Welcome to the 2025 Library Design Showcase, American Libraries’ annual celebration of new and renovated libraries throughout North America. Today’s libraries are places where people from diverse communities can connect, learn, and grow. The institutions featured in this year’s showcase embody the library’s role as a true third space while honoring local histories and cultures … Continue reading 2025 Library Design Showcase
When she came across a book titled Rabbits: Children’s Animal Fact Book from the publisher Bold Kids, it seemed promising. Eklund hadn’t heard of Bold Kids before, but it offers nearly 500 books on Goodreads and Amazon, and its paperbacks aren’t expensive. Though the catalog showed only the book’s cover—not its interior—she put in the … Continue reading Books by Bots
Award recipients were honored at a June 29 ceremony and reception during ALA’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. This selection represents only some of those recognized in 2025. For a complete list of winners, visit ala.org/awards. Scholastic Library Publishing Award Clare Graham As director of the Malvern–Hot Spring County (Ark.) Library, Graham acts … Continue reading 2025 ALA Award Winners
Currently a PhD candidate in East Asian languages and literatures at Yale, Kuang returns to both fantasy and higher education in Katabasis (August, HarperCollins), a tale of two students in Cambridge’s Department of Analytical Magick who journey to hell in search of their famed, feared, and abruptly deceased advisor, Professor Grimes. American Libraries spoke with … Continue reading Newsmaker: R. F. Kuang
That’s just one of many intriguing tidbits to be learned while visiting the Beltsville, Maryland–based archive, which traces Smokey’s 81-year-and-counting career as the Forest Service’s wildfire prevention mascot. Created in 1944, the now-iconic bear—named after “Smokey Joe” Martin, assistant chief of the New York City Fire Department—was originally depicted so realistically that he scared children, … Continue reading Bookend: The Original Happy Camper
The Librarians (2025) Director: Kim A. Snyder thelibrariansfilm.com Running time: 92 minutes About: The Librarians follows librarians in Florida and Texas as they work to protect children’s rights to access books from challenges like Texas’s Krause List, which targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQ+ stories and has triggered book bans across the … Continue reading The Stacks on Screen
A total of 14,292 people registered for the event, whose programs included many dedicated to anticensorship efforts, programming challenges, funding cuts, and other existential threats. In these dark times, when the very mission of libraries is being scrutinized and politicized, attendees took comfort in collective engagement and critical discussions about intellectual freedom, diversity, and other … Continue reading 2025 Annual Conference Wrap-Up
With more than 600 vendors and a variety of live stages and pavilions, the Library Marketplace showcased products for libraries facing intense new challenges. Services and solutions that focused on libraries’ ongoing needs for efficiency and impact were in high demand. Palpable politics The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) booth, which sat empty … Continue reading Solidarity amid Uncertainty
With The Girl Who Was Too Big for the Page (Philomel Books, April), Davis offers a funny and self-referential take on embracing differences. She talked to American Libraries at the American Library Association’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia about her new book, striving for equitable representation in media, and the roles for which … Continue reading Newsmaker: Geena Davis
Clockwise from top left: Tiwanna Nevels, assistant state librarian at State Library of North Carolina in Raleigh, sits with some of her favorite challenged books in the Big Chair (sponsored by Sage, the Banned Books Week Coalition, and ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans); Amy Hermon, librarian at Royal Oak (Mich.) High School and host of … Continue reading Bookend: Speaking Out
Here are several updates on the attacks against libraries across the US and the ways in which library supporters are pushing back. Hayden fired On May 8, Hayden learned in a two-sentence email from the Trump administration that she had been fired from her position as Librarian of Congress. On June 8, in Hayden’s first interview … Continue reading Five Months into the Trump Presidency
