Let's Tackle
Censorship
Together.
The Big Game is usually about competition, but libraries are on the same team when it comes to protecting your right to read.
American Library Association's Freedom to Read Statement
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.
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Get the facts on Book bans and challenges
Explore more resources for fighting censorship and celebrating Americans' freedom of expression.
Top 10 Banned Books
Every year, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from media stories and voluntary reports from communities across the U.S.
The ALA reported 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. This represents the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling these lists 20 years ago. Most targeted books were for a teen audience and were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.
Legislation of Concern
EveryLibrary is monitoring state legislation during the 2023-2024 session that would limit Americans' freedom to read and think for themselves. Of most concern are proposed laws that would allow for civil and criminal prosecution of librarians, educators, higher ed. faculty, and museum professionals.
In 2023, the most attention is being paid to state legislative initiatives in eight categories: efforts to limit access to school library databases, proposals to establish book rating systems, mandating or prescribing materials challenge policies, efforts to regulate collection development policies, use of parental control policies to limit free speech, changes to obscenity and harmful to minors definitions that preempt First Amendment guarantees, bills that limit or outlaw the teaching of "divisive concepts", and bills that would criminalize libraries, education, and museums by removing long-standing defense from prosecution exemptions under obscenity laws.
PEN AMERICA
Books are under profound attack in the United States. They are disappearing from library shelves, being challenged in droves, being decreed off limits by school boards, legislators, and prison authorities. And everywhere, it is the books that have long fought for a place on the shelf that are being targeted. Books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, history. PEN America pushes back against the banning of books and the intolerance, exclusion, and censorship that undergird it.
PEN America tracks all book bans in libraries and classrooms across the U.S. in its Index of School Book Bans, updated for the 2021-2022 school year.
Read its most recent report, Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools.
Unite Against Book Bans
Unite Against Book Bans is a national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship.
On both sides of the aisle, large majorities of voters and parents oppose book bans. 71% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries. 67% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from school libraries. And yet, attempts to ban books from libraries are rising at an unprecedented level across the country.
