Booksology With two more years of free attacks on books and libraries, Book Riot and The EveryLibrary Institute once again collaborated to assess library parents’ perceptions. In late August, the organization developed two new research. The first looked at the perceptions of public libraries parents, and the second assessed the perceptions of school libraries parents.
Parental perceptions of library surveys in 2025 completed time on-site. Over the next few weeks, results and insights from them will be focused here on understanding the current state of American censorship and libraries on the EveryLibrary Institute website and other outlets.
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You can use positive tips and tools for the fight against news you can use and activities like censorship and other books!
This biennial survey series includes many similar questions as those raised in 2023. There are ongoing attempts to legislate the library’s child safety questions, the person responsible for determining what materials are available in the library, and the libraries and their workers. Some questions try to understand that parents believe that certain topics are accepted by their children, such as books on gender and sexuality, books on religious beliefs, Christianity and other books, books by marginalized people, books on marginalized people, books that specifically explore trans themes and topics. It has become clear what books have been in the spotlight in censorship over the past two years. Part of the goal of these studies is to better understand whether these topics are widely debated or whether such discourses are confined to a small, politically motivated population.
Other survey questions include understanding parents’ perceptions of how involved parents are in their local libraries, why certain books are prohibited at schools and public institutions, and their beliefs about when it is appropriate to withhold access to materials.
The last major survey of libraries and book bans in the United States was compiled by the Knight Foundation in 2024 and was widely shared last summer. Since then, we have seen an unprecedented new administration and an unprecedented increase in attacks on the fundamental rights of Americans to access information. The library and its materials are targeted both nationally and internationally, as are the Department of Defense Educational Activities Schools. The Museum and Library Services Institute, the only federal agency dedicated to public libraries and museums, was likely to close in March 2025 and on September 30th.
Elsewhere, politically motivated parents are given keys to determine which books are available in public schools. At the same time, capitalists will “support” the process by selling AI-powered book bunning software from those same schools (ignoring the need to undermine the experts of those institutions and protect the personal information of minors). It also ruled a key circuit court on whether patrons have First Amendment rights to library materials and a Supreme Court case that would allow religious parents to exclude students from classroom lessons that include books that contain positive portrayals of LGBTQ+.
This should not be exposed to the new wave of laws related to the ban on books, and does not mean that it was implemented to restrict content or that the content remains protected by initial amendments.
There have been a lot of changes over the past two years. Our goal is not just to understand this moment in terms of how parents view their local public libraries. The goal is also to make it possible to compare it to the location from two years ago. We highlight what is good, bad, ugh and promising, hoping to influence change, give library advocates real data and insights, and give them the opportunity to do good work in the community.
Highlights and insights from the new book Riot and Everylibrary Institute’s Parent Perception Survey begin to appear next week, with a full report set to be released at Banned Books Week in early October 2025.
Book Censorship News: September 5, 2025
Don’t be too excited about this week’s short summary. It’s a holiday week and US schools are just beginning. It is also worth dealing with the reality that these roundups are smaller than last year. This is a focus here on the continuous closure of local news outlets, a reduced pool of journalists covering the issue (no more generating clicks, this is what it takes to have corporate owned media floating), and there are no more stories that are not shared due to quiet/soft censorship, so it’s not just the only singal, not the only voice, but the big removal and censorship.
