In this Q&A with The Buckeye Flame, BIPOC LGBTQ+ librarians Amia Brown and Lisa Sanchez of Cleveland and Lajmar Anderson of Dayton share their own perspectives on librarianship, shaped by their experiences as LGBTQ+ people of color and their relationships with libraries.
Librarians
Former Rutherford County librarian sues after firing over book relocation
Nearly six months after her firing in a dispute over where children’s books should be shelved, former Rutherford County Library System Director Luanne James is suing the library system, its board and eight board members.
As They Supposedly Battle AI Slop, Major Publishers Reportedly Cover Their Books in It
An agent says they’ve started making publishers agree in advance not to run entire unpublished manuscripts through LLMs in order to generate promotional text—something that had apparently become an issue. “Ostensibly, that was meant to protect authors from tech companies, but it also applies to the company buying and publishing the book,” the anonymous agent said.
‘Radical Street Librarian’ Transforms Trolley into Mobile Library for Kids
Today, the self-described “radical street librarian” is bringing books directly to children in neighborhoods with limited access, turning a green-and-gold trolley into a rolling destination for young readers.
Why Do We Keep Debating the M.L.S.? (opinion)
Here’s why librarians can’t resolve our recurrent arguments about the import of the field’s professional degree.
The Librarians (2025): Real People Behind the Documentary | FilmiFeed
Meet Carolyn Foote, Becky Calzada, Suzette Baker and their fellow educators, with the professional backgrounds behind their documentary appearances.
The librarians making a top five influencers list
But today’s libraries and librarians are turning to social media to connect with their community in direct – and often hilarious – ways. Unexpected stars include a 72-year-old rare-books librarian in Queensland and a career librarian in suburban Adelaide, both praised by fans in terms like “slay queen” and “icon”.
Milwaukee mayor backtracks on library director nomination over accreditation issue – WTMJ
Just over a week after announcing the nomination of Jean Darnell to be the newest director of the Milwaukee Public Library, Mayor Cavalier Johnson is rescinding the nomination after discovering that her degree does not meet accreditation requirements listed in the job description.
Critical thinking bootcamp 2026
As AI reshapes how knowledge is produced and used, helping students think critically has never been more important. Sage's 7th-annual Critical Thinking Bootcamp, held in partnership with Choice, provided practical tools for academic librarians and faculty to support these vital skills. Our speakers shared ready-to-use resources, frameworks, and approaches for attendees to take away and apply directly in their own teaching or library instruction.
Ten Stories That Shaped 2025
It’s time for our twenty-third look back at the notable library stories from the past year.
10. Tariffs Impact Interlibrary Loan
Caught up in the sweeping and haphazard tariffs enacted by the Trump administration this year was the use of international lending networks by research libraries.
9. AI Bots Ravage Library Websites
As a swarm of web crawlers seek to ingest anything and everything they can find, driven by the boom of “a vast scraping operation to build large language models (LLMs) that train generative AI programs,” many library servers found themselves under attack this year.
8. Grokpedia Forks Up Wikipedia
In October, Elon Musk launched an AI-driven encyclopedia, billed as an alternative to Wikipedia’s “propaganda.” Critics were quick to point out that Grokpedia, however, clearly shows its own bias.
Dishonorable Mention: Presidential Library Grift
Donald Trump has funneled money from multiple legal settlements, as well as an unconditional “gift” from Qatar in the form of a Boeing 747, into his presidential library fund, raising eyebrows. (see also, the Marc Rich scandal)
7. AI Guardrails Censor Library Searches
Love them or hate them, natural language searching, automated summaries, and other “artificial intelligence” features have become mainstream, even in the library vendor marketplace. One of the more curious quirks that cropped up this year, thanks to the outsourcing of chatbots which restrict information deemed harmful for liability purposes, was the observation that library discovery tools could be shown to limit certain results accordingly.
6. Whither IMLS?
In March, President Trump issued an executive order to eliminate the Institute for Museum and Library Services, a government agency that, among other things, helps fund some interlibrary loan programs. Layoffs and service cuts ensued, although a lawsuit challenging this order is currently making its way through the court system.
5. AI Lawsuits Aplenty
Several class-action lawsuits (targeting, for example, Meta, Midjourney, and Anthropic) are underway, thanks to the rampant practice of LLMs and the like obviously being trained on copyrighted materials without their owners’ permission. The insurance industry is retreating from covering such parasitic business models.
4. Political Firings
In May, shortly after a conservative group Tweeted, “The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids,” Donald Trump fired the Obama-appointed Librarian of Congress. As explained by the White House Press Secretary, “There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the [national depository] library for children.” Trump also fired the head of the National Archives and the head of the Copyright Office this year.
Honorable Mention: The Return of Reading Rainbow
Don’t take my word for it, but in September, a reboot of the popular television series was announced. Library advocate Mychal Threets will be the new host.
3. Anti-DEI Policies Lead to Government Censorship
Throughout the year, the Trump administration has sought to remove government publications that conflict with its agenda. Victims of this campaign include topics such as STD prevention, African-American history, scientific data, race and gender studies, colonial evidence, climate change, and, last but possibly least, accessible typefaces.
2. Yet More Moral Panic Over Library Books
1. The AI Slop Avalanche
It’s no secret that chatbots, in their attempt to mimic human conversation, simply make stuff up. As this type of AI becomes more prevalent, libraries are feeling the impact of an increase in fake citations, procedurally–generated books, and other “AI slop.” It remains to be seen if we can prevent the “enshittification” of Internet content.
What are your predictions for 2026? How will the AI bubble impact libraries?
Recent Comments