Notebook: (2) Classroom Libraries

by Ann Kjellberg, editor

Read Part One of this post here!

New legislation drafted to defend library collections from political interference include Illinois’s HB 2789, signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker in June, which conditions state grant funding for libraries on their adopting policies protecting books and other resources from being “proscribed, removed, or restricted” based on "partisan or doctrinal disapproval,” and a US House Fight Book Bans Act, sponsored by Florida’s Maxwell Alejandro Frost and Frederica Wilson and Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, that would fund institutional efforts to resist political interference in library collections, and a Senate Right to Read Act, sponsored by Rhode Island’s Jack Reed and Arizona’s Raúl Grijalva, which would affirm that First Amendment rights apply to school libraries and extend liability protections to teachers and school librarians. In December Massachusetts’s Ayana Pressley, accompanied by advocates from the Library of Congress, also announced introduction of a Senate Books Save Lives Act, classifying book bans as civil rights violations and requiring that certain public and school libraries maintain collections of books about underrepresented groups.