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Evolving State Legislative Efforts to Censor Public School Libraries – “Thousands of books removed from schools out of fear of state governments nationwide. Judy Blume’s Forever… banned from every Utah public school; To Kill a Mockingbird and 39 other titles pulled from a Texas school district that used AI to review materials; a list of …
The New Yorker [no paywall]: Is the term a new way of calling people pretentious, or does it reflect a deprioritization of the written word? “Here’s a hypothetical: a man walks into a bar, buys a drink, and starts reading from a paperback copy of David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest.” He could very well be …
Center for the Study of the Public Domain – Public Domain Day 2026 – On January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1925. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The literary highlights range from William Faulkner’s As …
Literary Hub – “As a librarian, I’ve often felt like a part-time therapist. People confide in librarians the way they do with bartenders; we form bonds with our regular customers, listen to their troubles and serve up more than just books. After I learned the word “bibliotherapist,” during library school 20 years ago, I became …
Scientific American: “Never heard of the Journal of International Relief or the International Humanitarian Digital Repository? That’s because they don’t exist. But that’s not stopping some of the world’s most popular artificial intelligence models from sending users looking for records such as these, according to a new International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) statement. …
404 Media: “As prices for streaming subscriptions continue to soar and finding movies to watch, new and old, is becoming harder as the number of streaming services continues to grow, people are turning to the unexpected last stronghold of physical media: the public library. Some libraries are now intentionally using iconic Blockbuster branding to recall …
The New York Times Gift Article – If you read only one best books list each year, make it the one from the Times. Always insightful, and full of a vast array of gems. And remember to buy your books from indie book shops, brick and mortar or online, and used is always best. Then …
The Public Domain Review: “At the start of each year, on January 1st, a new crop of works enter the public domain and become free to enjoy, share, and reuse for any purpose. Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain — and here we focus on three …
Literary Hub – “…There were times our definition of “small press” was tested. Was Tin House still a small press after it was acquired by Zando in March? Yes, we decided, since Zando was not a big five publisher. Were university presses that published well over 50 books yearly small presses? We decided they were …
Fast Company – Traditional search engines are still the backbone of the online information ecosystem, but searching has shifted in measurable ways with ChatGPT: “Three years ago, if someone needed to fix a leaky faucet or understand inflation, they usually did one of three things: typed the question into Google, searched YouTube for a how-to …
The New York Times: “Each January, the editors and critics at the Book Review begin sifting through thousands of new books. By February, we’re meeting regularly to debate and discuss the standouts. All of us are passionate readers, but our tastes don’t necessarily overlap, so the conversations are lively! By September, we’re winnowing down our …
Popular Information: “One hundred and eighty-one public libraries in Tennessee are reviewing their children’s collections after Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) ordered them to remove books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Hargett suggested that libraries that made such books available to children were violating federal and state law. Some libraries have closed for days …
