important. 

I eventually found another job, and it wasn’t until last year that I found myself wanting to give back for the things I’d enjoyed courtesy of my local library. In addition to wanting to pay it forward somehow, it’s not super easy to make new friends as an adult who spends way too much time commuting. I thought that volunteering with the library might be a good way to meet other people who like books — and also I’ve now lived in this town for enough years that it’s pretty weird that I can only name a couple of my neighbors. 

If you’re ready to take the plunge and level up as a library patron, here are just a few ways to get started.

Now is a great time to get involved with your library — not just because it’s always a great time to give back to your community, but also because libraries need our support now more than ever. Learn more ways to support your libraries and to advocate on their behalf against book bans and censorship. 

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We are all aware that libraries across the United States are under attack. Thanks to groups like Moms for Liberty and other outspoken “concerned citizens,” there has been actual legislative action at multiple levels of government to limit what libraries can do and provide to their communities. Even in the places where there hasn’t been that kind of action, those same concerned citizens have mounted acts of intimidation to instill fear and block access. Libraries hosting rainbow storytimes and “woke” speakers are seeing demonstrations organized by conservative hate groups to literally block the entrances to buildings and harass attendees — including the children they claim to be protecting. They’re doing their best to not just remove and restrict people from marginalized and historically oppressed and excluded groups from their rightful place in the library, but also to remove all traces of those same groups from the collective knowledge and awareness of the community. In light of this, I’ve heard many iterations of the same question: how can we help? What do libraries and library staff need right now?

In short, we need your support. We need your voice. We need your presence. 

Here are some actions you can take in order to help your libraries, and the library community as a whole.

I’ve focused here a lot on public libraries, mostly because that’s where most of my experience lies. But school libraries bear the weight of this, and if you have any desire to see a rounded, empathetic, and educated Generation Alpha, you’ll do these things for your local school libraries as well.

A group of University of California at Berkeley (UCB) students are entering the second full week of occupying the school’s Anthropology Library, slated for closure. The silent protest organized by students has had them setting up makeshift beds among the library collections, and they plan to remain inside until the school agrees to keep the facility open. The Anthropology Library is only one of its kind at a public university in the United States, and it is one of only three at any higher education institution.

UCB Chancellor Carol Christ believes closing the facility will help bridge a budget gap, saving the university $400,000. Christ believes the collections could be moved to other facilities across campus, and the space could be used instead as a reading room.

Students disagree, noting that the library’s rare materials are a crucial resource for anyone studying the humanities and social sciences. Because the staff knows every resource within it and because those resources are so specialized, shifting the collections elsewhere would not only risk loss of vital research and primary source material but would also disintegrate the interconnectedness built around such a focused collection.

“This plan once again emphasizes the disconnect between the administrators of the University of California and its mission to “serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge”,” said the student organizers behind the Anthropology Library occupation.

Many universities, public and private, are home to specialized libraries and collections. Their purpose is to both preserve those materials and to grant access to them for the purposes of learning, research, and scholarship. Where public libraries serve the needs of the community and are not repositories of all knowledge, academic libraries operate with the opposite ethos–they are repositories, and specialized libraries such as the Anthropology Library exist in order to collect and retain as much information, material, and ephemera as possible.

But the materials don’t live in these facilities to be preserved and shut away. They’re there to be preserved and cared for, while also being used to spark curiosity, engage learning through primary source material, and foster ongoing scholarship. Librarians and researchers who operate these special collections have unique educational backgrounds and skillsets which make their presence within them crucial. Students, faculty, and outside researchers are able to access these resources under the guide and expertise of trained professionals.

“UC Berkeley’s plan to close the Anthropology Library will destroy the curated collection of material for research from students who depend on it, and confine the disarticulated material to physical locations that our community partners cannot access,” said the student organizers.

It should not go unnoticed that it is the Anthropology Library threatened by closure. Anthropology is the student of the human condition, past, present, and future, and it is an arena where the bulk of scholarship and research is on people of the global majority. In an era of increasing censorship and white supremacy, marked by ever-growing christofacism, disseminating materials about those who do not fit the cishet, Christian white male mold says more about the underlying beliefs of why the library is not seen as a vital resource but instead a way to save $400,000.

America is still the richest country in the world, and yet to cut costs, one of the wealthiest public institutions in the country with an estimated $6.8 billion endowment, it’s the library on the line.

This isn’t about a $400,000 budget gap.

Students activists emphasize that this library’s closure will also have an especially big effect on some of the most marginalized within the school.

“This decision will disproportionately impact socio-economically disadvantaged students, including many underrepresented minority students, on this campus. This is especially poignant with regard to the anthropology department, as our own student population is 34% Latinx identifying, an outlier on campus,” they said. “The closure of the Anthropology Library undercuts UC Berkeley’s widely proclaimed commitment to its students and their educational needs, as well as its commitment to discovering, transmitting, and storing knowledge. As graduate and undergraduate students of UC Berkeley, we call on our university to stop prioritizing extravagant expenditures, such as the four billion invested in BREIT last December, over its commitments as a center of higher learning… Carol Christ said it herself, all we need is four hundred thousand.”

Moreover, the closure of this library puts significant strain on partnerships cultivated between the school, the library, and the Indigenous communities impacted by the university’s residence on stolen land.

“[W[hile we are hesitant to use their support lightly, it’s important to us to recognize the impact of this library closure on our Indigenous American community partners,” explained the students. ” The letters of support we’ve received from a number of Indigenous tribes in the defense of our library are incredibly significant symbols of a slowly healing relationship. To dismantle and restrict access to a collection of material with cultural significance to these community partners would perpetuate the same ignorant attitudes towards Indigenous Americans that have hurt the University’s relationship with these communities in the past.”

This is not the first protest by UCB students to occur over the potential closure of the Anthropology Library. In 2012, the library was occupied in protest until the university agreed to keep it open. No end date to the agreement was put into writing, and thus, when the news emerged of the new threat to closure, students picked up where their predecessors left off.

To support the students and community members occupying the Anthropology Library, you can do a couple of things. First, follow and share their progress and updates on social media. If you’re nearby, take the time to stop by the library in support, whether that means staying for a few hours to deliver food and drinks or staying longer to help in further organizing.

Wherever you might be, those behind the effort to save the Anthropology Library would appreciate financial donations via their Give Better page.

“At this point in the occupation, we’re asking for your donations so that we can sustain the size of our protest for as long as we need until the administration of Carol Christ guarantees our library’s survival. Night to night, we have between 20-40 occupiers staying overnight. Your money will go towards feeding occupiers, printing materials for distribution, and other expenditures that will allow us to continue fighting for our basic public education resources,” said the students.

Every dollar goes directly to helping the protestors keep up the fight until the administration changes their mind and recommits to their own priorities of preserving, discovering, and sharing knowledge.

For more information about the students, the protest, and the history of the Anthropology Library, dig into the New York Times piece published today. This story hitting the national headlines is another crucial step in understanding that this isn’t about a $400,000 budget gap–if it were, the school’s alumni would be chipping in in a heartbeat.

Summer is right around the corner and what does that mean? It means that you (hopefully) have more time to read! If you don’t, at least the children in your life do. Enter the best summer reading programs 2023 has to offer.

Kids are on summer break, and they have a lot more time on their hands. Reading is a great escape and chance to explore different worlds. But for kids and teens, reading can sometimes just be another thing on their to do list. After a school year filled with reading, it can be easy for young readers to take a step back and read less over the summer. However, this is a great time for them to exercise their skills, maintain them, and hopefully grow them. 

It can be hard to motivate kids to read, especially if they want to spend their summer doing something else. After all, they’re off school and want a break. That’s where summer reading challenges come in! There are many options available for middle school and high school readers. I’ve got a few of them here. Some are free, while others are paid. Some focus on reteaching and maintaining reading skills, while others provide some nice prizes as they track their reading. If you don’t like any of them, you can do it yourself with some tips I have at the end. 

Now let’s check some of the best summer reading programs in 2023!

Best Summer Reading Programs: 2023

1. Local Libraries and Libraries Across the County Always, always, always check your local library to find what they do for summer reading programs. Many will offer a few prizes, a reading list, and fun challenges. If your local library isn’t doing much, check out the others in your area or county. For example, Maricopa county set up Maricopa County Reads, which is a summer reading program available across 65 libraries in the county. The program starts June 1st and lasts until August 1st. Last year’s program offered prizes according to points. Kids can earn points by reading and engaging in community events (in person and online). They can acquire prizes like a lemonade coupon, Arizona State Park pass, or a free book. They also have drawings for other prizes.

2. Half Price Books Summer Reading Camp This is a free summer reading program that starts June 1st and ends July 31st. The HPB Summer Reading Camp is all digital, so you don’t need to live close to one of their locations to access their resources. During the summer, they’ll provide reading lists and a variety of activities like this Camp Creativity bundle. If you’re interested, register at their website to get all the updates.

3. Camp Book It! With Pizza Hut This one is also free, with resources available online. Camp Book It is simple: you set a reading goal and keep track of your reading progress. If you reach your goal for the month, you get a personal pizza. This is available for June, July, and August. You can also find some activities as you progress towards your goal. Pssst…teachers, there are some Camp Book It materials for your class too.

4. Barnes & Noble Summer Program Barnes & Noble provides a pretty hands off summer reading program! Just read a certain number of books and complete a reading journal to get a free book. This one is for kids in first grade through 6th grade. You can check out last year’s reading journal for a better idea of the reading goals. There’s not much information on the website, so I suggest you go to your nearest B&N and ask them about how they do their summer reading program.

5. Scholastic’s Home Base App for Summer Reading You can go into the summer zone on Scholastic’s free app. The app provides books, games, music, and opportunities to connect with other readers. Kids read books on the app and earn digital experiences as they continue their “reading streak.” It’s available from May 9th to August 19th. Bonus: Scholastic will donate books as kids keep up their “reading streaks.”

6. AudiobookSYNC for Teens AudiobookSYNC is a summer reading program that runs from April 27th to August 2nd. During this time, teens 13+ years old can enjoy two free audiobooks each week. This will be available via SORA (the student reading app). Once the audiobooks are downloaded, they are yours! One of the books will be Alice Oseman’s Loveless.

Many of these programs are great ways to get your students to read a variety of books, but what if you want something with more structure? What about reading intervention programs that help your child further develop their reading ability? I have a few of those below as well.

7. Fordham University Online Summer Program Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies offers weekly online classes to help kids advance their reading skills over the summer. You can select a program based on the grade level they will enter when summer is over. The programs are focused on helping them gain the skills to be successful in the following school year. Additionally, students enjoy interesting books with exciting characters during their live lessons. To get more information and pricing, check out the classes offered and schedule.

8. Scholar Within For another paid program that focuses on developing reading skills according to grade level, check out the Scholar Within. This one is also all online. This program is designed to help students read and maintain their skills with short lessons four days a week. This program provides a schedule that students follow throughout the summer. You can access these all online and fit into your schedule. This is good for reinforcing and reteaching those foundational skills like phonemic awareness!

If none of these options seem quite right for the kids in your life, you can DIY this summer’s reading challenge!

9. Utilize Local Library Ideas Even if your local library doesn’t have a formal summer reading program, they often will have great ideas for adding some creativity to your summer reading challenge on their website, like offering museum passes. Ask your local library or museums to find out if they do any special events for children in the summer. Another option is to make a summer to do list or visit some landmarks.

10. Focus Summer Reading On Special Tasks Instead of creating a list of books, create a list of activities or tasks — which will include reading a book — that your kid can check off throughout the summer. One example is telling your little reader to become an animal expert. Take a trip to the library, gather materials, and see how they read and read to become the expert you know they can be! A few other project ideas and the corresponding book can be found at the American Library Association website.

11. Create Your Own Summer Reading Bingo Card You can find summer reading bingo cards online, or you can make a list of the types of books, genres, and authors that your child could benefit from. Better yet, have them create the list and make the bingo card together. A few examples are: read a book about a real person, read a book that takes place in a cold setting, and read a book about friends. You can download this one or use it for some inspiration!

12. Plan a Book Scavenger Hunt This is a great idea to get your child in the library. You can create a book scavenger hunt where your kid must find certain books that match a certain description. Once they’ve accomplished the task, they could be rewarded by reading that book. Schedule a scavenger hunt every week or month of the summer to inspire more reading and increase knowledge of the library. Not sure where to start? Here are a few great scavenger hunts that you can do with older kids. Choose between exploring the fiction or nonfiction section. There are so many opportunities to personalize this and simply educate your child about the library and its resources.

In what has been the second story to report the financial costs associated with the ongoing book ban frenzy across America^, Hamilton East Public Library in Noblesville, Indiana, has spent over $300,000 in taxpayer money to review books in their teen collection. This review, pushed by the library board, impacts over 18,000 items and staff suspect half the books in the teen section will be either moved to another area of the library or banned “weeded” all together.

Hamilton East Public Library (HEPL) does not vote for their board members. Various elected leaders across the district are responsible for appointing seats when they become vacant; in the case of Hamilton East Public Library, two seats are appointed by Noblesville School Board president, one by Hamilton East School Board president, two by county commissioners, and one by city council. Four vacancies last year meant four new faces–and ideologies–shifted the board’s priorities. One of the biggest names to land a spot? Local conservative pastor Micah Beckwith, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican US Congressman.*

None of the HEPL board members have contact information tying them to the library itself, thus removing their responsibility to the institution and their constituents. Nothing sent to or from board members is able to be accessed via Freedom of Information Act because those rights do not extend to non-government/public email. Indeed, according to policy updated in January 2023, the Board does not need to permit public comment at their meetings, noting there is no legal requirement to do so and that such input from the community could distract them from doing their jobs.

There is not a single way to keep the board, responsible for overseeing one of the biggest public services in the community, accountable to doing that very thing.

In December following the wave of new board appointments, the HEPL board determined it was within their purview to demand a full evaluation of the library collection. They updated the library’s collection development policy, listing themselves as the first line of authority in determining appropriate material for the library.

Anything deemed not “age appropriate” would need to be relocated, if not removed. Of course, what “age appropriate” means has shifted throughout the process, creating an ever-shifting target for what books can or cannot remain in the teen section. Also noteworthy throughout the updated policy are numerous references to “balanced from a variety of sources” as a guide for justifying purchases, suggesting that some actual factual material may not be allowed under the policy if another source–one that’s reputable or not–says it is not true or accurate.

Library workers at HEPL began the process of going through their collections to relocate (and potentially remove) materials which no longer fell under the “age appropriate” guidelines.

Staff members have done this review in addition to their regular work, pulling dozens of books at a time from shelves in the children’s and teen collections to assess whether or not the material was “age appropriate.” They focused on any depictions of nudity, even in relation to books written for young people about their bodies, about puberty, or about reproduction.

But the board was not satisfied at the pace the librarians worked, despite having reviewed 1,000 titles since January. Their guidelines, muddy as they were in defining “age appropriate,” were not clear enough and so at the April 27, 2023 board meeting, the HEPL board decided to update the collection development policy again.

Now, books which have any profanity or even hint at “illegal activities” are subject to being moved or removed all together. This puts even more pressure on the already overburdened library staff and puts the financial onus on the public, who will be footing the estimated $300,000 costs to satisfy the short-term desires of a partisan board.

So in other words, the following types of books would be rendered “inappropriate” in any section of the library designated for those under the age of 18:

• Books about the Holocaust
• Books about any war, at any time, at any point in history
• Books about sexual assault
• Books about the KKK (of which Hamilton County itself has a shameful connection–doubtful “past” is the correct term here)
• Books about 9/11
• Books about the transition from high school to college (they’re going to cover personal safety!)
• Any books under the murder mystery or true crime genre
• Books about dogs or chickens

Anyone putting two and two together knows the real goal is to ensure that books about Black Lives Matter or about ongoing racial violence in the wake of terrorism were the true targets with some of these, but alas, HEPL noted pretty clearly in the April collection policy that weeding is “based on these criteria without regard to viewpoint’s [sic] expressed in the material.”

HEPL is a public library, and this is not the only public library bearing the brunt of a right-wing push to drain public funds from institutions that serve the good of a whole, diverse community. Indeed, continuing to believe the false premise that books being banned from schools can just be picked up at the public library does even more damage to the realities faced by those working in these facilities. The more money wasted by incompetent, unprofessional boards without any actual background–or interest in learning the background of–public services, the less trust the public puts into their libraries and the fewer funds they’ll receive come time to vote for renewal. It is a long game, but it is one right-wing folks are good at, seeing even “good liberals” like Stephen King continue to ignore the truth of what’s going on in order to get a viral tweet and some attention for himself.

Library workers, who once had roles of connecting people with a world of information, are now put in the role of censors of that very information. If they don’t follow the rules laid out by the board, they risk their jobs and their livelihoods, not to mention their reputations, since this kind of news would be made freely available to anyone who would want to know about the naughty librarians complicity in “grooming” agendas.+ If they do follow the rules, they fail to do their jobs as professionals and fail to serve their entire communities, not just the ones that the board believes exist.

The library director estimates the new policies will require 8,000 hours of staff time between reviewing every book–this will now require reading every title cover to cover to be in compliance with the hyper-specific lists of words and themes no longer permitted in collections for those under 18–and moving the books and furniture to accommodate the changes.

^Lee’s Summit School District (MO) has already spent $19,000 this school year on reviewing books being challenged by a small, but vocal, contingent of aggrieved book crisis actors. They have only worked through half of the titles up for review.

*Beckwith was appointed by Hamilton County Councilman Fred Glynn, currently running for mayor of Carmel and whose wife is a founding member of a private “Classical Academy,” called Valor which retains a list of what they deem “quality literature.” As of writing, Valor Academy in a legal battle with Carmel Clay Public Schools over the use of a former elementary school within the district. Through developing their academy as a “charter” school via the Indiana legal guidelines, they are able to attempt to acquire the facility. The private, for-profit “Classical” academy is seeking to utilize the tax-funded facility for their facility. Valor has ties to Hillsdale College, which has played a significant role in the right-wing frenzy to vilify and defund public schools.

+Some of the information for this story came from an Indy Star article. I am paywalled from the story though, and another source had to send me a .pdf. Meanwhile, anyone who cheers the ending of this public library or schools like Lee’s Summit–the article linked in the ^ note is also paywalled–can share their information widely and freely, further emphasizing that the news media is complicit in book banning. You need to pay you writers, but when democracy is dying behind a paywall and people have no idea what is happening in your own community because you do not freely share that information, you can’t be surprised why. It’s you.

At least for the time being, the board hasn’t decided to remove access to the IndyStar news from HEPL cardholders, but it’s only a matter of time. Students might be able to access stories about the violence they themselves perpetuate.