Sheryl Stoeck

A Home for History

June 29, 2025

“I propose it as: Let me do some of your work for you,” explained Podmore, librarian at Clark High School. They shared history programs that have worked for them in “Hyping History: Highlighting History in a High School Library,” a June 29 session at the American Library Association’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia. … Continue reading A Home for History



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 of 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


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


Youth Matters, by Allison Frick and Sara DeSabato

Inclusive and Affirming

June 2, 2025

That’s why, as a school librarian and a teacher, we felt strongly about helping our school, Friends Select School in Philadelphia, create a Lower School Gender and Sexuality Education committee in 2017. Prior to this, our school didn’t have standardized lessons for gender and sexuality; teachers addressed these topics according to knowledge and comfort, and … Continue reading Inclusive and Affirming


Award winner Jessica Gleason speaking at the awards ceremony podium

Meet the 2025 I Love My Librarian Award Honorees

May 1, 2025

On January 24, the American Library Association (ALA) presented the awards as part of the LibLearnX conference in Phoenix (watch the video here). Among the recipients were four academic librarians, three public librarians, and three school librarians, each nominated by community members for their expertise, dedication, and impact. Awardees received $5,000, as well as complimentary … Continue reading Meet the 2025 I Love My Librarian Award Honorees


Fourth-grade students at George A. Jackson Elementary School in Jericho, New York, work on podcasts. The project was spearheaded by their librarian and teachers.Photo: Lauren Kawasaki

Amplifying Voices

May 1, 2025

At George A. Jackson Elementary School in Jericho, New York, educators wanted to help students discover the power of their voices. During the 2023–2024 school year, as part of a unit about natural hazards and disasters, 4th-graders used library and classroom time to create podcasts about their research. After National Public Radio (NPR) recognized one … Continue reading Amplifying Voices


Collage of government directives and MLIS acting director Keith Sonderling

100 Days into the Trump Administration

April 30, 2025

In response, the American Library Association (ALA), along with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. On April 30, a federal court hearing will rule on ALA’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the further dismantling of IMLS. Meanwhile, censorship attempts persist, IMLS staffers … Continue reading 100 Days into the Trump Administration


Collage of people and topics mentioned in this article: Colleen Shogan, former archivist of the United States; the National Archives logo; text of executive orders; and books Freckleface Strawberry and No Truth Without Ruth

Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Libraries

March 19, 2025

While the legality of many of these actions is still being decided by the courts, librarians, archivists, and other information professionals have been working through the confusion to preserve access to information. Below are several examples of the challenges libraries have faced over the past two months and the ways in which librarians and advocates have … Continue reading Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Libraries


Headshot of Sarah Tribelhorn

Assessing AI

March 3, 2025

Training and operating AI tools like large language models, for instance, require substantial computational power. Generating one image could use as much energy as charging an average smartphone, according to a 2023 study by AI developer Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the first study of its kind to measure the carbon and … Continue reading Assessing AI


Youth Media Award Book cover images

2025 Youth Media Award Winners

January 27, 2025

A complete list of the 2025 award winners follows. John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature: The First State of Being, written by Erin Entrada Kelly, is the 2025 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Four Newbery Honor Books also were named: Across … Continue reading 2025 Youth Media Award Winners