Library and Book Ban News 4-4-2025

This week’s library challenges and book banning news

This graphic is courtesy of The Authors Guild

Hello Friends,

If you are still aware of the days of the week—if they haven’t all become a single pot of WTF stew—you are right, it isn’t Sunday yet. I’ve decided to separate my library challenge and book bans news each week into a weekday post. It’s gotten to be a lot, and I feel the Sunday posts are too long.

So during the week, hopefully each Friday, I will post the library challenge and book ban news. Sunday posts will continue to be about books (including book reviews) and the writing life and will include the usual audio recordings.

Goodbye Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) staff was fired on Monday following the Trump Administration’s Executive Order.

From Every Library:

While on leave, the staff are prohibited from continuing their duties. All employees were required to turn in government phones and other property before leaving the building, and their email accounts are now disabled. This means that libraries and museums will no longer be able to contact IMLS for updates about the funding they rely on. Work on processing 2025 grants and 2026 applications has ceased entirely, and the status of previously awarded grants is now unclear.

Without staff to administer these programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated.We need you to send an email to your governors and federal legislators to stop this attack!

Then, click to share it on Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin!

Note/update: by Thursday, yes, all grants were terminated.

3 Ways to Stand Up for Free Speech and Libraries From the Authors Guild

Library and book challenge and ban news

State board delays vote on removing more books from South Carolina public schools From CBS News 2

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCBD) – A decision that could have made South Carolina the nation’s leader in state-mandated school book bans has been put on hold.

The State Board of Education voted Tuesday to postpone consideration of whether to remove 10 books from public school libraries and classrooms after several board members raised concerns about the review process. …

In this case, the challenge to the 10 titles originated from one parent in Beaufort County. That same parent has sought to have more than 90 titles pulled from public school shelves statewide.

Critics argued that ceding that power to one person is a problem, especially when the outcome would impact hundreds of thousands of students.

The ten books are:

• Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

• Lucky by Alice Sebold

• Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Note: I made a defense of Living Dead Girl in a previous post.

• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

• Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas

• Identical by Ellen Hopkins

• Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

• Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie

• Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Note: I made a defense of Ellen Hopkins in my post on Crank last week.

NC bill would ban books on gender, sexuality for young students allow prosecution of teachers and staff from CBS 17 News

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — A bill in the North Carolina General Assembly looks to remove certain books around gender identity and sexuality.

The bill bans books considered to have harmful material for students in kindergarten through sixth grade and requires parental consent for students to get access to those books if they’re in seventh grade or older.

Additionally, the bill would allow school teachers or staff to be criminally prosecuted if they distribute certain materials to students, including books around gender identity and sexuality.

Democrats fear more book bans as House panel advances new bill from Florida Politics

Florida’s push to remove books from school libraries has made national headlines in recent years, and now Democrats fear a new bill could remove some of the defenses that School Boards have to fight back.

Rep. Doug Bankson’s bill (HB 1539) would prohibit School Boards from considering a book’s serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value when deciding if the material can remain on shelves.

A school would need to remove the books within five school days if a parent, or a county resident who doesn’t have kids at the school, complains.

Rightwing groups across US push new bans to limit ‘obscene’ books in libraries from The Guardian

Opponents of such bills argue that they would actually hinder individual rights because the proponents would be imposing their beliefs on parents and children who do not share their views. Those campaigning for the restrictions say it would prevent children from being exposed to what they label sexually explicit and obscene content and increase parental rights.

There are at least 112 proposed state bills concerning school – and public – libraries that seek to expand the definition of what is deemed obscene or “harmful to minors” and to limit librarian staff’s ability to determine which books are in their collections, according to the American Library Association.

"Reading builds empathy": The case for saving America's libraries

This article discusses each of the seven articles in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, adopted on June 19, 1939, as a response to book burnings in Nazi Germany.

It’s worth reading in its entirety. Here’s a bit about the first article on censorship:

“Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves,” reads Article I. “Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background or views of those contributing to their creation.” …

“People who are in library leadership, on boards, and certainly librarians even today, are not interested in limiting, shaping, prescribing how that creative and generative expression should be had,” says John Chrastka, Executive Director and founder of the non-profit advocacy organization EveryLibrary. “They're just interested in making sure that everybody's got a fair shake to get to it.”

This may be why the Trump administration is set on starving our nation’s libraries to death, or close enough to it.

Librarians Are Mad As Hell At The Trump Administration. They Think You Should Be, Too. From HuffPost

On Monday, the Institute of Museum and Library Services placed its entire staff on administrative leave at the Trump administration’s behest ― a move that comes two weeks after the president proposed eliminating the IMLS as part of his ongoing efforts to slash the federal government’s workforce and funding.

That matters to local librarians because the majority of libraries’ federal funding comes from the IMLS. Of the agency’s $290 million budget, about $160 million goes directly to the nation’s libraries, where it’s used to develop literacy programs, workforce training and civic engagement initiatives. Museums and archives get a cut of IMLS funding, too.

“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,” [Nancy Schram, a public librarian in Ventura, California] said.

Iowa educators ‘relieved’ at latest court block on school book ban From Iowa Capital Dispatch

Some districts won’t replace books removed under 2023 law

A judge last week placed a preliminary injunction against part of Senate File 496. The law, which the Iowa Legislature passed in 2023, prohibits school libraries from providing books deemed not age appropriate and primarily focuses on any book that includes “sex acts.”

Christy Hickman, general counsel for the Iowa State Education Association and representing ISEA as a plaintiff, said she was “incredibly relieved for our members.” Those members include educators at all levels. Teachers now “wouldn’t have to be concerned about their employment or their licensure being in jeopardy in the event they didn’t interpret this incredibly vague law incorrectly,” she said. …

Locher wrote in his ruling that the law “places the burden on local school districts and school officials to determine whether a book is permitted” and that “this is the whole point of the law’s penalty provisions: local officials and districts are subject to punishment if they get it wrong.”

How Vague Language Is Suppressing Our Rights from The Hilltop (Howard University)

Conservative lawmakers are using vague language to justify censorship, forcing teachers and librarians into self-censorship out of fear, silencing marginalized voices and threatening fundamental freedoms.

Across the nation, a pattern is emerging: legislators are passing laws that rely on vague, emotionally charged language by banning books or curricula categorized as “divisive” or “woke.”

This ambiguity serves as a political weapon, as unclear rhetoric leaves the door open to broad censorship with no clearly defined limits.

These laws advance censorship by pretending to protect children, but in reality, they leave librarians and teachers vulnerable, fanning fear and encouraging self-censorship. And all of this results in fundamental rights being quietly rolled back.