A fundamental right for U.S. public library users is that of privacy. This means no one is monitoring what a patron is perusing, what they’re borrowing, or their library use history. It means that authorities cannot walk into a library and demand another user’s records; in many cases, library borrowing records are purged upon the return of materials, so there simply is no record. The right to privacy in the library is enshrined in the Library Bill of Rights, a foundational and essential document developed by the largest professional organization for library workers, the American Library Association (ALA). Thanks to the PATRIOT Act of 2021, libraries were put in the spotlight regarding their privacy policies and committed to upholding patrons’ rights to read freely, without fear that their borrowing records would be shared with the government.
This right to privacy is radical. There are few places in America where there’s any expectation of privacy, let alone a commitment to it. Learning about this blew my mind in college, when I heard that my college’s library–which doubles as the town’s public library–was approached by federal agents. Those agents wanted the records of a user who was related to a potential terrorism suspect. The right to privacy meant the library wouldn’t turn those records over. In hearing this story several times, there were anecdotes peppered in about how the library would keep a card on a bulletin board that said “were we visited by federal agents today?” with a “yes” or “no” answer below.
All of this is well and good for adults. But what about the rights of those under 18 regarding library privacy? This is the first in a series of several pieces that will explore how and where library policies and practices directly impact young readers, as well as how they can be improved to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our culture.
According to the ALA, the right to privacy extends to minors. This is a powerful policy, especially for young people whose home lives may be far from safe. Young people with library cards can borrow what they’d like without fear that the library’s circulation records will be released to others. At least, that’s the theory. In practice, this right to privacy for those under 18 varies state by state and library by library. There are numerous reasons for this. Among them are the ways libraries set up their applications for getting a library card, who is responsible for the materials borrowed on a library card, and what power a parental signature may have on a card application for a minor. Libraries also differ in how they follow the policies and procedures recommended by their professional association, deferring to local practices or expectations, as well as their own experience in their communities. Privacy can be a lot more challenging in a small town than in a larger system.
Many libraries creatively navigate privacy for young people. A young person may feel shame or fear in asking a library worker to help them find books on certain topics, and so the library may anticipate this need in advance. There may be bookmarks with information on where to find books on various topics, and posters on shelves that direct young people to tough topics. Here’s an example from 2019 (or earlier) from Shreve Memorial Library:
Literary Activism
News you can use plus tips and tools for the fight against censorship and other bookish activism!
Over the last couple of years, more than one state has tried to strip young people of their privacy rights in libraries completely. In New Hampshire, the efforts were successful. House Bill 273, passed in August 2025, requires parents to have access to library borrowing records for children under 18. Not only does this bill not have any mechanisms within it to ensure the person seeking minors’ records is the actual parent of the child, but it also imposes both a chilling effect on young readers and sets them up for potential harm at home. Republicans lauded this bill, calling it a win for parental rights. It’s a win, alright–one for the people who believe their children are property and not autonomous beings.
Libraries in New Hampshire now have a requirement to potentially do active harm to their most vulnerable users.
Taking the passage of that law as a permission slip, Iowa Republicans attempted to pass a similar law this year. Amid a flurry of bills targeting libraries, House File 2136 would have required libraries to make the records of minors available to parents or guardians and to law enforcement, pursuant to a crime investigation. Iowa republicans did not stop there, though. They also proposed House File 2324, which would have banned public school-public library partnerships; this came in direct response to a phenomenal project between Des Moines Public Library and Des Moines Public Schools, which permits students to use their school ID to use the public library, cutting off one of the biggest chocking points to library access for minors: parents who can’t get there in person to sign for a card for their students (for any number of reasons–I worked in a system where teenagers came from precarious home situations and did not have a parent who could take time off work to come in to get them a card and those teens still deserved to use the library for their own enjoyment and as a safe, supportive, STABLE place to land after school).
Though the news that neither of these bills passed is good, it is deeply concerning and bleak foreshadowing of what the next legislative session will bring in Iowa and beyond.
It’s hard not to look at these attempts to steal student privacy in light of the news that at the federal level, House Bill 2616 passed and is moving into the Senate. This bill would require public schools to out children to parents, erasing their ability to be who they are during the school day. Again, passed under the guise of “parental rights,” this bill would both put so many young people in physical danger because of the very parents whose rights are being enshrined by the GOP (that is white, cishet, privileged, Christian ones); it would also ensure that anything related to “gender ideology” be removed from schools themselves, setting off a wildfire of censorship.
To the right, children are the property of their parents. To the right, children are political pawns to use in the game of stealing the rights of people who don’t ascribe to an imagined white ideal.
To the right, children aren’t seen as a spectrum of ages and experiences.
When we talk about what minors have access to in the library, the right consistently and intentionally flattens anyone under age 18. There is no nuance when it comes to the physical, mental, and intellectual differences between a two-year-old and a 17-year-old. They’re seen as “children,” and once you see how legislators and their sycophants talk about “parental rights,” legislation, and policy, you see that anyone under 18 is a “child,” unless it’s convenient enough for them to be a “teenager” or a “young adult”–say, when it comes to labor laws (or lowering the driving age so that 14-year-olds can get themselves to a job) or the prison industrial complex. The irony of “young adult” meaning “teenager” when it’s convenient for “parental rights” activists and lawmakers, but not when it comes to books available in a public library.
Should a parent have the right to see the borrowing records of their seven-year-old? Probably, and especially because in most libraries, a seven-year-old cannot be left alone.
Should a parent have the right to see the borrowing records of their 17-year-old? This one begs the question: why is a parent insistent on knowing what their almost-adult is reading at the library? Perhaps the question should be asked a little differently: why would a 17-year-old want to hide what they’re borrowing from their parent or guardian? That question shines a much brighter light on the issue.
Maybe it’s worth asking that question of the seven-year-old, too. This isn’t about parents parenting. It’s about the way some parents believe they get to dictate how every parent raises their own children.
Bulletproof library policies matter, and they matter whether or not the library strictly adheres to those championed by the ALA. We know there are states and municipalities are not allowed to be affiliated with the largest professional organization for library workers. They still need policies that serve the needs of the people in their community–not the needs of the politicians or wanna-be politicians who believe they’re the ones in charge of the library because they think so little of the professionals who have the knowledge, experience, and expertise who do do the job.
Do minors have a right to privacy in the library? If not, where does the potentially slippery slope end?
These are decisions made in the library, not in the legislative chambers. Unfortunately, we’re going to see more and more states steal any small rights young people have to be people over the next several years, aided and abetted by politicians and “activists” who believe children don’t deserve to become independent people during their most formative years.
Book Censorship News: June 12, 2026
A big thank you to my colleagues for covering Literary Activism while I was out of the office. I had the opportunity to talk about book censorship on a panel in Muenster, Germany, which took place just steps from where students burned books with the Nazis in May 1933. What a powerful experience.
The news roundup begins with stories published on or after Friday, June 6.
- The Texas State Board of Education will be meeting June 22-26 to continue talking about–and voting on–the nearly all-white, Bible-infused mandatory reading lists for public school students across the state. Here’s what you need to know and what you can do right now to push back.
- Washington County Schools, one of the school districts in Utah responsible for nearly every book banned at schools across the state, may have flouted state laws in how they’ve allowed informal challenges to become bans. In other words, they’re not following the law, and as a result, students at schools in the entire state are being denied access to books.
- “Taylor emphasized that while he understands concerns about inappropriate materials for minors, he does not believe the state government should dictate local library policies.” This is a worthwhile–if at times frustrating–read about a trustee in Sioux Center, Iowa, who doesn’t believe in public library restrictions, which is something being pursued by the library’s board following a challenge to an adult book that a teen reader borrowed. Taylor stands up for the rights of public library users while also falling victim to the very rhetoric about “inappropriate” materials in school libraries being pushed by the right.
- After banning Roots because they followed the state’s law, Knox County Schools (TN) have both reversed the ban and elected to tell the state to fix the law.
- Fifth grade students in a Massachusetts school hosted a banned books event to raise awareness of the issue happening nationwide, and they’ve been engaged in helping get the state to pass anti-book ban laws. Young people get it.
- A student at University of Nebraska at Kearney complained that a human sexuality textbook they had to use exposed them to “pornography.” The book has been discontinued for future use. If you’re a grown ass adult in a human sexuality university class, you’re going to talk about and see sex.
- The Human Rights Defense Center is working to change the list of approved vendors that the Minnesota Department of Corrections allows to provide those on the inside with books. Recall that prison censorship is the largest First Amendment violation in the country, and it begins with restrictions like these.
- A parent of a student at Dutch Fork High School (SC) is challenging work by Zora Neale Hurston being used in the classroom. Why? The parent believes it is “racially insensitive.” Sigh.
- A Menomonee Falls (WI) group is working to get new policy in at the school that would reinstate the books banned from the district libraries.
- Hunterdon Central (NJ) school board member Lisa Santangelo wants to have Let’s Talk About It pulled from high school library shelves. She doesn’t like that the book has a disclaimer that readers should seek professional guidance if they want more information on a topic. No, not a joke. New Jersey has an anti-book ban law, so we’ll see how this plays out.
- The Pine-Richland School Board (PA) has officially killed the policy shoved through last year that allowed for rampant book banning. This is good news, and it’s also a reminder of how this issue is being centralized among a small contingent of people.
- This story is paywalled, but it appears there’s been a spate of book challenges in Franklin County Libraries (MO).
- Filed also under “this story is paywalled,” the Fremont County Library board (WY) appears to have failed to meet public meeting notice laws when they attempted to ram through several policies that steal the rights of taxpayers from them. People trying to restrict your rights don’t want you to know about it, so they do things like this. It happens on the local and national level.
- “Cllr George Finch has promised a “comprehensive policy” will be created for Warwickshire’s libraries. The Reform UK councillor said the move has come after a number of residents “pointed out to me that libraries in our county have been promoting contested gender ideology”. The Warwickshire County Council (WCC) leader said in a press statement the move is about “safeguarding children” and “ensuring the neutrality” of local libraries.” The UK taking a page out of the book of the American right.
- And here’s the status of book banning in Belarus, where LGBTQ+ books are the prime target.
- As censorship expands, autonomous libraries are springing up to fill the gaps. A great piece about the kinds of pop-up libraries run by community members that help fill a gap public libraries may be restricted from filling themselves.
- This “Foresight Take on Proposed Government Funding Regulations” from the American Alliance of Museums has some really good food for thought for libraries and library systems that benefit from IMLS/NEH/NEA funding.
- An unhinged individual set fire to the book Paper Towns by John Green this week and threw it inside the Laramie County Library (WY).
- How Mohave County (AZ) Circumvented Library Policy to Purge LGBTQ+ Books.
- Something to keep an eye on: book banners are now advocating for school libraries to run their books through the right-wing created National Book Rating Index. Here’s where that showed up recently in Lowell, Michigan. This isn’t an unbiased index, and it lines the pockets of the very people behind Rated Books and the book bans in Utah.
- The Massachusetts House of Representatives overwhelmingly supports the state’s Freedom to Read Bill. This is good forward progression, even if the bill is a watered-down take on the original.
- New Braunfels Independent School District (TX) is going to offer the opportunity to appeal the books pulled when the district worked to comply with Senate Bill 13. Recall New Braunfels shut down their library to students to ban 150 books.
- Students in Idaho Falls, Idaho, will be allowed to continue reading an age-appropriate version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which a parent challenged.
- Arkansas’s librarian criminalization bill was heard in federal court this week. The bill was passed in 2023–that’s how slow this process is.
- Speaking of Arkansas, the State Library Board (appointed by the far-right governor) wants to overhaul the rules related to “sexually explicit” materials in libraries. They want to do something similar to what’s happening in Alabama, where anything related to LGBTQ+ books will be banned or restricted.
- Not a new take, but worth a read: the book banning across America echoes authoritarian tactics.
- A year after the Mahmoud v. Taylor Supreme Court case, kid lit creators are being buoyed by community. A second piece at School Library Journal on this topic hit this week, too, looking at the chilling effect of this court case.
- Readington Township School Board (NJ)–recall, a state that has banned book bans–is itching to ban The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
