Cleveland Libraries Offer Free Gun Safes, and More Library News

• After Dallas announced plans to reduce its library budget, a large percentage of survey respondents said they wanted to see library budgets increase.
• Cleveland libraries are offering free gun safes and locks as part of a broader community gun safety initiative sponsored by the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio.
• In 2023, Ohio ranked first in circulation numbers per person nationwide and was third in library visits per person.

Censorship Updates

• Patricia McCormick’s Sold was the number one banned book in the US in 2025. Here are the rest of the Top 10 Banned Books of 2025, and as usual, the list contains very few surprising titles.
• The battle over funding for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library grows. Honestly, the fact that we have “battle” and “Dolly Parton” in the same sentence is bad enough, but this is truly ridiculous.
• How book bans are currently impacting children’s publishing.
• The Irving Public Library Board (TX) is looking to alter key language in the library system’s collection development policy. Among other revisions, it would remove most mentions of “diversity.”
• The Texas State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to a list of required books that all public schools will be required to teach starting in 2030. Some of the titles that were removed from the list include Frankenstein and Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”, yet multiple Bible texts remain.
• Utah bans an additional 4 books in schools across the state, bringing the total up to 32.

AI Updates

• The Shy Girl fiasco shows why trust in writers is plummeting.
• Slate says that the AI writing panic is completely missing the point.
• What AI-authored books mean for the publishing industry.
• The Authors Guild addresses publishers’ AI use.
• The quiet collapse of the internet’s writing rooms in the age of AI.

Want more library reading? Check out these great horror books set in libraries and be inspired by the special book lists created by libraries for their patrons.