School Librarians Are Altering Illustrations to Avoid Book Challenges and Other Library News

Katie McLain Horner Dec 13, 2024

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Katie McLain Horner

Contributing Editor

Katie's parents never told her "no" when she asked for a book, which was the start of most of her problems. She has an MLIS from the University of Illinois and works full time as a Circulation & Reference Manager in Illinois. She has a deep-rooted love of all things disturbing, twisted, and terrifying and takes enormous pleasure in creeping out her coworkers. When she's not at work, she's at home watching the Cubs with her cats and her cardigan collection. Other hobbies include scrapbooking, introducing more readers to the Church of Tana French, and convincing her husband that she can, in fact, fit more books onto her shelves. Twitter: @kt_librarylady

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What’s happening in libraries as we start to close out the year? Let’s find out.

Library Updates

The Urban Libraries Council released its annual “Library Insights” survey, showing positive trends and challenges for its member libraries.

Could AI help catalog thousands of digital library books in the Library of Congress? (To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum, your librarians were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they never stopped to consider if they should.)

Hoopla has announced a BingePass partnership with Impactful Group to bring mental health literacy resources to libraries.

Speaking of health, libraries are offering free health and wellness classes across the US.

How the Salt Lake City Public Library is filling the gaps in homeless services.

Libraries in Japan are trialing book sales amid a decline in the number of physical bookstores.

Why libraries need librarians.

Censorship Updates

How to explain book bans to people who want to understand.

Trump’s promises to conservatives raise fears of more book bans in the US.

Under pressure, some school librarians are altering illustrations to avoid book challenges. This is absolutely bonkers.

A look at the woman whose crusade against inappropriate reading material created the blueprint for today’s Moms for Liberty.

This article is paywalled, but it’s important: After the conservative “non-profit” organization America First Legal raised over $80K to help cover Llano County’s (TX) growing legal costs, the county says that they haven’t seen a dime from the organization.

The authors of And Tango Makes Three are seeking a settlement in the Escambia County School District lawsuit.

Book ban extremists in Alabama are upset when anti-censorship groups refer to them as “extremists.”

Arkansas House Democrats are laying out the agenda for the 2025 legislative session, including a bill to ban book bans in the state.

In the wake of a sweeping manga ban in Tennessee, as well as in other states, US readers are left worrying over the industry’s future.

The board president of the Christian County Library (MO) resigned at the beginning of a recent meeting, citing mental health and concerns about the big push to label LGBTQ books in the library and the harm it could do to children if LGBTQ views were singled out and “othered.”

The Iowa State Board of Education is finalizing the process that schools will use to ban books that contain supposedly inappropriate content.

Utah has banned its 14th book from schools statewide.

Pastor John Amanchukwu of North Carolina has shown up to a recent Albuquerque school board meeting to rail against “perverse” books. In a school system located two time zones away from his own community.

Two Moms for Liberty allies have been elected to the Clark County School Board (NV).