Angela Hursh, manager of engagement and marketing at NoveList and author of the Super Library Marketing website, presents at the American Library Association's 2023 LibLearnX conference in New Orleans on January 28.

Market Your Strengths

January 28, 2023

But what about those libraries that leverage their marketing platforms to head challenges off at the pass? What does it look like when members of the profession decide not to back down? At “No More Neutral: How to Use Marketing to Position Your Library in Challenging Times,” a January 28 session at the American Library … Continue reading Market Your Strengths


2022 Year in Review

January 3, 2023

Uniting against censorship attempts Organized book challenges continued to proliferate. From January through August, 681 attempts to ban or restrict library materials had been made in the US, with 1,651 unique titles targeted. In response to mounting censorship threats, ALA announced in May its Unite Against Book Bans campaign, a coalition with more than 60 … Continue reading 2022 Year in Review


Under Pressure

January 3, 2023

“We had five books that a conservative community member objected to,” she says, referring to LGBTQ books and titles about President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “We have the form to fill out. There’s a process that would work if people would go through it.” Instead, McMahon says, the patron did not file … Continue reading Under Pressure


Rebecca Makkai

Newsmaker: Rebecca Makkai

January 3, 2023

Your first novel, The Borrower, features a children’s librarian and a bright, book-loving 10-year-old. What are your thoughts on the current spate of book challenges in libraries? I’m always so flummoxed by the book-banning discussion because, first of all, what does someone think is going to happen when they try to ban a book? It … Continue reading Newsmaker: Rebecca Makkai


Illustration of a stack of books with a pickaxe

Facing the Challenge

November 1, 2022

Presenters included Kathy Carroll, school librarian at Westwood High School in Blythewood, South Carolina, and 2020–2021 president of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL); Melanie Huggins, executive director of Richland Library in Columbia, South Carolina, and then–PLA president; and Deb Sica, deputy county librarian at Alameda County (Calif.) Library. The session was moderated by … Continue reading Facing the Challenge



American Library Association logo

Book Challenges to Set Record

September 16, 2022

Eight months into 2022, the number of attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities, and public libraries, is on track to exceed record counts from 2021, according to preliminary data released today by ALA in advance of Banned Books Week (September 18–24). Between January 1 and August 31, 2022, ALA documented 681 … Continue reading Book Challenges to Set Record


Photo of ALA Executive Director Tracie D. Hall. Text says "From the Executive Director by Tracie D. Hall"

Librarianship as Resistance

September 1, 2022

In the present age of neo-censorship—which journalist Rohan Jayasekera describes as “a kind of control on opinion that moves beyond the traditional model” (that of the state, the law, and the secret police) to now include “big business, courtrooms, schools, newsrooms [that] block ideas out of habit, or prejudice, or fear”—the contemporary answer to Juvenal’s … Continue reading Librarianship as Resistance



Celeste Ng

Newsmaker: Celeste Ng

July 20, 2022

Ng, who spoke at the American Library Association’s 2022 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., talked with American Libraries about the novel, which calls to mind the not-so-distant past—and the anti–Asian American hate we are seeing today. In Our Missing Hearts, libraries are one of the last remaining sources of truth, as an underground … Continue reading Newsmaker: Celeste Ng


‘We Are Not Okay’

June 26, 2022

Oxley, along with fellow PGCMLS librarian Teresa Miller, co-presented “Queering the Library: Strategically Creating Space for the LGBTQ+ Community” on Sunday, June 26, at the American Library Association’s 2022 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C. Throughout the country, a spate of high-profile challenges and attempts to ban or destroy LGBTQ+ books, including in bookstores … Continue reading ‘We Are Not Okay’


Photo of author Art Spiegelman sitting with arms crossed on table

Newsmaker: Art Spiegelman

June 1, 2022

Spiegelman spoke with American Libraries about book banning, how comic books are used as teaching tools, and the importance of libraries in his life. The recent ban of Maus in Tennessee isn’t its first challenge. What did you think when you heard the news? Well, this was the most prominent. [And] this was much more, … Continue reading Newsmaker: Art Spiegelman