Has a growing list of books on race, LGBTQ+ issues and sexuality — including literary classics — been removed from school and public library shelves and thus blocked your access to certain books?
The Los Angeles County Library system wants to give people living outside of the county a way to get around book bans. The library is planning an expanded, digital library card that grants e-book access to users throughout California, a first for the library. The launch is planned to coincide with Banned Books Week in early October.
“Book banning and book restricting is on the rise across the country, and it is certainly happening in Southern California. If other areas of California are restricting access to materials, the L.A. County Library would be there to provide that access,” said Wendy Crutcher, L.A. County Library’s collection development director.
Although there have been some challenges, Crutcher said that in the nine years she has been managing collections at 86 libraries she’s never banned a title.
The expansion of the digital library card from just L.A. County residents to residents of all cities and counties in the state was authorized by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors on June 27. The library is working on the logistics and will report back to the board at the end of July.
“It would be digital. You would be given an account number, a log-in and you choose a PIN or password,” Crutcher explained. The process is similar to the digital access card applications already in place, but they would be expanded to applicants outside of the county yet within the state.
Meanwhile, library officials are talking to the Brooklyn Public Library and officials in Seattle’s library system, which have expanded digital access well beyond their cities.
In Brooklyn, the library has signed up 6,500 new digital card users from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, since the launch in April 2022, said Fritzi Bodenheimer, spokesperson….
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