Scenes from the featured documentaries

The Stacks on Screen

July 28, 2025

  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


Clockwise from top left: Above: Former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; actor George Takei

2025 Annual Conference Wrap-Up

July 23, 2025

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


Bookend: Speaking Out

July 23, 2025

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


Sam Helmick

Why We Show Up

July 23, 2025

As library professionals, we often traffic in the timeless—in books, archives, and community memory. But this year’s ALA Annual Conference reminded us that timing matters, too. At a moment when the core tenets of librarianship—intellectual freedom, the right to read, equitable access to information—are under direct attack across the country, gathering in Philadelphia felt as … Continue reading Why We Show Up


Martin Garnar, director of Amherst College Library, speaks on June 28 at ALA's 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. Photo: Rebecca Lomax/American Libraries

Endangered Expression

June 30, 2025

Martin Garnar, director of Amherst College Library, highlighted the ways that libraries are facing government funding cuts and challenges to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activities. Of particular note are Title VI challenges against universities. According to Garnar, Title VI—which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin—is being used to challenge … Continue reading Endangered Expression


Blair Solon

Censorship Can Happen Anywhere

June 30, 2025

A panel of academic librarians, moderated by Zara T. Wilkinson, reference and instruction librarian at Rutgers (N.J.) University Libraries, discussed the direct and indirect threats that book bans and challenges pose to academic librarians in “Can It Happen Here? Book Challenges, Censorship, and Academic Freedom in Academic Libraries,” a June 29 session at the American … Continue reading Censorship Can Happen Anywhere



Theresa Chmara, general counsel of the American Library Association's Freedom to Read Foundation, at LibLearnX in January 2020. Photo: Rebecca Lomax/American Libraries

The Case for Intellectual Freedom

June 29, 2025

Theresa Chmara, general counsel for ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation, and Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, dove into some of these cases and the legal arguments underlying them at “Censorship in the Courts: Current Litigation throughout the United States,” a session of ALA’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. “One … Continue reading The Case for Intellectual Freedom


Rachel Payne, Brooklyn Public Library coordinator of early childhood services, at “Free Children Read Freely: Banned Books in Story Times for Young Children” at the American Library Association's 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. Photo: Rebecca Lomax/American Libraries

Free Children Read Freely

June 29, 2025

A panel of librarians and authors dug into this slice of the broader fight against censorship at “Free Children Read Freely: Banned Books in Story Times for Young Children,” a June 28 session of the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. Pat Scales, a retired school librarian and author of … Continue reading Free Children Read Freely


A Delicate Dance

June 28, 2025

“We’re trying to uphold the tenets of intellectual freedom, we’re trying to have diverse collections, we’re trying to make sure people see themselves in the library,” said Kimberly B. Knight, director of Virginia Beach (Va.) Public Library. “[Staffers] want us to fight, they want us to stand up.… But we also want to speak strategically, … Continue reading A Delicate Dance


Banning the Book Bans

June 2, 2025

That relief has been a long time coming for Hickson, who retired late last year from her job as media specialist at North Hunterdon High School in Annandale, New Jersey. Just three years earlier, she had been called a pedophile and a pornographer at a public school-board meeting by a group of parents demanding to … Continue reading Banning the Book Bans


ALA Interim Executive Director Leslie Burger's headshot

The Next Chapter

June 2, 2025

If you haven’t visited Philadelphia recently (or ever), you will be amazed by all it has to offer as a walkable conference city. Its huge convention center—at more than 2 million square feet—is adjacent to many of ALA’s 35 conference hotels. And the historic Reading Terminal Market, just next door, is a bustling public market … Continue reading The Next Chapter