Welcome to Check Your Shelf. An enormous change in my professional life is on the horizon, as our current director is leaving for a new job, and I have just been offered the position of Interim Director at my current library! This is a development that I never would have imagined a month and a half ago, but it’s honestly the best possible situation for me to make this leap. I know I’m going to have a LOT to learn, but I’ve also got a great team of coworkers to help me out.
So let’s talk about other libraries!
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
The San Francisco Public Library is being accused of censorship and Islamophobia over a mural project, which features a mural titled “Arab Liberation” and features signs with slogans such as “Zionism is racism.”
An opinion piece on the controversy with the ImagineIF Libraries in Montana: library trustees and commissioners aren’t upholding their fiduciary duty.
Puerto Rican librarians call for greater investment in library sciences and infrastructure to serve public needs.
Libby is stuck between libraries and publishers in the eBook war.
Cool Library Updates
The Pokémon Company is seeking a Pokémon historian to create a Pokémon archive and museum.
Kansas City Public Library has made nearly 1000 laptops available for checkout.
The New Brunswick Public Library System is looking to hire a social worker to help connect patrons with vital community resources.
10-year-old Ana Marron’s mural now has a home in the Children’s Reading Nook at the Camarena Memorial Library in California.
Ukrainian libraries are sending free books to refugees.
Worth Reading
Key takeaways from the 2022 Urban Library Trauma Study.
An ode to librarians as they come under siege. Look…I appreciate the appreciation, but I think the time has come where we don’t need any more fluff pieces. What we need are more people to contact their local libraries directly and show up to board meetings to champion the work that library employees are doing right now, and to fight back against the people who are preventing us from doing our damn jobs.
A brief look at the shortage of school librarians in the Chicago Public School system.
How Western Library became the first free public library in the nation for Black Americans.
A look at how Australian libraries are thriving in the digital age.
The 10 largest libraries in the US.
Book Adaptations in the News
Where the Crawdads Sing will tell us if blockbuster novels have a theatrical future.
This was being speculated about for awhile now, but it’s official: M. Night Shyamalan is adapting Paul Tremblay’s novel, The Cabin at the End of the World!
Disney is developing an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.
Freida Pinto is adapting Huma Abedin’s memoir Both/And as a TV series, and will be portraying Abedin in the series as well.
Peter Dinklage has been cast in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
The second teaser trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been released.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Banned & Challenged Books
How to address misinformation and book challenges. There are a couple of good examples in here of how to address these issues directly, either as an educational institution or as an outside support group.
The Corpus Christi American Federation of Teachers gathers to protest the actions of the Concerned Citizens Defending Freedom group, which is working to remove additional books from Texas schools.
A new school board policy being considered by the Southlake Carroll ISD (TX) would not allow any removed books to be reconsidered for at least ten years.
This article is paywalled, but the Broward County (FL) school district donated a large number of LGBTQ books to local organizations, which some speculate is due to the terms of Florida’s recent “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The Sarasota County (FL) school board has been sued over “obscene” library materials. Kelly Jensen has been sounding the alarm about this for awhile, but prepare to see a LOT more expensive lawsuits and appeals being filed at public schools and libraries in the coming months.
Another paywalled article, but Brevard Public School teachers have been told to hold off on putting out classroom libraries as the district examines the terms of Florida’s recent legislation.
5 LGBTQ+ books are being challenged at the Sanibel Public Library (FL) because they were on display in the children’s department.
A Florida atheist petitions to ban the Bible in Miami-Dade and Broward schools.
The V-Word survived an attempted ban at the Lafayette Parish Library but two copies of the book were removed anyway.
New York prisons have banned Heather Ann Thompson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Blood in the Water, saying it might lead to “disobedience.”
After a kid’s biography of RuPaul was questioned in Colchester, CT, a first selectman had called for an inventory of every material in the children’s section, but the library board voted down the order, saying it would take up too much staff time, and that there was already a formal procedure in place for people to use if they were concerned about a particular book.
The Forest Library in Bedford County, Virginia, addresses concerns over an allegedly relocated LGBTQ display.
Moms for Liberty claim they have identified several books in Fauquier County (VA) schools that will “traumatize children and teens,” as well as “facilitate long-term sex-related behavioral problems.”
Moore County (NC) Schools is walking back a new book removal policy that allegedly went into effect without being voted on by the full school board.
An team from the New Hanover County (NC) Sheriff’s Office was asked to investigate claims that the middle schools and high schools were providing obscene and pornographic materials to students, but the DA found that the material was protected under state law and the First Amendment.
Madison County (MS) parents are concerned about the book There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom by Louis Sachar, with one parent saying that “these books” “are leading people astray.”
Fayetteville (AR) Library seeks community participation in an art project celebrating banned and challenged books.
Another lawsuit — this time in Williamson County, Tennessee, with parents filing a lawsuit saying that the school is teaching CRT in opposition to a recent state law.
Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt has called for a special audit of Tulsa Public Schools for a potential mishandling of public funds, as well as the possibility that the schools may have violated the state law prohibiting CRT in schools.
A court has upheld Arizona prisons’ ban on explicit materials for inmates.
The Ashland Public Library saw a crowd of 200-300 people at their most recent board meeting, many of whom were speaking out against several books that they say create an “unsafe environment” for children…Except most of the books are about puberty and age-appropriate sex education, and one of the books is not physically owned by the library.
The ACLU of Ohio alleges that the whole controversy with the book It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn in the Buckeye Valley School District was a violation of the author’s and the students’ First Amendment rights.
This is such a depressing story: the Vinton Public Library in Iowa has closed due to a mass departure of staff and administrators. This article doesn’t mention it, but part of the reason why staff are resigning in droves has been ongoing complaints from the public about LGBTQ staff members, which is just absolutely horrifying.
Controversy continues over two LGBTQ graphic novels at the Dixon (IL) Public Library. (Paywalled article.)
The ACLU is officially investigating the 20+ books that were removed from the Nampa (ID) School District.
A group has started collecting signatures to recall four members of the Boundary County (ID) Library Board in order to “protect children from explicit materials and grooming,” and in protest of the Library’s decision to join ALA, because “the ALA president-elect…is a self-proclaimed Marxist.”
Attendees at a Canadian Drag Queen Story Hour in London, Ontario were attacked by a man carrying a flagpole. No one was physically injured and the man was promptly arrested.
Librarians caught up in vicious anti-LGBTQ cultural book bans are quitting.
Parents: stop harassing librarians who are just doing their jobs.
The new censorship fight at our public libraries.
Books & Authors in the News
Twelve Books announced that it will publish the January 6th Committee’s report once it’s released, in partnership with the New York Times.
Numbers & Trends
Is the book sales boom finally over?
Award News
The 2022 Arthur C. Clarke shortlist has been posted.
The 2022 Orwell Prize winners have been announced.
The Desmond Elliott Prize is on hiatus for 2023 as it attempts to secure funding, and the Sunday Time Short Story Award is in danger of being discontinued.
Pop Cultured
Hulu renewed Only Murders in the Building for a third season.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
TikTok launches its own official book club.
On the Riot
Liberty talks about how organizing her library has helped her brain. It’s a great article, plus it has a fantastic cat photo.
What was the Stratemeyer Syndicate?
The rise of environmental book clubs.
Does reading fiction really increase empathy?
How many words did Shakespeare invent?
7 tips on how to be a better Disability Ally on the bookish internet.
A review of the Fable book club app.
Spelling bees around the world.
Today’s cat photo is a throwback to about a year ago, when Dini absolutely had to snuggle up and show off his tummy. It’s usually a trap when he does this, but he has such a fluffy belly that’s almost impossible NOT to touch it. So I guess I’ll just continue to deal with the scratches and teeth marks because I’ll never learn my lesson.
All right, friends. I’m off till Tuesday. Be good to yourselves.
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.