Welcome back, library friends. I’m getting the heavier updates out of the way first. These include a fatal shooting at a California library, censorship updates, and the prolonged fight to fund IMLS. But there’s other news in here, as well. There’s a forthcoming Dungeon Crawler Carl series adaptation, as well as n AI controversy related to a book award! Then there’s a look at how Gen Z does–and doesn’t–use the public library.

Library Updates

• There was a fatal shooting at the Chico branch of the Butte County Library in California, and the American Library Association issued a statement. My heart and thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy. This is a library worker’s worst nightmare. Content warning here for gun violence.
• The latest on the fight to fund the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
• The American Library Association introduces a resolution to establish a Librarians’ and Library Workers’ Bill of Rights.
• Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced the first ever statewide digital library resource program.
• How Gen Z uses (and don’t use) public libraries.

Censorship News

• Do minors have a right to privacy in the library?
• Related: “Won’t someone think of the children?” Youth library cards and privacy.
• How book banning is making libraries increasingly difficult to navigate for adults.
• Who is winning the fight around book bans?
• Texas passed the first state-mandated book list, and it contains a lot of classic literature and Bible passages.
• The Massachusetts House overwhelmingly voted in support of a new anti-book ban bill.
• Utah has banned its 35th book from all public schools: Lucky by Alice Sebold. Shortly thereafter, they added a 36th book, Stephen King’s Different Seasons.
• Related: one of the most prolific book banning school districts in Utah, Washington County School District, may have been breaking the new state law by allowing informal complaints from people without standing in the school district (ie. students, parents of students, or school employees).

Award News

• Ann Patchett is receiving the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
• Three writers were accused of using AI in their Commonwealth Foundation Short Story Prize-winning pieces, but they have now been cleared after a month-long investigation. One of the accused authors has won the top Commonwealth prize.

Book Adaptations In the News

• Hannah Grace’s hockey romance series, Icebreaker, is getting a series at Netflix.
• Emma Donoghue is writing the screenplay for the feature adaptation of Ava Reid’s Lady Macbeth.
• Alix E. Harrow’s The Everlasting is getting a Netflix series.
• Daisy Edgar Jones will star in Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
• Dungeon Crawler Carl is getting a series at Peacock.
• Colleen Hoover is producing the adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s Love, Theoretically for Amazon MGM.
• Trailers for Klara and the Sun, Sense & Sensibility, Practical Magic 2, and The Love Hypothesis.

Keeping tabs on the latest in book censorship news? Don’t miss out on our weekly newsletter dedicated to all things literary advocacy–including rounding up the news in book censorship–with Literary Activism.