Nida Tazeen, Oshkosh Northwestern; 'The Librarians' screening set for Oshkosh library Oct. 23
"Oshkosh residents can watch a documentary about intellectual freedom and library censorship during a community screening at the Oshkosh Public Library on Oct. 23."
Wendy Hurrell, BBC; Globe opens Shakespeare library and archive
"Shakespeare's Globe has opened a new research centre on its Bankside site, which it says is London's only dedicated Shakespeare library and archive open to the public.
The Research and Collections Centre holds more than 6,000 books on Shakespeare as well as early modern literature and drama, alongside the theatre's own archive of past productions...
'Crisis of library provision'
Dr Will Tosh, who leads higher education and research at the Globe, said: "We want anyone with an interest to come and enjoy this space.
"In a time when libraries tend not to open, they tend to close, and we're in a real crisis of library provision and also a crisis of reading, I'm extremely proud at the Globe that we are putting our name and our energy into the importance of books and libraries."
The theatre has had a library for years, but Dr Tosh said it "wasn't housed in facilities that were appropriate" and was "harder to access". It now sits at the heart of the building, where he said it would "be quite hard to miss"."
PEN America; Nearly 12,000 School Book Bans Nationwide in 2025-2026—Biggest Number in a Single Year
"PEN America today reported nearly 12,000 book bans in public schools nationwide during the 2025-2026 school year—the largest number in a single year. New state censorship laws accounted for much of the increase, coupled with the use of artificial intelligence to remove books en masse including popular manga series and other graphic novels.
In a report released to coincide with Banned Books Week, the latest accounting of book bans increased to 34,000 instances since PEN America began documenting the spreading book censorship crisis in schools in 2021.
Texas recorded the largest number of book bans during the 2025-2026 school year (over 8,100), surpassing Florida (over 3,200), due to the impact of a censorial Texas law, SB13, which bans broad categories of books in schools. Florida had been No. 1 for three consecutive years.
The writers and free expression organization also reported a record number of unique titles banned in the last school year—more than 7,000—which impacted more than 4,000 authors, illustrators and translators, also a record number. In addition, researchers identified 114 school districts that had banned books over the year, the highest number ever for a single year according to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans.
Patricia McCormick’s 2006 award-winning young adult novel Sold, which tells the fictional story of a teenager from Nepal who is sold into sexual slavery, was No. 1 among the most frequently banned books during the school year. The most banned author for the second year in a row was Stephen King."
Courier Newsroom , New Pittsburgh Courier; Guest Editorial: Bunch exit from Smithsonian latest casualty in Trump’s war on Black history
[Kip Currier: The Pittsburgh Courier has a rich history as one of America's most influential Black newspapers. The paper was started as a simple broadsheet in 1907 by aspiring writer and H.J. Heinz Company security guard, Edwin Nathaniel Harleston. In the 1960's the paper was relaunched as The New Pittsburgh Courier.
The editorial below addresses the recent retirement announcement by Lonnie Bunch III, the head of the Smithsonian museums. Issues implicated include cultural heritage center curation and leadership, intellectual freedom, access to information, the historical record, memory, preservation, truth, and accuracy of information, among others.]
"Lonnie Bunch, a historian who made history as the Smithsonian Institution’s first African American secretary, became a recurring target as President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on how America tells the story of race, slavery and inequality.
Bunch’s resignation this week should concern anyone who cares about American history, the truth and intellectual freedom.
But what is happening now goes beyond an attempt to erase Black history. It is an effort to cancel Black thought. The phrase “cancel culture” has been weaponized for years by conservatives who argue that dissenting viewpoints are being silenced. Yet, what is happening when Black voices that challenge comforting myths about America are pushed aside? This is not simply a debate about museum exhibits. It is a battle over who gets to define America’s story.
Trump wants to shape how Americans understand their past. The Smithsonian became a battleground in that effort."
Steven Zeitchik, The Hollywood Reporter ; The Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ (Exclusive)
YouTube, TikTok and Meta have all turned down the trailer for the Oct. 9 doc, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing.
[Kip Currier: Another very clear example of the dangers and consequences of media consolidation and control by a handful of stakeholders.]
"The studio releasing Alex Gibney’s new Elon Musk documentary Musk is finding itself unable to buy an ad on the biggest social platforms.
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and Facebook owner Meta are all declining to run the trailer for Musk, along with X itself, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
That last one is perhaps understandable, given its owner. But the rejection by the other platforms has taken distributor Bleecker Street by surprise, and it is internally scrambling to understand why the ad has been rejected, according to a person familiar with the company’s processes who is not authorized to talk about them publicly.
The unwillingness of platforms to accept even paid advertising is sure to raise concerns about free speech and the dwindling number of companies that control many of the platforms in this country — and ironically provide a proof-text for the very point the film is coming to make. Gibney’s doc is a four-hour look at a title character who attempts to control the conversation in various ways, including with alleged suppressions on X, which he bought in 2022.
Bleecker Street opens Musk in theaters on Oct. 9."
Erik Wemple, The New York Times ; Judge Blocks Trump’s White House Ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico
Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a temporary restraining order and told the White House to immediately restore the press credentials for the employees of the three news outlets.
"A federal judge on Thursday said that President Trump’s order barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House was likely unconstitutional and ordered the administration to restore access to the three news outlets.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington granted a 14-day restraining order and told the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the press credentials held by employees of the three outlets.
The news organizations were likely to succeed in their claim that the White House had violated their constitutional due process rights by revoking their press credentials without advance notice or an opportunity to respond, Judge Kelly wrote in the order issued in the early hours of Thursday.
He also rejected, for now, the administration’s argument that revoking the outlets’ press credentials was necessary to protect national security."
The New York Times; Read the Lawsuit From CNN, MS NOW and Politico
"The three media companies sued President Trump’s administration, saying Trump’s decision to bar them from the White House grounds was a violation of their First Amendment rights."
Vasi Prokos , Cleveland 19; North Ridgeville HOA orders removal of Little Free Library outside a homeowner’s yard
"A homeowners association in North Ridgeville has ordered a resident to remove a Little Free Library from her front yard by Sept. 30, saying the book exchange box violates bylaws against yard storage.
Lana Carter and her husband James installed the box outside her home on West Shore Parkway in late June. Lana said she and her family moved to the area from Denver, Colorado, where their previous neighborhood had at least eight Little Free Libraries...
Asked how she felt after receiving the letter, Carter said she was “defeated.”
“I don’t even know if defeated is the word. I was just really sad that I could not share this special thing that had been part of our family with our new neighbors in our neighborhood,” Carter said...
The HOA offered an alternative of moving the box to the community recreation area. Carter said that location is more than half a mile from her home, making it inconvenient to keep up with it every day.
“We are volunteer stewards for literacy,” Carter said. “We just really feel that it’s important to put books in the hands of any age, but especially children.”"
Anna North, The Guardian; No more book bans: how Florida students are pushing rightwingers out of school boards
Local communities are fighting back against the influence of conservative groups like Moms for Liberty in education
"By channeling anger against mask mandates in schools, the rightwing group Moms for Liberty, founded in Florida, built an outsized influence on school boards across the country in 2022. Soon, members began pressuring schools to remake their curricula along conservative ideological lines, erasing mentions of LGBTQ+ Americans, slavery, racism and more.
As a Black dad living in a historically Black part of Sarasota, Glover said he was especially disturbed by governor Ron DeSantis’s announcement that Florida schools would begin teaching students that some Black people benefited from slavery. “Now my children and the students in my community weren’t going to be learning about the true history of this country,” Glover said.
So the father of four decided to run for Sarasota’s school board this year. He is part of a larger movement of students, parents, teachers and concerned community members pushing back against the influence of groups like Moms for Liberty in Florida public education. They wanted schools that were safe and welcoming for all students, and that focused on learning rather than scoring points on the national political scene.
And last month, they won."
Troy Smith, Sami Sparber, Axios; Ohio leads the nation in library checkouts
"Ohio leads the nation in public library borrowing, with residents having checked out more than 13 items per person in FY 2024, according to newly released federal data.
Why it matters: Ohio's library habit isn't new. The state has consistently ranked near the top nationally for circulation, including ranking No. 1 in 2015 and 2016 and No. 2 in 2017.
The big picture: Americans averaged 6.5 library checkouts per person in FY24 — meaning Ohioans borrowed more than twice the national rate, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
That includes old-fashioned books and other physical items, plus e-books and other electronic materials.
By the numbers: Utah, Washington and Colorado are the only other states to top 10 checkouts per person."
Alex Fiedler, The Cascadia Advocate; Documentary Review: “The Librarians” puts the human cost of book banning on screen
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said about a dozen signs would be installed outside the National Museum of American History warning of curators’ “personal viewpoints.”
"The Trump administration is moving ahead with plans to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to install signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History that would warn visitors about what the White House has called ideological bias in the institution’s presentation of the nation’s past.
The Interior Department is preparing about a dozen signs, expected to cost roughly $7,000 apiece, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum disclosed in a Sept. 3 letter to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over Smithsonian funding. Burgum said the signs, which he described as temporary, have not yet been finalized...
The planned signs are one piece of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to reshape how the Smithsonian presents American history, an effort that has intensified in recent months through executive orders, reviews of museum exhibits and threats to withhold some forms of federal support from the institution...
Trump ordered the signs after the White House issued a 162-page report on July 4 accusing the American History Museum and its director, Anthea Hartig, of promoting “extreme political activism.” The report, which rattled Smithsonian employees, scrutinized current and former exhibits and drew extensively from public comments by Hartig and other Smithsonian officials."
Jessica Johnson BBC Wales ; Library books overdue by 116 years returned in 'excellent condition'
"A man has returned his late grandfather's library books which were overdue by 116 years.
Peter O'Sullivan's grandfather, Walter Griffith Owen, took out Milton's Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's King Lear in 1910."
Sebastian Smee, The Atlantic; Lonnie Bunch Protected the Smithsonian From More Than Trump
"Since his appointment as the Smithsonian’s top official—its 14th secretary and the first historian and Black man to hold the position—in June 2019, Bunch has been the glue holding the Smithsonian together. Through a combination of principled stances and deft political skills, he has kept the sprawling institution on mission and aligned with its public. Chief Justice John Roberts, who serves as the Smithsonian’s chancellor, said in a statementthat Bunch has “pursued excellence in the telling of our nation’s story” and that the Smithsonian has “benefited greatly from his wisdom, vision, and leadership.”"
Robin Pogrebin and Graham Bowley , The New York Times; Smithsonian’s Secretary to Resign as Trump Tries to Rule the Institution
"After a seven-year run marked most recently by attacks from the Trump administration, Lonnie G. Bunch III announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
The White House has escalated its criticism of how the Smithsonian presents American history and values, prompting concern from some about what they see as an assault on the institution’s autonomy and commendation from others for reining in an organization they view as overtaken by liberal bias.
In an interview, Mr. Bunch, 73, said it was not the pressure that had led to his departure."
Mike Isaac and Karen Weise , The New York Times; Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports
Filings made Friday in The New York Times’s closely watched lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft included a range of copyright law and cultural references.
"Court filings made Friday in a closely watched copyright trial pitting The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft invoked a wide range of material, including relevant copyright law, arts and sports.
The suit, filed in 2023 by The Times and joined by a group of other news outlets, claims that OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence start-up, and its partner Microsoft infringed on the publishers’ copyrighted material by using millions of their articles to train A.I. technologies. A.I. companies now compete with The Times as a source of information, the news outlet argued in its suit.
The briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely boiled down to two questions: whether the publishers’ news articles were sufficiently “transformed” into an entirely new work by A.I., and whether A.I. produced content that “substituted” for news articles and harmed their value.
Friday was the last day the companies could file motions for a summary judgment that would head off a trial. Judge Sidney H. Stein is expected to make a ruling in the coming weeks."
"The Dallas Public Library is cutting its adult education programs, including classes for English language learners, as the city tries to deal with a $51 million budget shortfall. Similar resources will now be much harder to find, especially for undocumented students, one library volunteer told NTX Now.
The program elimination was necessary to keep all of the city's library branches open, Library Director Manya Shorr previously said. The system is also cutting more than 70 positions, about 30 of which are currently filled, according to The Dallas Morning News."
Miles J. Reed, The Community Journalism Fund; Schenectady library's new strategic plan dismissed as 'whitewash'
"A newly released five-year strategic plan for the Schenectady County Public Library is being dismissed as a “whitewash” by a watchdog group that formed after the library’s departure from the region’s largest interlibrary-loan agreement.
Members of Citizens Concerned about the Library say the 2026-31 plan, which was formally released last week, is a watered-down version of the original draft plan.
Library officials, however, say the strategic plan was crafted with input from a wide variety of stakeholders and the professional guidance of the Minnesota-based Library Strategies Consulting Group."
Darian Berdysz, Ohio State News; From idea to intellectual property
"For many inventors, researchers and entrepreneurs, an idea is just the beginning; what comes next and knowing how to properly protect that idea can often be one of the most challenging journeys. That is where The Ohio State University Libraries’ Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) comes in.
At the PTRC, innovators can find guidance, educational resources and expert support to help them navigate patents, trademarks and other forms of intellectual property protection. As part of a nationwide network of centers designated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Ohio State’s PTRC helps connect inventors and business owners with the information they need to safeguard their work.
The network includes academic, public and state libraries across the country. What makes Ohio State’s program unique is the diverse areas of expertise from the team, including a business librarian; an engineering librarian; a chemistry and physical science librarian; and a food, agricultural and environmental science librarian...
Megan Powell, chemistry and physical sciences librarian and a member of the PTRC team, noted that the university’s partnership with the Columbus Metropolitan Library further expands access to intellectual property education and resources, supporting Ohio State’s land-grant mission while helping strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the state.
Throughout the year, the PTRC offers educational workshops, information sessions and one-on-one consultations designed to help innovators navigate the intellectual property landscape. In the past two years alone, the center has educated more than 745 individuals on protecting their intellectual property.
Powell believes one of the most important functions of Ohio State’s PTRC is helping individuals better understand a process that can often feel overwhelming."
Joseph A. Wulfsohn , Fox News; Fired Stars and Stripes staffers sue Pentagon, allege retaliation and First Amendment violation
"The three Stars and Stripes staffers who were fired last week over alleged insubordination have filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon over their terminations, alleging they are facing "imminent retaliation and termination in violation of their First Amendment and statutory rights."
"Defendants are attempting to fire Plaintiffs for speaking up as private citizens in support of the press’s freedom to cover military operations, its need to reach all servicepersons, and in retaliation for their publication of a news report on deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln during its extended tour of duty in the Mid-East," the lawsuit filed Thursday stated. "This action seeks to prevent the blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of these journalists and challenges the U.S. Department of Defense’s extraordinary censorship efforts in violation of both the First Amendment and DoD regulations and policies."
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was brought by ousted Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, longtime publisher Max Lederer and Middle East reporter Lara Korte."
