Ebook Censorship Information, March 13, 2026

Library assortment insurance policies govern the who, what, the place, when, why, and the way of supplies arriving and leaving cabinets. Some libraries have a single giant coverage with separate sections masking every little thing from acquisition to deaccession and patron challenges; others keep separate insurance policies that handle these issues. For the sake of ease all through the piece, “coverage” and “insurance policies” confer with the identical factor–guidelines and procedures utilized by libraries to make selections associated to the supplies of their assortment. As librarianship has continued to professionalize and standardize, the gathering coverage has actually change into a software to assist defend the First Modification for each the library and its customers. The primary is to make sure that the supplies are protected and symbolize the entire group they’re to serve. The second is to offer library customers the flexibility to problem supplies they imagine are inappropriate, inaccurate, or irrelevant.

Assortment insurance policies had been developed and used extra following the 1980 election. Then, like right this moment, they weren’t at all times used for good. The 80s had been an period of guide challenges, usually occurring in ways in which had been neither documented nor could possibly be documented as they’re right this moment. That is regardless that, only a decade prior, the Supreme Court docket outlined obscenity by way of the three-pronged Miller Take a look at (1973).

In an older weblog submit, literary luminary Judy Blume units the scene of the place and the way assortment insurance policies in this time period had been first absent, then wielded as instruments for censorship:

Too few colleges had insurance policies in place enabling them to cope with challenged supplies. So what occurred? The domino impact. Faculty directors despatched down the phrase: Something that could possibly be seen as controversial needed to go. Usually books had been quietly faraway from faculty libraries and school rooms or, if seen as potential troublemakers, had been by no means bought within the first place. These selections had been primarily based not on what was finest for the scholars, however what wouldn’t offend the censors.

[…]

A 12 months later, when a brand new guide choice coverage was launched forbidding vulgar, obscene and sexually associated supplies, the varsity superintendent zealously utilized it to take away greater than sixty-five books, a lot of them classics, from the curriculum and classroom libraries. They included To Kill a Mockingbird, The Pink Badge of Braveness, The Nice Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, and Of Mice and Males. Additionally banned had been Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear, The Service provider of Venice and Twelfth Night time.

Extra connections amongst libraries, extra alternatives for library staff to have interaction with each other and share finest practices, and extra dialogue of what’s at stake with out outlined insurance policies and procedures led to higher efforts to develop these instruments within the 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and now, the 20s. Public and public faculty libraries higher understood the true nature of what they do and supply. They’re establishments of mental freedom and locations the place the First Modification rights of all are paramount.

Insurance policies don’t arrive in a bubble. The place these working within the library, on the bottom and in administration, could develop these insurance policies, they accomplish that understanding there shall be enter from their library board, their faculty board, and, probably, authorized counsel. This is the reason, regardless of the necessity for these insurance policies to be up to date yearly to handle the newest techniques in censorship and new sources and instruments accessible to assist assortment administration, the layers of approval required to take action make such a timeline difficult, if not unimaginable.

Insurance policies defend everybody.

All of that’s context for what’s began to emerge as one other tactic being employed by the far proper, the Epstein class, and their sycophants to dismantle and destabilize libraries. In the previous few months, two libraries in two totally different states have adopted the regulation and their very own insurance policies when confronted with a problem or a number of ongoing challenges. In each libraries, as a result of the result didn’t align with the specified authoritarian energy over the library, workers and stakeholders had been faraway from their roles.

In different phrases, following library insurance policies led to those that did so dropping their jobs as a result of the insurance policies protected in opposition to affect from a political agenda.

These with allegiance to the far proper and its dangerous, discriminatory beliefs declare to like guidelines, insurance policies, and order. However that’s solely true when these guidelines, insurance policies, and orders advance their agenda–not once they defend the well-being and pursuits of the entire.

Pickens Public Library (South Carolina)

South Carolina’s funds proviso, handed in 2024, requires that public libraries “certify to the State library that their county libraries don’t supply any books or supplies that enchantment to the prurient curiosity of kids below the age of seventeen in youngsters’s, youth, or teen guide sections of libraries and are solely made accessible with specific parental consent” to get their state cash. The proviso doesn’t outline “prurient pursuits,” although per state code, that refers to “a shameful or morbid curiosity in nudity, intercourse, or excretion and is reflective of an arousal of lewd and lascivious wishes and ideas.”

In different phrases, the sorts of books that don’t exist in any public library in america. 

The language’s vagueness is intentional. It leaves the door extensive open to deem something a specific political persuasion “inappropriate.” This proviso has been why younger grownup sections of public libraries within the state have been disappearing altogether, together with in Horry County and Lancaster County. It’s why different public libraries within the state have handed draconian insurance policies that restrict the place and the way libraries can choose supplies for his or her assortment, akin to in York County. The “guide assessment” web site Rated Books celebrates this specific accomplishment, as their slim agenda is the agenda in a state public library.

In 2025, Pickens County Library was licensed by the state that its assortment aligns with the proviso and acquired its funds funds as anticipated. This 12 months, although, some board members believed they need to maintain off on signing the shape certifying compliance and granting them state money. Why? As a result of that very same contingent of the board needed to draft new and up to date insurance policies for the library. This got here not solely from their very own want to proceed pushing partisan politics throughout the entire of the library, but in addition as a result of a small and vocal contingent of the group had been demanding the elimination of sure books and themes from the library for years. It was an answer in need of an issue.

An earlier social media submit from the Pickens County Republican Social gathering reveals that assaults on the County library have been ongoing for a very long time. Going even additional again, there’s been clear stress within the county between republicans and their MAGA counterparts–and it’s a stress that put Lori Osborn, chair of the Pickens County Library Board, in the course of, having to navigate calls for to ban books from the library wherein she wouldn’t be complicit. Osborn served as Chair of the library board for years; she is not within the position as of 2026.

Protection of guide challenges within the library dates again to 2024, with complaints about Raina Telgemeier’s Drama, which the board determined to maintain within the juvenile part. Studying via the subsequent 12 months and a half of board minutes consists of quite a few requires the board to assessment supplies, most of which middle on tales of individuals of colour and/or queer individuals. The targets mirror these throughout the state and the nation. You may see a listing proper on the library’s web site of the torrent of challenges and their outcomes from 2024-2025.

An early January 2025 board assembly included the sluggish rollout of a brand new assortment administration coverage. There was little dialogue of it on the assembly, apart from acknowledging that it was coming and that a forthcoming dialogue would distinguish teen books from younger grownup books. Recall from Horry County and York County that this similar false division resulted within the dismantling of stripling/YA collections from each methods. A committee assembly from February of final 12 months illuminates simply how off the rails the lengths to which calls for for guide removals and relocations had been.

“This specific guide was a person’s butt, and he was in a homosexual satisfaction parade, and
it was on the entrance of the guide.” The Director requested, “So is the issue the homosexual satisfaction parade or the person’s butt? Ms. Miller replies, “I believe it’s each points for youngsters. This was within the younger youngsters’s part.” The Director says, “There are kids that we serve which have homosexual mother and father. We’ve got to serve all people.” Ms. Miller replies, “I do know, however there are extra youngsters who should not have homosexual mother and father, who’s minds aren’t prepared to soak up that but. It messes with the kid’s thoughts.”

Now, a few years into nonstop preventing over the books accessible in public libraries, the January 2026 board agenda included reviewing the library’s assortment insurance policies (once more) and discussing the distinction between teen and YA books (once more). Within the assembly agenda, the gathering coverage consists of the Library Invoice of Rights and the Freedom to Learn Assertion, and it additionally notes that it now distinguishes between YA and teenage books. As in different libraries throughout South Carolina, the excellence utterly ignores precise data of the subject, deferring as a substitute to the concept “YA” means for ages 18-25, and never youngsters.

Days after that board assembly, the board’s coverage committee assembly would come with eradicating parts of the present coverage–together with the Library Invoice of Rights–and adjustments to each the coverage and problem course of. There are not any minutes from that assembly, however these dialogue factors are within the agenda. On January 28, the coverage committee then held an pressing assembly and up to date the library’s assortment coverage. Nonetheless central? An inaccurate distinction between “YA” and “Teen.” The fast-and-loose definitions of what does or doesn’t make supplies “inappropriate” or “interesting to the prurient pursuits of kids” additionally seem all through.

There’s at all times a comfort issue right here: “YA” and “Teen” have actual clear delineations, per the board. On the similar time, “I’ll realize it once I need to be mad about it” is okay for outlining something “inappropriate” or “interesting to the prurient pursuits of kids.” This portion of the coverage is meant to place anybody attempting to make heads or tails of what these phrases do or don’t imply into the bullseye of manufactured outrage. That new coverage was handed by the board on February 12, regardless of at the very least one board member requesting authorized assessment.

Amid conversations in regards to the new coverage, the library’s director made it clear that workers would want to speculate vital time, cash, and power in reviewing each guide made accessible to younger individuals within the library. This would come with dismantling the teenager part and shifting supplies from their supposed viewers into grownup collections. It will require evaluating supplies to find out whether or not they match the obscure definitions the board elected to make use of to find out whether or not the fabric was inappropriate for minors.

Once more, the library has no such materials and had already licensed to the state that it was in compliance with the proviso the earlier 12 months.

The director, backed up in opposition to the wall by the calls for to now assessment over 86,000 objects within the library, introduced that any programming would have to be canceled to ensure that the library to do what the board demanded. The identical individuals who run programming at the moment are anticipated to adjust to a brand new coverage that changed one which was completely satisfactory, if not one which higher protected the library and its patrons.

Days later, in one other pressing assembly by the library board, the director was fired. The board made no assertion on why they moved to fireside the director. In addition they didn’t point out who can be operating the library or overseeing its operations, together with the assessment of 86,000 books accessible for minors.

There’s little query as to why she was fired, although. Her choice to adjust to the brand new coverage then turned the ugliness of the coverage again round to the board, they usually couldn’t have their picture or fame sullied within the media. Even when they did it themselves. Even when it was precisely according to partisan calls for. Regardless of following an earlier coverage that ensured state funds allocations, that wasn’t ok for the power-hungry, vengeful library board. Regardless of a brand new coverage being rammed into place and the library director instantly attending to work on compliance, she was fired from her job.

This was by no means in regards to the books within the assortment. It was by no means in regards to the state’s funds. It was by no means in regards to the coverage. It was a couple of majority of the board desirous to steal as a lot energy from the individuals it purports to symbolize as potential.

As of Friday, March 6, the board determined to not vote on the brand new coverage but. Nonetheless, the director would nonetheless be fired, the YA part would nonetheless be gutted, and one way or the other, workers would nonetheless present the entire programming already on the calendar. They’re additionally itching to appoint an interim director, Bruce Heimburger, a retired librarian and an elder at a church with values and beliefs aligned with far-right evangelicalism. Pickens County Library Board’s president Danny Parton is a long-time conservative pastor; At-Massive Board Member Mark Kilburn is an area republican engaged with the county’s GOP (the identical group, famous above, that has been mounting assaults on the library for years); District Six board member Brian Aiken was a pastor at an area Baptist church, at the very least till resigning final March.

The board is so desperate to have Heimburger take the helm that they’re not even requiring him to work on-site full time. He’ll work two days per week in Easley and the remainder of the week from his residence in West Columbia. The board additionally determined to vary its common assembly instances to accommodate his schedule.

Folks on the bottom in Pickens County have been preventing in opposition to guide censorship and the GOP’s makes an attempt to remake the general public library in its imaginative and prescient for a number of years. This was an escalation, and it occurred at a time when the board knew they may not solely undermine the gathering coverage that had served the library for years but in addition implement their very own damaging coverage and fireplace the individual in command of overseeing it.

The board now has nobody to be accountable to, and that’s precisely how they need it. Their plans to nominate somebody who aligns with their values are their alternative to exert much more energy and disrespect the wants of the particular group.

Randolph County Library (North Carolina)

The place Pickens County’s library board of trustees sought energy by overthrowing library management and adherence to coverage, in Randolph County, energy was stolen not solely from library administration. It was additionally stolen from the library board itself, leaving the library and its governance each a large query mark and a blazing exclamation mark.

In fall 2025, a girl utilizing the Randolph County Library borrowed the guide Name Me Max by Kyle Lukoff. She borrowed it for her grandchild “with out realizing what it was about.” Offended in regards to the guide centering a trans narrative, she complained to the library. These sorts of “I didn’t know” statements, in fact, level way more to the individual saying them than the factor about which they’re speaking. On this instance, the patron both didn’t trouble to look via the guide or elected to lie about it. Given Lukoff’s catalog and the continued assaults on trans individuals and books, it wouldn’t be shocking if the truth right here is each.

The library took the criticism critically, as they need to. Ebook challenges are protected by the First Modification and in library coverage.

Randolph County’s library board adopted its coverage and reviewed the guide. On the assembly the place they had been to debate their choice, the general public remark interval was stuffed with advocates for and in opposition to the guide’s elimination from the gathering. Following their very own insurance policies and procedures, and after private studying of the fabric, the board voted to maintain the guide within the youngsters’s part. The board didn’t ban the guide as a result of it was not out of alignment with their very own insurance policies. The library took the problem critically and handled it that manner from begin to end.

A number of the County Commissioners had been sad with this final result. Three of the 5 Commissioners then voted in December to fireside all the library board and dissolve the bylaws governing them. Sure–one guide being left on cabinets, following coverage for assessment, led to the dissolution of a whole library board by the county. Why?

Energy.

County Commissioners acknowledged that the library board did no unsuitable and that they adopted coverage. Three of these County Commissioners, nevertheless, determined that their private opinions on the guide and the problem final result didn’t replicate the values of all Randolph County residents. This, regardless of Randolph County residents exhibiting up on the very library board assembly to share their ideas and enter. To County Commissioners, the one individuals who depend as residents are those that repeat the partisan rhetoric round trans individuals and inappropriate library books.

Since that December assembly, no library board has been in command of the Randolph County Library. In early March this 12 months, the County Commissioners handed new bylaws that govern the library board–one thing that, shock, provides them much more energy over what must be an impartial oversight board for the library. The Commissioners appoint all 9 members of the board, however these bylaws supply no perception into how library board members are appointed.

This solely provides the County Commissioners extra energy to make selections on behalf of the county’s library. From these cheering on the County Commissioners’ actions and new bylaws, it actually doesn’t sound prefer it represents an entire group. Simply the components that align with present partisan pet tasks.

“Due to your tenacity, a brand new board will quickly be constituted that aligns with the values and rules of the overwhelming majority of Randolph County residents,” mentioned Pastor Jonathan Burris. – from WUNC reporting

On condition that the Commissioners have made it clear they’re unafraid to can a whole board for following institutional insurance policies, there’s no query that these appointed will have to be in lockstep with Commissioner priorities or face comparable backlash.

Taken collectively, these two instances paint an image of the continued evolution of assaults on library collections and libraries themselves. It’s not a leap. Alabama and Idaho have each proposed laws this 12 months to revoke autonomy from oversight of libraries. Each payments would put the facility of library oversight into the arms of politicians–for now, that advantages the far proper in each states. What occurs when the facility shifts, although? The goalposts will transfer, and new legal guidelines shall be proposed. If the far proper can’t management an entity and deal with it as their private mission, they may undermine any and all means to get their manner. You don’t have to look a lot additional than gerrymandering, redrawing voting districts, and ongoing voter suppression techniques, akin to these seen in Dallas and Williamson County, Texas, simply final week.

It’s not restricted to the macro scale. It’s being employed on the micro scale, and every of those conditions on the micro scale provides as much as precisely what’s been worrisome because the begin: libraries are being become authorities mouthpieces, managed by a partisan minority, with funding challenges that make the way forward for these establishments of democracy unstable and unsure.

The rallying cry of “native management” isn’t about native management. It’s about controlling every little thing, proper all the way down to the native degree. In each Pickens and Randolph Counties, what scares these stealing energy the place they’ll is the data that grassroots advocates on the bottom are carefully watching them. Each communities are amongst these with residents who’re exhibiting up and talking out about what’s happening. These energy grabs are a way by which a failing political motion makes an attempt to carry on wherever and nevertheless they’ll by persevering with to override the need of the individuals they purport to serve.

Ebook Censorship Information: March 13, 2026

• Donnelley Public Library (ID), which went adults solely following Idaho’s draconian guide ban regulation and which can also be concerned in one of many lawsuits filed in opposition to the state for the regulation, hosted a discussion board about their involvement within the lawsuit. This report of that assembly is a fairly fascinating learn.
• Sumner County Library (TN), regardless of having conservative activist and fifth place swimmer Riley Gaines on the board, can’t make a decision on what sort of guide banning coverage the library wants. This battle’s been on for over a 12 months.
• Libraries round Chattanooga, Tennessee, removed or relocated 15 titles per the calls for from the Secretary of State.
• Final week, the Louis Riel Faculty Division (Winnipeg, Canada) pulled a guide from library cabinets over Palestinian imagery, bucking protocol and process. The criticism got here from somebody who works within the library and isn’t Palestinian. The guide is now again on cabinets.
• Recall that lawmakers in Florida had been censoring a school introduction to sociology textbook as a result of it approached subjects like race and gender? The gutting of that guide means 400 pages had been deleted of the complete 667 pages.
• “Workers at Redwood Nationwide and State Parks not too long ago flagged 9 books about native tribal histories in an effort to adjust to orders from the Trump administration to wash federal parks, monuments and statues of fabric that “disparages People previous or dwelling” or that emphasizes something however the nation’s “magnificence, abundance, or grandeur.”” Do not forget that it’s not simply public colleges and public libraries.
• At the very least 160 books have been pulled from Alberta, Canada, colleges, because of a provincial order. You may see the checklist of titles right here.
• Group members in MSAD 11 (ME) are rallying to maintain the comedian Prince and Knight on faculty library cabinets.
• Wisconsin legislators are contemplating a invoice that may require labeling “specific” books. This isn’t solely unethical on the library degree, federal courts have referred to as requiring this of guide sellers unconstitutional. To not point out, there’s no such factor as specific books being made accessible to younger individuals.
• The Fremont County Library System Board (WY) continues to be debating how a lot energy they need to give themselves in deciding what books the library can purchase. It isn’t the board’s job to pick books, however some boards need to give themselves final energy (see above!).
• White Oak Impartial Faculty District (TX) is shifting The Perks of Being a Wallflower from the varsity part of their library to the general public part of their library (it’s a joint-use setup). The college librarian is correct that that is nonetheless censorship.
• An Oklahoma invoice banning “sexually specific” books from faculty libraries has handed the Home. There are not any things like “sexually specific” books in class libraries, so go forward and know this implies LGBTQ+ books. Take a look at this story which showcases the Oklahoma legislators who imagine books must be burned.
• The newest from New Braunfels Impartial Faculty District (TX) within the realm of guide banning, the shortage of latest books being added to the district, and the district’s use of AI to ban titles (see this from earlier this faculty 12 months).
• Right here’s a pupil’s perspective on books being banned in Francis Howell Colleges (MO). “This problem consists of quite a few titles that many people at FHC learn in any given English class.”
• St. Charles County Library (MO) has banned LGBTQ+ flags from the premises. “Library staff right here have been ordered to take away flags — together with LGBTQ satisfaction flags— and different decor that “promotes private beliefs” from their workspaces, officers mentioned on Tuesday. St. Charles Metropolis-County Library CEO John Greifzu mentioned the transfer is a part of a push to make the library “welcoming to everybody.”” How discrimination is welcoming to everyone seems to be the query.
• How a highschool librarian in Abilene, Texas, fought again in opposition to Mothers for Liberty.
• Lubbock Impartial Faculty District (TX) has 35 books below assessment for potential banning. This piece is wild–examine the road in regards to the situation of “liberal ideology.”
• The Massachusetts Proper to Learn coalition rallied this week to assist a Freedom to Learn invoice within the state.
• Fairhope Public Library (AL) has appointed an anti-book banner to the board, which is nice information for the library. It might be much less nice information for the state who continues to be withholding funds from the establishment as a result of they aren’t eradicating the books that the state calls for they need to.
• The proposed laws in Wyoming which might have dismantled YA collections in class and public libraries died final week. Right here’s what one Wyoming library director mentioned in regards to the laws and the influence it might have had.