“Libraries and library staff continue to respond to the needs of their communities, providing key resources as budgets are reduced, speaking out forcefully against book-banning attempts and advocating for free access to digital content in libraries, with a keen focus placed on ebook formats. Led by the American Library Association (ALA), libraries offer resources often unavailable elsewhere during an economic “recovery” that finds about 12 million Americans unemployed and millions more underemployed. And the library community continues to rally support for school libraries, which seem destined to bear the brunt of federal budget sequestration. These and other library trends of the past year are detailed in the ALA’s 2013 State of America’s Libraries Report, released today during National Library Week, April 14 – 20.”