Saturday, September12, 2026 at 2 PM
The Librarians Documentary: How Book Bans are Everyone’s Cautionary Tale
By Leslie Fox
As book banning sweeps across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate, brave librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities. In Texas, the Krause List targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQIA+ stories – triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of a large-scale coordinated extremist movement fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work – the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale.
Every librarian has heard these chilling stories and when I saw this film, as a retired librarian in New Mexico, I knew I had to share it with as many others as I could. During my career, like most librarians, I would set up a display every October during Banned Books Week highlighting banned and challenged books, such as: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Beloved and many others. But I began to hear about librarians in some states that were risking their jobs and receiving death threats for not complying with attempts at censorship. One of the first things I was taught in Library School was the importance of protecting intellectual freedom and the right to read. To be on the lookout for censorship in any form. We were taught to be balanced in the books we ordered for the library and in what we displayed–no matter what our personal opinion was about the book. I have had complaints from patrons about certain books which I listened to and considered but I never imagined the attack on our freedom of expression that we are experiencing today in this country: an attack on education, Universities, Television, public and school libraries. To quote Snyder, “this is everyone’s story now, it doesn’t just belong to librarians.”
Join PCL on September 12th at 2:00pm for a free screening of the award winning documentary The Librarians by Academy Award nominee and Peabody winner Kim A. Snyder. This is NOT the TV show by the same name. Whether you’re a librarian or not this attack on libraries affects you and your community. If this is the first you’ve heard of the censorship of libraries, come and learn how you can support the Freedom to Read. If you’ve seen the film but would like to join the discussion afterward, please join us and bring someone along. Resources to follow up and help libraries fight censorship will be available. For more information about the film here is a PBS interview with the filmmaker and one of the librarians shown in the documentary: The fight against book bans.
Discussion to follow screening.