About half of Houston ISD's campuses have had zero library checkouts so far this school year, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
Please Let the Internet Die | WIRED
Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.
The Tragedy of Having a Wikipedia Page—and Then Losing It | WIRED
You Finally Got a Wikipedia Page. Then It Vanished
Every day, Wikipedia biographies of living people are flagged for deletion because the subjects are not “notable” enough. How do these poor souls take the news?
Texas State Librarian Gloria Meraz on the Power of Libraries
Most people think of libraries as the place where you get books off the shelf, and of course we do that. But there’s so much more. The best libraries reflect and respond to their communities, whether that’s an older population where you’ll see more services for senior citizens or a community with a lot of young families. Today libraries are also expected to be hubs for various services, including the delivery of health services—we’ve provided many grants to develop telehealth centers. Some libraries have programs for innovators wanting to start their own business, and some locations even have seed libraries, with actual seeds people can plant. It really is almost everything under the sun.
If British Library reading rooms become ‘co-working spaces’, what, exactly, is a national library for? | Andy Beckett | The Guardian
Despite this troubled context, and in some ways because of it, the library’s drastic reading room reduction plan has provoked “outrage” from staff, say the Prospect and Public and Commercial Services (PCS) unions that represent them. Reading room staff understandably fear for their jobs, but also for the building’s fundamental purpose, which was set out by law in 1972 – an indication of how hard the complex was to conceive and build – as “the establishment for the United Kingdom of a national library”. Staff are now “the most furious I’ve ever seen them about anything”, says a union source. A strike over the reading room plan, following one last year over low pay, could begin as soon as December.
Suit says transgender book got Georgia library manager fired
A Southeast Georgia county and library system are being sued by a local woman who alleges they fired her as the manager of the county’s public library because she allowed a book about a transgender child to be part of a display.
Good reading: Prison Book Project connects students, incarcerated individuals, professors and librarians | News | SDSU
From 'Crazy Rich Asians' and John Sandford thrillers to Irish history and Indigenous dark fiction, SDSU provides a literary relief to daily life in prison.
ICE Is Running One of the Largest Anti-Left Surveillance Operations in US History | WIRED
Attorneys for 15 Minnesota residents facing federal conspiracy charges have obtained evidence of a sweeping, possibly unconstitutional spying operation carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement against left-wing social movements in Minnesota and beyond.
McKinney ISD limits library book challenges to parents | McKinney | Community Impact
McKinney ISD residents who do not have a child enrolled in the district will no longer be able to challenge library materials. “Reviewing a challenge requires staff time and district resources,” Akins said. “This change is intended to focus that work on concerns raised by those with a direct connection to our schools.”
Makes perfect sense!
Sacred stacks: An interview by Allison Nash-Jordan | The Christian Century
Sam Helmick, who served as 2025–2026 president of the American Library Association, is community and access services coordinator at the Iowa City Public Library. A longtime advocate for intellectual freedom as a basis for healthy relationships between libraries and the communities they serve, Helmick has advocated against censorship and book bans in libraries across the world.
Not you average librarian interview!
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