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Can the Llano library closure be stopped?

The American Library Association, the Authors Guild, and the LGBTQ+ education and advocacy organization PFLAG are all urging people to contact local officials and attend the meeting.

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Quotable: Of public libraries and freedom

“Public libraries are not places of government indoctrination. They are not places where the people in power can dictate what their citizens are permitted to read about and learn. When government actors target public library books because they disagree with and intend to suppress the ideas contained within them, it jeopardizes the freedoms of everyone.”—April 2022 Llano county residents’ lawsuit.

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Status check: A non-exhaustive list of library wars across the US

💰 Idaho Governor Brad Little vetoed House Bill 314—a legislation that would have allowed the guardian of a child who was able to obtain “harmful” material from a library to claim $2,500 in statutory damages for each instance the material was obtained.

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👀 In Arkansas, the Senate Bill 81 has been criticized for threatening fundamental freedoms to read, teach, and learn by setting up pathways for librarians and teachers to be prosecuted for “furnishing a harmful item to a minor.”

📝 The Senate Bill 397 in Oklahoma mandates states libraries in school districts, charter schools, and public libraries do an inventory of print and non-print materials and media, which will be assigned a rating of “elementary,” “junior high,” “under 16,” or “junior and seniors,” depending on the materials contents, starting July 2024. Humans Rights Watch has called it “a curriculum censorship bill that discourages access to books and materials by requiring all school districts, charter schools, and public libraries to conduct an inventory and assign ratings to books in their collection.”

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👨‍⚖️ A similar bill in Indiana would allow a local prosecutor to charge a K-12 school teacher or librarian for giving harmful material to minors, and the educator could not argue in court that the material has educational value.

📚 Michigan House Bill 4136 calls for libraries to organize books by age to keep “obscene” and “sexually explicit” material out of the hands of minors—a task that Debbie Mikula, executive director of the nonprofit organization Michigan Library Association, describes as both unfeasible and unnecessary.

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Related stories

🚫 Book bans are spiking in the US. Here are the most targeted titles

🙅‍♀️ A US state now lets anyone—not just parents—request to ban books in schools

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✊🏿 A celebrated YA novel about Black Lives Matter was pulled from school libraries in Texas

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