The Strain Of Censorship On Public Libraries : 1A – NPR

Our new series will feature our favorite authors talking about their work. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images hide caption

Our new series will feature our favorite authors talking about their work.

This summer, a library in Lafayette, Louisiana, was forced to remove a Pride Month display after conservative Christian activists joined its board of directors.

In Iowa, a proposed bill would give city councils the power to overturn librarians' decisions about what books to buy and where they're displayed.

And librarians in Missouri canceled their bookmobile to several schools after a law passed in the state criminalizing anyone who makes visually explicit content available in schools.

So far, the American Library Association has reported 681 challenges to more than 1,600 titles this year. That puts 2022 on track to see the highest number of book challenges in decades.

What future do public libraries and library workers have in this climate of unprecedented censorship? And what role do larger, out-of-state libraries play in combating it?

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom's Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the former director of Boundary County Public Library in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, Kimber Glidden, the Michigan Library Association's Deborah Mikula, author and professor of English, the University of Mississippi, Kiese Laymon, and freelance writer and literary critic, Connor Goodwin all join us for the conversation.

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The Strain Of Censorship On Public Libraries : 1A - NPR