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Let’s close out the year with one last roundup of library news. Here’s what you need to know before 2025 arrives.
“Hour upon hour, residents marched to the lectern—grandparents, home-schoolers, veterans, teachers, merchants, farmers, students—an unlikely cross-section of this little community united in one mission: defending their public library against what they saw as a hostile takeover by the Warren County Board of Supervisors. It didn’t work. The all-Republican board voted 4-1 early Wednesday to take greater control over Samuels Public Library, which was honored as Virginia’s 2024 Library of the Year but has clashed with conservative county leaders over LGBTQ-themed books and now finds its future plunged into uncertainty.” The Samuels Public Library just keeps taking hit after hit after hit.
The Illinois anti-book ban law has led some school districts to forsake grants in favor of “maintaining local control” over the books on school shelves. One superintendent said, “There were some value statements in that document [ALA Bill of Rights] that just didn’t align with my school board, my district.” For real?
With Utah’s statewide book bans, two (2) school districts have steered the conversation. You read that right. Two. Once again, it’s a tiny number of (parents, residents, schools) driving the decisions for the entire group.