The Institute for Museum and Library Services Is Now a Propaganda Machine: Book Censorship News, March 21, 2025

It also very likely that one of Trump’s earliest campaign promises to combat any education around the ideas of mis- and dis- information will be seen through to their end. A populace that understands how to navigate information is one less susceptible to propaganda.

One reason DOGE and Trump may not have immediately gutted the IMLS as was anticipated is that it is a fantastic tool for the regime as they prepare to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. A January Executive Order lists the IMLS as one of the agencies which will help develop and promote activities to celebrate. Besides the obvious ability to use the IMLS to push out propaganda about the administration and the celebration, this is an opportunity for Trump and his team to rework the narrative about libraries popular in his constituency. Libraries celebrating him and his presidency? They’re good things, actually, great things. What will go unsaid is that libraries have found themselves unable to push back or state otherwise because of the long-prevailing lie that libraries must remain neutral and because of the reality that saying anything contrary could result in annihilation.

Something else worth considering with this rebranding of the IMLS? New strings which may be attached to current funding models.

One of the tactics that has played out in book banning over the last several years is local libraries demanding more local control over what books their patrons have access to and in order to control the flow of information to a given library’s patrons, interlibrary loan materials on certain topics have been curtailed to users. Many states rely on IMLS funds to run interlibrary loan programs. It would be far from out of the question for there to be strings attached to what kinds of materials can be shared within and beyond state lines. Systems allowing patrons to share books featuring “trans issues” (see here) could be at risk of having funds revoked.

We may also see IMLS funds that help provide digital materials to libraries through tools like Libby requiring those tools to censor certain materials that do not align with the administration’s purported values. Again, we’ve seen this tactic before (see here and here).

IMLS is going to function in an entirely new way, and it will be libraries and their users — especially the most marginalized, the youngest, the most rural — bearing the brunt of the changes. It is certain more changes to this agency are in the works, including the futures of the 70 full-time staff members who are now subject to the directives of the executive branch of government and DOGE, rather than the taxpayers, whose money they are entrusted to steward in projects that serve them.

It is very likely the changes at IMLS will go underreported and that’s no fault of the agency nor of those trying to cover the dismantling of American democracy. The changes were announced the same day as the dissolution of the Department of Education, an institution with far more money and name recognition. This administration is moving fast and breaking things to keep citizens — and our judicial system — overwhelmed and unable to react.

Turning an agency dedicated to providing funds that help public institutions do work that educates into a machine to “preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country” begs plenty of questions, including who those core values belong to, what those core values are, and who is included among the referenced Americans at all.

Book Censorship News: March 21, 2025

• The committee which begins the process for removing books from all public schools in South Carolina has recommended banning 10 more books, all of which are written by women. The final decision will come April 1. These complaints came from a woman who didn’t get her way in trying to ban the books in Beaufort County Schools.
• Elizabethtown Schools (PA) are considering updating their library policies to ban more books. “Sexually explicit content” is the new code for queer, and it’s a convenient way to get around using the phrase “obscenity.”
• Siuslaw High School (OR) banned the book Flamer following a student complaint.
• The Las Cruces Coalition of Conservatives in Action wants to have 95 books banned in Las Cruces, New Mexico, schools. No agenda to see here, folks.
• “State Rep. Daniel Alders (R-Tyler) has filed a bill that would prohibit people under 18 years old from checking out sexually-explicit library books unless they are accompanied by an adult. Libraries would need to review their books and remove or relocate them if they are viewed as sexually explicit. If the law were to pass, libraries that do not comply may lose funding and face up to a $10,000 fine per violation. HB 3225 contains an exemption for religious texts.” This would effectively ban anyone under 18 from public libraries. Anything could be sexually explicit to these sex-obsessed Republican legislators.
• Changes being proposed in Florida would give parents more rights to get books banned in schools.
• The Platteville School Board (WI) agreed with the committee’s decision to move All Boys Aren’t Blue out of the district middle school and into the high school, where middle school students can still request it through interlibrary loan. Five additional books/magazines will remain in the middle school where they already are.
• Arkansas Senator Dan Sullivan is trying to eliminate the State Library Board…still. One of the reasons for this call still being in play is that several folks who are brainwashed by rhetoric on the right and who don’t care about professionalism want the State Library Board to disaffiliate from the American Library Association (a thing right-washed state legislatures keep trying to do).
• Related, a bill to defund Arkansas libraries that are affiliated with the American Library Association failed this week.
• YIKES and also not YIKES at all because we’ve known this to be the goal all along: “Lynchburg Republicans [VA] want city council to create a library board that would oversee operations of the city’s two-branch library system, with the hope the board would use an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on ‘ending radical indoctrination’ in schools as a model for its oversight of the city’s libraries.”
• Alamance County Library (NC) is waiting for final approval before stickering their books for “parental guidance.” This is still censorship, and more, it’s a tremendous liability for the library. The minute one parent doesn’t like that a book was not stickered (or was stickered) will open them up to a lawsuit.
• Traverse Area District Library (MI) has a request to remove Grandad’s Pride because it has LGBTQ+ content. The district review committee will not be getting rid of the book.
• Pine-Richland School District (PA) passed their controversial book banning — sorry, collection and review — policy this week. The policy will give the book banners a lot to get excited about…especially because the board simply empowered themselves here.
• Higley Unified Schools (AZ) are rolling along with a 23 MEMBER (!!!) committee deciding what books can and cannot be used supplementally in classrooms and whether or not they need a permission slip. Here’s the latest update.
• A thoughtful and important piece on the new policy in St. Francis Schools (MN), which has required removal of dozens of books since those titles don’t meet the appropriateness guidelines set out by BookLooks (it also explains what will take the place of BookLooks in district book removal decisions, don’t worry). Recall: Minnesota has an anti-book ban law, applicable to schools.
• A new Florida bill wants to remove the “literary value” part of the Miller Test in determining whether or not books should be removed from libraries.
• Rutherford County Library System (TN) just banned any books “promoting” transgender issues to minors. THIS IS A PUBLIC LIBRARY. At the same meeting this week, the board banned Me & My Dysphoria Monster.
• Parents arguing their First Amendment rights were violated in book removals in St. Johns County Schools (FL) have appealed the case after it was dismissed by a judge in January.
• “Since fall 2023, trustees have approved lists of new library books at monthly board meetings — a practice not employed by most school districts, which commonly rely on district librarians to vet and approve books.” This is Mansfield Independent School District (TX). Makes sense to have elected officials determine which books can be in libraries, rather than trained professional librarians. This is what the STATE wants to happen in every school.
• The ongoing battle over whether or not young people in Stillwater Schools (MN) can have access to LGBTQ+ books written for them. Recall: Minnesota has an anti-book ban law, applicable to schools.
• Some board members in Williamson County Schools (TN) are angry about some passages in a textbook used for AP Psychology courses. Why? Because they talk about gender and sexuality as real things. One member of the board says it simply doesn’t reflect their community values, which are apparently bigotry and ignorance. The board deferred the vote on this text, but they vetoed several of the top rated science books recommended and went with the poorest rated one.
• A handful of Democrats are speaking up about the book purges happening in Department of Defense Education Activity schools.
• “Idaho can enforce a law that prevents independent schools from distributing books the state deems ‘harmful to minors,’ after a federal judge denied their bid to preliminarily block the statute.” Sigh.
• Elizabeth School District (CO), which pulled several books off shelves, got sued, then put some of the books back on shelves for those involved in the lawsuit, just got an order from the judge that the books must be put back on shelves for all to access.
• Suffield’s Kent Memorial Library (CT) is considering a new policy that would only allow books about “gender ideology” into the YA section for young readers…and only if “balanced” with books that refute the idea there are more than two genders. This is disgusting.
• Just…read this piece about the challenges faced by St. Tammany Parish (LA) in even talking about the fact voters will decide whether or not to keep funding the library. We are an embarrassingly selfish country, and so many are brainwashed by right-wing rhetoric even when it directly harms them.
• The Columbia County Board of Commissioners (GA) spent time being mad about library books this week (note it’s the county board and not the library board). Same two panels from Gender Queer are paraded out to make some kind of point, as always. The story is paywalled, so I can’t tell you much more.
• In Warren County, Virginia, there’s an interesting story about commissioners obtaining an unsolicited bid to take over the Samuels Public Library. This library has been under constant attack for years from under 100 people associated with a local church, and the latest moves have involved the county creating its own library board to oversee the actual library board. Now this.
• There’s a new study showing that book bans increase their circulation, and it’s being pushed as some kind of positive piece. First, it’s the top banned books that see increased circulation in the same way it’s the top banned books that sell more copies once banned. It’s not something to cheer about — it’s still overlooking 95% of banned books that see no additional circulation. Second, these bans increase donations to Republicans at a higher rate than the increase in circulation because Republicans then use book banning as an issue to campaign and fundraise on. So it’s an interesting study, but it’s not actually anything good. At all.