Huntington Beach’s $1 Million Censorship Loss and More Library Updates

Another week, another smorgasbord of library updates. We have an encouraging censorship update in Huntington Beach, a free book initiative taking place in Bronx bodegas, and funding for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Let’s dive in.

Library Updates

• Trump’s budget would gut local libraries and museums. Congress is not on board.
• Related: Trump’s proposed budget threatens library programs in North Carolina.
• The Dungeon Crawler Carl eBooks will finally be available to library patrons through Libby.
• Indiana librarians want stable funding for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. And honestly, isn’t that really what we all want?
• The race to save US government datasets before they’re deleted.

Censorship Updates

• PEN America has a new report on the state of book banning in the US, showing that nonfiction book bans have doubled in an embrace of “anti-intellectualism.”
• “In an encouraging turn, advocates of the right to read are noticing signs that legal pushback and public pressure are influencing state legislatures. States are fine-tuning imprecise language around librarianship and rethinking broad terms such as “appropriate” and “harmful to minors”—a promising development—although they’re also continuing to test constitutional limits.” Nuance makes its way into legislation and policy.
• These librarians are running for public office, and you should too!
• Utah has added two more books to their statewide banned books list. The running count is up to 34.
• The city of Huntington Beach, California, is on the hook for nearly $1 million in legal fees after losing a court case around its library book restriction policy. The policy was supposed to prevent minors from accessing so-called “sexual content,” but (not surprisingly) the courts found that the policy constituted illegal censorship. Womp womp.

Adaptations In the News

• Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus’ 2002 novel The Nanny Diaries is getting an adaptation at Netflix, with Scarlett Johansson as executive producer. This also marks over 20 years since ScarJo starred in the original film adaptation.
• Netflix is adapting Harlan Coben’s The Woods.
• Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew gets a theatrical release date and a Netflix release date.
• Julie Clark’s The Lies I Tell is getting a TV adaptation.
• Here’s a teaser trailer for Verity.
• And here’s the official trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

Numbers & Trends

• How shrinking attention spans are changing the way authors write.
• Most middle and high school teachers are still assigning full books to students, but there’s a gap between affluent and impoverished school systems.