The 2023 American Library Association Annual Conference concluded on Tuesday, June 27. Another year removed from the strain of the pandemic restrictions, and in the midst of an ongoing political attack on the freedom to read, this year's conference delivered something the library community has been sorely in need of: a powerful show of support.
ALA officials reported 15,842 attendees, a decent bump from the 14,003 who attended last year's post-pandemic comeback show in Washington, D.C. And while attendance still lags well below pre-Covid-19 levels (in 2017, the ALA drew more than 23,000 to Chicago), ALA executive director Tracie D. Hall sounded an optimistic note about the future. "We're having good conversations about inclusion and about equity and diversity and about accessibility and also about LGBTQIA+ and disability voices, and history, and how we need all of that to keep our society strong and that people need to see themselves in libraries and in literature," Hall told PW. “We're happy to gather. We're heartened. And I think we're a little bit emboldened to imagine not just the future of our organization, but what our conferences are going to look like.”
Among the ALA conference highlights covered by Publishers Weekly: Ibram X. Kendi praised librarians as modern day freedom fighters at the ALA's first ever Rally for the Right to Read; Judy Blume thanked librarians for their work in her opening keynote; advocates surveyed the book banning battlefield in a robust education program; Amanda Gorman and Christian Robinson spoke about sadness and hope in a closing keynote.
The ALA's American Libraries offers a lot of detailed coverage of the conference, including the main speakers and a host of excellent education sessions. Be sure to check out the posts on the work of the ALA Council. Among the Council III session notes: "a resolution on ALA’s objection to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) choosing Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as the location for IFLA’s 2024 World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) because of the city’s criminalization of homosexuality." And, a resolution calling on ALA to "investigate the possibility of changing dates for future Annual Conferences," noting that LGBTQ members regularly have to miss their local Pride events to attend the conference.
Here's how the hometown Chicago Tribune covered the the 2023 ALA Annual Conference. "Grade school librarians wore T-shirts reading 'Librarians Threaten Ignorance.' Plastic bowls offered 'Libraries Are Essential' pins, and the ALA offered an oversize cushy chair as a photo-op, which you could climb onto and read passages of banned books," the report notes. "But beneath pieties and speeches of togetherness was a fresh rhetoric of battle, with eagerness for real action. A handful of panel titles—'Be Fierce,' 'Combating Book Bans,'SOS: Stock Our Shelves'—hinted at this new unwillingness to play the stale role of the meek librarian anymore."
In Iowa, an editorial in the local Gazette reflects on how librarians have come to be falsely portrayed as pushing obscene materials. "How did we get from there to here? Blame politicians, mainly Republican, who saw electoral gold in those book bans," writes Jerry Elsea. "In Des Moines, Florida-bred Moms for Liberty stalks legislators, demanding removal of materials 'not age-appropriate' from school curriculum and library shelves. The real targets are books dealing with racism and LGBTQ issues. Moms for Liberty pressure has yielded results, including Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposal that if one school removes a book, so should all the district’s schools."
Librarians who've dealt with meeting room policies can certainly relate to this: The New York Times reports that a number of scholarly groups, including the nation’s two largest associations of professional historians, called on the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia to cancel an agreement to rent space to Moms for Liberty for a gathering. "The letter recognized the group’s right to argue for its preferred approach to history education," the paper reports, but said the group has "crossed a boundary in its attempts to silence and harass teachers, rather than participate in legitimate controversy.”
In a release this week, PEN America slammed Moms for Liberty, but defended the Museum's decision not to cancel the rental contract with the group. "Moms For Liberty plays a central role in promoting efforts to ban books, to suppress ideas and information in schools, to erase LGBTQ+ identities from bookshelves and classrooms, and to distort the teaching of history. Reports of the organization encouraging harassment or firing of teachers and librarians are especially disturbing. Moms for Liberty has propagated falsehoods and stoked fear and bigotry to advance restrictions on the freedom to read and learn, including by mischaracterizing books as 'pornographic literature,' and its members have been connected to incidents of harassment of parents, school board members, and educators," PEN officials state, in a release. However, "the antidote to those who seek to suppress open discourse cannot be to embrace their wrongheaded and pernicious tactics," PEN officials write. "We must confront head-on the attacks on public education, democracy, and equality that Moms For Liberty has spearheaded. But we must do so without resort to suppressive tactics."
The local Cobb County Courier has an interview with Katie Rinderle, the Georgia elementary school teacher who was fired under a new Georgia state law, HB 1084, that prohibits teachers from talking about so-called “divisive concepts.” In a story that has garnered national headlines, Rinderle was fired after reading Scott Stuart's My Shadow Is Purple to her fifth grade class, even though she had bought the book at a school book fair and the class had chosen the book to be read to them. "The lesson was about embracing yourself and the differences in each other and having confidence. Looking at our unique differences. That different students have many interests and sometimes struggle to fit in with the rest of the school population," Rinderle told the paper.
At Book Riot, Kelly Jensen begins her weekly censorship news column with a useful look at the terminology around book banning. "This week, for example, an author talked on Twitter about how his book was being 'soft censored' because a school board decided to pull the book from shelves before it could raise a concern from community members. Though it conveys the same thing, this is not actually what soft censorship is. This is textbook censorship, no softness about it," Jensen explains. "To communicate the true extent of what is happening and on how many different levels, a shared understanding of words and their meanings is crucial."
Slate has a piece this week about what it's like for college and university librarians in Florida. "Public and K-12 librarians have become some of the most recognizable voices of the culture wars in recent years for speaking out against coordinated efforts to restrict or remove access to materials concerning sex, gender, and race," the article states. "In Florida, however, the fallout from the political takeover of a small public liberal arts college coupled with uncertainty around how public higher education institutions will implement a series of new laws signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis have another type of librarian wondering if they’re next."
The Washington Post has a piece on libraries evolving to serve remote workers post-pandemic. "Long before WeWork, libraries were the original co-working spaces," the article notes. "While many companies have used sprawling offices packed with amenities as recruiting tools, many public libraries offer the benefit of a sleek work environment for free. Of course, some public library systems are better-funded and more expansive than others. Some libraries, especially in rural areas, are struggling. But those that have evolved are seeing usage climb closer to pre-pandemic levels."
And finally, good news for New York City libraries. A budget deal has been reached that spares the libraries deep cuts that would have impacted service. The NYPL website has a statement: “Amid unprecedented attempts to ban books and silence diverse voices, New York City has sent a clear message about the power of public libraries that will be seen and felt across the nation.”
The Week in Libraries is a weekly opinion and news column. News, tips, submissions, questions or comments are welcome, and can be submitted via email. Previous columns can be viewed here.
