Showing posts with label access to information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label access to information. Show all posts

Monday, July 7, 2025

Privacy under siege: DOGE’s one big, beautiful database; Brookings, June 25, 2025

 ,  , and  , Brookings; Privacy under siege: DOGE’s one big, beautiful database

"The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to reporting in the Washington Post, recently set its sights on creating “a single centralized [government] database” that would enable broad access across government agencies to vast amounts of information currently collected and held by individual federal agencies.  

Government data aggregation and unification on this scale is antithetical to the purpose-driven requirements for data sharing among government agencies that lie at the heart of the Privacy Act, a 1974 law passed in the aftermath of Watergate and the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) scandals."

RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?; ABC News, July 3, 2025

Mary Kekatos , ABC News; RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?


[Kip Currier: Probably not a good idea, given the current administration's documented disregard for the rights of people to control access to their own data.

See hereherehere, and here.]


[Excerpt]

"Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the agency was launching a campaign to encourage all Americans to use wearables to track health metrics.

Wearables come in the form of watches, bands, rings, patches and clothes that can be used for a variety of reasons including monitoring glucose levels, measuring activity levels, track heart health and observe sleeping patterns.

"It's a way … people can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility," Kennedy said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health."

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and Once a White House Voice, Dies at 91; The New York Times, June 26, 2025

, The New York Times; Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and Once a White House Voice, Dies at 91

"In an age of broadcast blowhards, the soft-spoken Mr. Moyers applied his earnest, deferential style to interviews with poets, philosophers and educators, often on the subject of values and ideas. His 1988 PBS series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” drew 30 million viewers, posthumously turned Mr. Campbell — at the time a little-known mythologist — into a public broadcasting star, and popularized the Campbell dictum “Follow your bliss.” 

A Sense of Moral Urgency’

To admirers, many of them liberals, Mr. Moyers was the nation’s conscience, bringing to his work what one television critic called “a sense of moral urgency and decency.” Others, mostly conservatives, found him sanctimonious and accused him of bias. In a 2004 retrospective, the conservative website FrontPageMag.com called him a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”...

PBS to CBS and Back

Mr. Moyers turned down offers to edit newspapers, run colleges and co-host the “Today” show on NBC. (“I just didn’t like the idea of selling dog food in a world where so many people were eating it,” he told People magazine.) Instead, he began producing a weekly public affairs program on PBS, devoting entire shows to topics like the Watergate scandal and public education. John J. O’Connor of The Times called his show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” “one of the most outstanding series on television.”

Ohio libraries celebrate veto of budget measure censoring materials; Ohio Capital Journal, July 1, 2025

 , Ohio Capital Journal; Ohio libraries celebrate veto of budget measure censoring materials

"The General Assembly still has the chance to override the veto with a three-fifths vote, but it would do so after libraries and advocates across the state stood staunchly against the measure.

The Columbus Metropolitan Library posted a statement to their social media applauding DeWine’s veto, calling it “a significant win for intellectual freedom and the right of every Ohioan to freely access information at their library.”

Jade Braden, a circulation assistant for Worthington Libraries, said the veto “helps ensure that library professionals, not statehouse politicians, continue to make choices about how we serve our entire community, what materials we provide and how we display those materials in our libraries.”

“Protecting intellectual freedom is an ongoing battle in which we will always need to be vigilant,” Braden told the OCJ. “The fight for our community and their right to read is one we continually dedicate ourselves to.”"

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Inside the battle for control of the Library of Congress; Federal News Network, July 1, 2025

 Terry Gerton , Federal News Network; Inside the battle for control of the Library of Congress

"Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Kevin Kosar. He’s a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. So those are interesting theories. And as you mentioned though, the library is a research library, not a lending library. So AI is not going to train itself on printed books. It needs electronic information. What is the impact on the day-to-day operations of the library and the copyright office?

Kevin Kosar Well, right now, certainly, it’s a little anxiety-provoking for people at the Library of Congress, this kind of peculiar state of, are we suddenly going to find ourselves answering to a new boss in the form of the president? They are more than aware of what’s happened at other executive agencies where the president has sent in people from the Department of Government Efficiency and started turning off people’s computers and telling them not to come into work and canceling contracts and doing any number of other things that are, you know, hugely disruptive to workers’ day-to-day life. So there’s that anxiety there. And if this move by the Trump administration plays out, it’s really hard to see what could ultimately occur. One thing that that’s clear to me is that if you have presidential control of the Library of Congress, then the Congressional Research Service is doomed. For those listeners out there who are not familiar with the Congressional Research Service, this is Congress’ think tank. This is about 600 individual civil servants whose job is to provide nonpartisan research, analysis and facts to legislators and their staff to help them better do their jobs. And if you have a president who takes over the library, that president can point the head of the Congressional Research Service and turn it into basically a presidential tool, which would make it useless.

Terry Gerton And the administration has sort of already said that it puts no stock in CRS’s products."

KY library book challenges rose 1,000% in 2024. That’s not a typo. What happened?; Lexington Herald Leader, June 30, 2025

John Cheves , Lexington Herald Leader; KY library book challenges rose 1,000% in 2024. That’s not a typo. What happened?

"Challenges to Kentucky public library books soared by 1,061% last year, rising from 26 incidents in 2023 to 302 incidents in 2024, according to a recently released state report. That eye-popping number is buried in small type at the bottom of page six of the annual Statistical Report of Kentucky Public Libraries, published in April by the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives."

DeWine vetoes library material restriction in Ohio budget; WFMJ, July 1, 2025

 

WFMJ; DeWine vetoes library material restriction in Ohio budget

"Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Monday vetoed a controversial provision in the state's new budget that would have imposed restrictions on public libraries regarding the placement of materials related to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The veto came as DeWine signed the state budget bill. In his statement, the Republican governor expressed concerns about what he described as the "vague restrictions" proposed for libraries.

"No child should have access to inappropriate materials or to materials that their parents or guardians deem inappropriate," DeWine said. "In Ohio, we have strong laws on obscenity and material harmful to juveniles, and the DeWine-Tressel Administration expects those laws to be enforced. Therefore, a veto of this item is in the public interest."

The provision, which had drawn strong opposition from library systems across the state, including the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, would have required libraries to segregate such materials so they were not visible to patrons under 18.

Library advocates, including the Ohio Library Council (OLC), argued that the language was "overly vague and broad" and "ultimately unworkable." Aimee Fifarek, CEO and director of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, previously warned that complying with the mandate could force libraries to "close down" to review and re-code materials, potentially leading to "unconstitutional censorship."

Monday, June 30, 2025

Philly has 3 librarians for 218 district schools. People from across the U.S. held a ‘read-in’ to call out problem.; The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 27, 2025

Carla Hayden, former Librarian of Congress, speaks on her dismissal, the future of libraries at Philadelphia event; WHYY, June 29, 2025

Emily Neil, WHYY ; Carla Hayden, former Librarian of Congress, speaks on her dismissal, the future of libraries at Philadelphia event

"Former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden spoke at the Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central Branch on Saturday night, where she sat down for a fireside chat with Ashley Jordan, president and CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia...

In his introductory remarks, Kelly Richards, president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, said that Hayden has always been a “tireless advocate” for the library systems throughout her career. He said libraries are not just “repositories of knowledge” in a democratic society, but “vibrant centers of community life, education and inclusion.”

“Libraries have a reputation for being a quiet place, but not tonight,” Richards said, as audience members gave Hayden and Jordan a standing ovation when they entered the stage."

Microsoft says AI system better than doctors at diagnosing complex health conditions; The Guardian, June 30, 2025

 , The Guardian; Microsoft says AI system better than doctors at diagnosing complex health conditions

"Microsoft has revealed details of an artificial intelligence system that performs better than human doctors at complex health diagnoses, creating a “path to medical superintelligence”.

The company’s AI unit, which is led by the British tech pioneer Mustafa Suleyman, has developed a system that imitates a panel of expert physicians tackling “diagnostically complex and intellectually demanding” cases.

Microsoft said that when paired with OpenAI’s advanced o3 AI model, its approach “solved” more than eight of 10 case studies specially chosen for the diagnostic challenge. When those case studies were tried on practising physicians – who had no access to colleagues, textbooks or chatbots – the accuracy rate was two out of 10.

Microsoft said it was also a cheaper option than using human doctors because it was more efficient at ordering tests."

Friday, June 27, 2025

How IMLS Funding Cuts Will Impact Prison Libraries; Medium, June 11, 2025

Lauren Triola , Medium; How IMLS Funding Cuts Will Impact Prison Libraries

"With the recent chaos surrounding the future of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), people are concerned about libraries around the country losing vital government funding. Most of the uproar against the proposed cuts has centered on how important public libraries are to their communities. However, there’s another type of library that will also be affected by these funding cuts — one that is indispensable to the community it serves.

Prison libraries are a lifeline to many people who are incarcerated. They depend heavily on IMLS grants, and if IMLS is dismantled or suffers severe funding cuts, then prison libraries will struggle to exist."

Supreme Court decides whether to allow parents to shield children from LGBTQ books in school; Fox News, June 27, 2025

Ashley Oliver , Fox News ; Supreme Court decides whether to allow parents to shield children from LGBTQ books in school

"The Supreme Court held Friday that a group of Maryland parents are entitled to opt their children out of school lessons that could violate their beliefs in a case centered on religious freedom. 

The justices decided 6-3 along ideological lines in Mahmoud v. Taylor that parents can exclude their children from a Maryland public school system's lessons that contain themes about homosexuality and transgenderism if they feel it conflicts with their religious faith."

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Manzanar teaches about Japanese American incarceration in the US. That’s in jeopardy under Trump; The Guardian, June 26, 2025

 , The Guardian; Manzanar teaches about Japanese American incarceration in the US. That’s in jeopardy under Trump

"Since then, Manzanar, which now has a museum and reconstructed barracks that visitors can walk through, has been transformed into a popular pilgrimage destination for Japanese Americans to remember and teach others about this history. (Manzanar was one of 10 concentration camps where the US government forcibly relocated and held more than 110,000 people of Japanese descent during the second world war.)

But recently, under the direction of the Trump administration, National Park Service (NPS) employees have hung new signs at Manzanar that historians and community advocates say will undermine these public education efforts. The notices encourage visitors to report “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features” via a QR code. The signs, which have been posted at all national parks, monuments and historic sites, were displayed in support of Donald Trump’s executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History...

“Any attempt to constrain or sanitize the stories that are told at Manzanar should concern every American,” said Naomi Ostwald Kawamura, executive director of Densho, an organization that documents the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were held in concentration camps. “I’m incredibly disappointed that this is happening in the United States because museums, monuments and memorials are public spaces where we can explore difficult history, confront our past, engage with what’s uncomfortable and then be able to imagine the future that we want to collectively share.”"

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County raises concerns regarding potential censorship provisions; WFMJ, June 25, 2025

Zach Mosca , 21WFMJ; Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County raises concerns regarding potential censorship provisions

"The Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County (PLYMC) along with the Ohio Library Commission (OLC) are sounding the alarm over provisions in the Ohio State Budget that a representative for the library says will not only affect the library's funding, but the content guests have access to.

21 News has already highlighted concerns regarding potential budget cuts, which could put certain library programs at risk. Now, the library is raising the alarm about language in the budget that could restrict access to certain material for guests under 18.

According to the OLC, who represents Ohio's 251 public library systems including PLYMC, a provision in Ohio's budget proposal would require public libraries to segregate material related to sexual orientation or gender identity or expression so they are not visible to guests under 18.

OLC Executive Director Michelle Francis says this language is overly vague and broad and "ultimately unworkable."

"It opens the door to unconstitutional censorship and undermines the core mission of libraries - to provide free and open access to information," Francis said."

Trump knocks down barriers around personal data, raising alarm; The Hill, June 25, 2025

 AMALIA HUOT-MARCHAND, The Hill ; Trump knocks down barriers around personal data, raising alarm

"The Trump administration is shattering norms around the handling of Americans’ personal — and sometimes private — information, dismantling barriers around data in the name of government efficiency and rooting out fraud. 

Privacy experts say the moves bring the country closer to a surveillance state, increase the government’s vulnerability to cyberattacks and risk pushing people away from public services. 

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has sought and nearly always received access to Social Security numbers, addresses, medical histories, tax histories, welfare benefits, bank accounts, immigration statuses and federal employee databases.

These moves have shattered walls that have long kept data within the agencies that collect it."

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Copyright Cases Should Not Threaten Chatbot Users’ Privacy; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), June 23, 2025

 TORI NOBLE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Copyright Cases Should Not Threaten Chatbot Users’ Privacy

"Like users of all technologies, ChatGPT users deserve the right to delete their personal data. Nineteen U.S. States, the European Union, and a host of other countries already protect users’ right to delete. For years, OpenAI gave users the option to delete their conversations with ChatGPT, rather than let their personal queries linger on corporate servers. Now, they can’t. A badly misguided court order in a copyright lawsuit requires OpenAI to store all consumer ChatGPT conversations indefinitely—even if a user tries to delete them. This sweeping order far outstrips the needs of the case and sets a dangerous precedent by disregarding millions of users’ privacy rights.

The privacy harms here are significant. ChatGPT’s 300+ million users submit over 1 billion messages to its chatbots per dayoften for personal purposes. Virtually any personal use of a chatbot—anything from planning family vacations and daily habits to creating social media posts and fantasy worlds for Dungeons and Dragons games—reveal personal details that, in aggregate, create a comprehensive portrait of a person’s entire life. Other uses risk revealing people’s most sensitive information. For example, tens of millions of Americans use ChatGPT to obtain medical and financial information. Notwithstanding other risks of these uses, people still deserve privacy rights like the right to delete their data. Eliminating protections for user-deleted data risks chilling beneficial uses by individuals who want to protect their privacy."

Sunday, June 22, 2025

‘Censorship:’ See the National Park visitor responses after Trump requested help deleting ‘negative’ signage; Government Executive, June 18, 2025

 Eric Katz, Government Executive; ‘Censorship:’ See the National Park visitor responses after Trump requested help deleting ‘negative’ signage

The administration asked for help erasing language on park displays that failed to emphasize American grandeur, but visitors have not identified any examples.


[Kip Currier: Trump 2.0's Interior Department initiative inviting National Park visitors to "snitch" on anything they see at a national park that they think presents America in "negative" or "inappropriate" ways is an affront to the complexities of history.

It's also an affront to us: as free-thinking individuals with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

There are many aspects of America and our history that are exceptional, uplifting, and inspiring. There are also aspects of America and our history that are not. Recognizing that duality does not diminish America or us. It actually strengthens us. It acknowledges that we are imperfect but are always striving to be better and do better.

Moreover, we can handle the grey complexity of parts of our history. We don't need government to sanitize and erase the parts of our history that are messy or which don't depict us at our best or listening to our better angels.

This Government Executive article gives me hope. Hope that more Americans will continue to share their voices and say that we can handle the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of our history. And hope that our government will leave their "HANDS OFF" of our collective history: if more people are willing to speak up.]


[Excerpt]

"The Trump administration recently began posting signs on federal parks and historic sites asking for help from visitors in identifying language that negatively discussed America’s past or present and launched a process for federal agencies to remove, cover or replace flagged materials. 

In the responses submitted by visitors to National Park Service sites, however, which were obtained by Government Executive, no single submission pointed to any such examples. Instead, in the nearly 200 submissions NPS received in the first days since the solicitations were posted, visitors implored the administration not to erase U.S. history and praised agency staff for improving their experiences.  

The new request at NPS and other Interior Department sites followed an executive order from President Trump dubbed “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that called for federal lands to remove information that could “improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events.” That in turn led to an order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that department staff solicit public feedback to flag “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” The reviews should include exhibits, brochures, films, waysides and signs, the secretary said. 

In instructions to staff also obtained by Government Executive, NPS employees were told to review feedback from visitors weekly but not yet remove any materials. For each comment, staff can either mark it as received but not requiring action, requiring action but not related to the signage issue or flagged for review by NPS leadership in Washington. Parks will receive follow up information in August. 

In the meantime, NPS said, the agency’s Harpers Ferry Center is currently “developing standard protocols and templates to assist with expedited removal, covering, or temporary replacement of any media that does not comply with” Burgum's order. It added a “long-term plan for permanent replacement is also under development for affected media.” 

So far, NPS is not getting the help it was hoping for from those scanning the QR codes now posted around park sites soliciting assistance in identifying language in violation of Trump and Burgum’s orders. Instead, visitors accused the Trump administration of seeking to erase the nation’s history.

“There shouldn't be signs about history that whitewash and erase the centuries of discrimination against the people who have cared for this land for generations,” a visitor to Indian Dunes National Park said.

A visitor to Independence Hall in Philadelphia called the new signs “censorship dressed up as customer service.” 

“What upset me the most about the museum—more than anything in the actual exhibits—were the signs telling people to report anything they thought was negative about Americans,” the visitor said. “That isn't just frustrating, it's outrageous. It felt like an open invitation to police and attack historians for simply doing their jobs: telling the truth.” 

Several visitors to the Stonewall National Monument in New York lamented changes there the park’s website that removed mention of transgender individuals in the Stonewall Uprising. 

“Put them back,” the visitor said. “Honor them. There would be no Stonewall without trans people.”

A visitor at Yellowstone National Park said the information presented there should challenge people. 

“The executive order to asking for feedback is ****,” the message read. “Parks already do an amazing job telling stories that contain hard truths and everyone is entitled to the truth to make better decisions in our lives. So what if people feel bad?” 

Without factual information, the person added, “everything is just a pretty facade with no real substance.”

At Manzanar National Historical Site, one of the internment camps that held Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans during World War II, a visitor said the site existed to present information about the costly errors in U.S. history. 

“The entire purpose of parks like this one is to learn from the mistakes of the past so we can avoid repeating them,” the visitor said. “Please do not water down the reality of the experience for future visitors.”

A visitor at the Natchez National Historical Park had a similar takeaway. 

“Slavery was a dark time in our history and we need to come to terms with that,” the individual said, “not gloss it over and romanticize the Antebellum South.” 

Only one visitor—at Petersburg National Battlefield, a Civil War site—noted they read signs that “didn’t sit right,” though the individual did not specify any materials that needed changing. Instead, the person requested a “second look” to potentially identify “more balance.” A Grand Canyon National Park visitor said the site should change its signs, but added “signed, Elon,” suggesting the comment was left in jest. 

Many of the comments asked NPS to include more information that highlighted the U.S. government’s discriminatory practices toward Native Americans. A bevy of visitors also asked for increased staffing and complimented the steps existing employees took to improve their experiences. 

Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, called the directive requiring park staff to post the new signs with accompanying QR codes “an outrage” that shows the “deep contempt for their work to preserve and tell American stories.”   

“If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes,” Pierno said. “These signs must come down immediately.”

An Interior Department spokesperson said in response to a request for comment that leaks “will not be tolerated.”

“It is a true shame that employees are spending their time leaking to the media instead of doing work for the American people, the spokesperson said. “The same American people who fund their paychecks.”

Trump, in his executive order, said federal lands should display materials that amplify American greatness. 

ark materials should “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape,” Trump said. 

The Independence Hall visitor suggested that line of thinking would not effect the desired result. 

“Putting up signs like that doesn't protect anyone, [it] just tells visitors that the truth is a problem,” the visitor said. “And I can't think of anything more offensive than that.”"

Portland author has collected his dream library of books – and most of them don’t exist; Portland Press Herald, June 20, 2025

Skyler Cummings, Portland Press Herald ; Portland author has collected his dream library of books – and most of them don’t exist

Hemingway’s missing novel. Alice’s backwards-printed book in "Through the Looking Glass." Sylvia Plath’s never-finished autobiography. Reid Byers owns copies of all those "invisible" books that bibliophiles wish were real.

[Kip Currier: Portland Press Herald is another example of a newspaper with an iron-clad paywall that doesn't provide access to even one sentence from this article. Just the headlines. 

If you're trying to attract new readers and subscribers to a communication medium that's hemorrhaging people who see its value, you might want to offer a glimpse of what your product looks and sounds like.]

Enslaved Black Children Were Educated Here. Now the Public Can Learn the History.; The New York Times, June 19, 2025

 , The New York Times; Enslaved Black Children Were Educated Here. Now the Public Can Learn the History.

"Since the discovery, the Bray School has been fully restored. It will open to the public on Thursday — Juneteenth — in Colonial Williamsburg, where it was relocated in 2023 to be preserved. The space will give visitors a sense of the lives of the students, and the museum will scrutinize, through interpreters, the mission of the school, which not only taught the children church doctrine and reading but sought to “convince enslaved students to accept their circumstances as divinely ordained,” according to the museum’s website.

The opening of the school comes at a particularly fraught time in the United States as Black history, diversity and established historical narratives are being challenged, sanitized or even erased. Its story also unlocks another layer of the historic city, whose identity is shaped, in part, by its role in the American Revolution. Located in the coastal Tidewater region, Williamsburg was once the capital of the British colony of Virginia. The city is a unique place to examine colonial life — including slavery — and the nation’s founding ideals...

“I always knew there were pieces missing from the story of Blacks here in Williamsburg,” said Janice Canaday, who traces her family to Elisha and Mary Jones, who attended the Bray School in 1762 as free students. Ms. Canaday works as Colonial Williamsburg’s African American community engagement manager, and said she often thought about the children. “I wonder what songs they sang.” she said, “Did they go home, wherever home was, and share what they learned? Did they look out the window and somehow see hope?”...

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which owns and operates the museum, has been accused of both presenting a whitewashed version of the colonial period and of going “woke” by making the 18th-century storytelling more inclusive."

Saturday, June 21, 2025

How a Single Court Case Could Determine the Future of Book Banning in America; Literary Hub, June 17, 2025

 , Literary Hub; How a Single Court Case Could Determine the Future of Book Banning in America

"Bottom line: in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi–the states covered by the Fifth Circuit–libraries are free to remove books for any reason. 

The plaintiffs now face a choice: accept the Fifth Circuit’s ruling or appeal to the Supreme Court. If there is an appeal, the court may not accept it. Over 7,000 cases are appealed to the high court each year, and it hears only 100-150–less than two percent. Yet I think Little v. Llano County has a good chance of making the docket. 

For one thing, the Fifth Circuit’s en banc reversal of its own panel’s ruling suggests the need for the high court to step in. Second, this Supreme Court has been eager to revisit earlier precedents. In the last few years, it has curtailed abortion protections, ended Chevron deference, and canceled affirmative action in college admissions–all long-standing, seemingly bedrock principles. Why not target Pico, especially since it wasn’t a decisive ruling to begin with?

Third, unlike most book ban cases, Little pertains not to a school library but a public one. Public libraries, according to UCLA professor Eugene Volokh, are not like school libraries. “I tentatively think a public school,” Volokh wrote, “is entitled to decide which viewpoints to promote through its own library,” whereas public libraries “are much more about giving more options to readers, rather than about teaching particular skills and attitudes to students.” 

Public libraries also serve more people–an entire county rather than a school system. Remember Judge Duncan’s belief that anyone who wants a certain book “can buy it or borrow it from somewhere else”? Llano County is small and rural, and many of its residents may not have the purchase option. For them, a book being unavailable in a library is a de facto ban. The pro-library organization EveryLibrary agrees, writing that the Fifth Circuit’s opinion “reveals an indifference to the lived reality of millions of Americans for whom public libraries are their only or primary means of access to books.” 

Here’s hoping that, if Little or any other book ban case ends up before this Supreme Court, those nine justices will consider the issue thoughtfully, creatively, and most important, impartially."