When it comes to book banning, litigation dominates the headlines, and understandably so. There are fundamental constitutional issues at stake in this current wave of book banning, as a federal judge in Arkansas noted in his decision this week in Crawford County. But as we first reported last month, it's a big deal that Penguin Random House has taken the fight for the freedom to read further upstream into the political realm, hiring a full-time, senior level policy manager in Rosalie Stewart.
Over at Slate, Laura Miller has an excellent Q&A with Stewart, talking about her new role, and why it's so important that freedom to read advocates continue to pursue litigation—but also get deeper into the legislative process.
"Litigation has been particularly effective in actively swatting down attempts at censorship. But this moment calls for something a bit different," Stewart told Slate. "We really need to build a political movement. We have to make it clear to these politicians who want to demonize our teachers, demonize our librarians, demonize our kids by telling them that their experiences are not welcome on the shelves of the library—they need to understand that there are political consequences for that, and that the American people are not with them on that."
As Publishers Weekly reported this week, a federal judge in Arkansas has ordered the Crawford County Public Library in Arkansas to stop segregating books deemed inappropriate by some local residents into special "social sections," and to return the books to general circulation. U.S. district court judge P.K. Holmes III held that "it is indisputable" that the creation and maintenance of the library’s so-called "social sections" was "motivated in substantial part by a desire to impede users’ access to books containing viewpoints that are unpopular or controversial in Crawford County."
For more background on the case (and other book banning developments in Arkansas), check out Tess Vrbin's reporting for the Arkansas Advocate.
And the Saline Courier also reports on the decision in Arkansas, with comments from Patricia Hector, library director at the time, who refused to move the books and was subsequently fired.
"I’m thrilled to see justice prevail in the court case against banning or moving library materials in Crawford County because certain people disagree with the material’s viewpoint," Hector said. "It is what I maintained all along during the fight with the Saline County Quorum Court over their resolution that I move or ban books. I’ll be looking for an apology from them for creating a situation where our library staff and I were put in an untenable position. It did a great deal of damage to our community and was completely unnecessary. Don’t let a political party run the library. Don’t let the county judge run the library. Let the Library Board run the library. Full stop."
In Georgia, ARTS ATL has a report on Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale, who has ordered the removal of dozens of books. "On September 19, just in time for Banned Books Week and for the second time since the 2024–2025 school year began, he announced a slate of book bans at a work session for the Cobb County School Board," the report states. "The six titles included five books from Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series, along with David Ball’s historical novel Ironfire. He had already added 19 titles to CCSD’s list of banned books and signaled he will continue as part of a district-wide book review."
NJ Spotlight News reports that the state's anti–book banning bill, the “Freedom to Read Act,” has passed out of the Senate's education committee. The bill directs school boards not to exclude books from its collection solely because of the origin, background, or views of the material, or because an individual finds it offensive, has narrowly passed the New Jersey senate’s education committee. Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Hunterdon), a cosponsor of the bill who chaired Monday’s committee meeting, said it could be up for a vote in the full Senate before the end of October.
The Bay Area Reporter reports that California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed legislation outlawing the banning of LGBTQ books from public library shelves. Known as the California Freedom to Read Act, the legislation takes effect January 1.
Over at Book Riot, Erica Ezeifedi and Danika Ellis are filling in for Kelly Jensen and doing the censorship news round-up, which includes an item on how the U.S. book banning playbook has crossed the border into Canada.
In Montana, the Daily Inter Lake has a piece on a library employee who hosted her own Banned Books Week display outside a branch of the Flathead County Library, where local officials have banned Banned Books Week.
The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) this week announced the publication of "The State of U.S. Academic Libraries: Findings from the ACRL 2023 Annual Survey." This report focuses on U.S. academic libraries and the results reflect the 1,414 responding institutions in 2023.
Rolling Stone has a fascinating look at the Internet Archive and the lawsuit it is facing over its Great 78 program to digitize and share vintage sound recordings. "To many, the Internet Archive is its own kind of sanctuary—a vestige of a bygone internet built on openness and access, a Silicon Valley standout interested not in series funding or shareholder value, but the preservation of any piece of the cultural record it can get," the report states. "But to the corporations and people that own the copyrights to large swaths of that record, the Internet Archive is like a pirate ship stuffed with digital plunder. "
And finally this week, the Washington Post has an interesting look at libraries, using a YouGov survey to explore Americans' attitudes toward libraries. The data mostly tracks with the stats we already know, including numbers that suggest that libraries don't compete with book sales so much as enhance them.
"It seems bookstores and libraries complement each other more than they compete," the article notes. "A near-unanimous 92% of Americans with a favorable attitude toward bookstores also have a favorable attitude toward libraries. About 58% of U.S. readers get at least some of their books from libraries, and the more you read, the more you rely on them. Of the 17% of Americans who read fewer than five books (but not zero) over the past three years, only 22% relied on libraries for at least half of their books. On the other hand, 7% of you have read more than 100 books since 2021, and you all were about twice as likely to get at least half of them from the library."
The Week in Libraries is a weekly opinion and news column. News, tips, submissions, questions or comments are welcome, and can be submitted via email. Previous columns can be viewed here.
