Bob Warburton

Freedom to read issues are generating legislation—both library-adverse and library-protective—across the country.

In the Southern California community of Huntington Beach, days before sharp budget cuts to the Huntington Beach Public Library (HBPL) were proposed—and then walked back—battle lines were drawn over a proposal to screen public library materials for what some deem sexually explicit or age-inappropriate content, and possibly limit access to those materials. The challenge, however, did not originate with an anonymous patron or member of a right-wing group, but with the city’s Mayor Pro Tem Gracey Van Der Mark.

The Mamaroneck Public Library, NY, has been hit with a budget shortfall of an estimated $1.4 million, Director Jennifer O’Neill told LJ. For years, the library has used cash reserves to balance its annual spending plans. But in January, the monthly report submitted by MPL’s longtime business manager unexpectedly showed almost no money in that fund to draw on.

A bill that explicitly prohibits Illinois libraries from banning books is speeding its way toward passage by the General Assembly, and the Illinois Secretary of State said he wants “every librarian in the country to know we have their backs.”

Connecticut's Senate Bill 2, “An Act Concerning The Mental, Physical And Emotional Wellness of Children,” would, among many other things, allow every Connecticut municipality to designate a single sanctuary library—a place where patrons are promised access to books banned or challenged elsewhere.

Rebuffing a move to ban so-called “socially divisive” material from its collection, the Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library in eastern Kansas got a new lease for its main branch last month. But its longtime director says it was alarming to see the usually routine lease renewal process used as leverage in a months-long battle over censorship.

Voters in Craighead County, AR, will soon decide whether to roll back library tax revenue by half—from two mills to one—after a citizen’s group with regional Tea Party backing succeeded in getting that question on the November 8 ballot.