The Top 10 Library Stories of 2024

In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in its review of a publisher-led lawsuit seeking to block Iowa’s book banning law, SF 496, soundly rejected the idea that the government speaks through the books school librarians and educators choose to make available. In a thorough opinion, judge Timothy L. Brooks permanently struck down key parts of Arkansas's "harmful to minors" law finding the provisions, which would have exposed librarians to jail time for making allegedly inappropriate books available to minors, to be overbroad and void for vagueness. "The Court simply fails to see how any reasonable person would view the contents of the school library (or any library for that matter) as the government’s endorsement of the views expressed in the books on the library’s shelves," the Trump appointee wrote in a January decision allowing the case to proceed. Freedom-to-Read Laws Pass in Several States On Dec. 9, more than three years after she became a target of abuse from book banners, high school librarian Martha Hickson (now retired) found herself in a much better place: standing alongside New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy as he signed the state’s Freedom to Read Act into law.