Censorship Pushes U.S. Public Libraries to the Brink, PEN America Finds
A PEN America report says U.S. public libraries are under intense political pressure and censorship, with incidents of book bans, targeted attacks on librarians, governance encroachments, and funding threats, raising concerns about access to diverse books and information; the study points to cases in Tennessee, Idaho, Alabama, and Florida, notes thousands of school book bans since 2021 (over half occurring in public libraries), and highlights efforts by communities to defend reading rights amid rising censorship.