It’s National Library Week in the U.S.

National Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries and library professionals play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities. This year’s theme is “Find Your Joy” which makes the Honorary Chair, Mychal Threets, a perfect fit!

Throughout the history of this country, people have been fighting for the right to read because literacy is a powerful skill. Our government and the folks who support it are banning books because of the power words have to be catalysts, reflections, and tools of connection and liberation. Don’t take them for granted!

You can celebrate this week (and beyond) in so many ways:
• Get a library card and/or help a friend get one.
• Explore the programs, books, library of things your local library has to offer.
• Tell library workers how much their work means to you.
• Tell Congress to oppose censorship and book bans!

Share a favorite memory you’ve had of a library in my comments <3

Images in my collage:
-Book stacks in an academic library.

-NYC library backers protest nearly $42 million in proposed budget cuts (2023) photo by Arya Sundaram / Gothamist

-A crowd holds a rally in New York in 1982 protesting the censorship of school and public libraries of certain books under pressure from right-wing religious groups. AP photo by Carlos Rene Perez. Source: Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University

-Teens hang out in Boston Public Library’s Teen Central

-Mychal Threets, librarian and host of Reading Rainbow, smiles and holds up his Library Joy!! shirt with his thumbs up. From ALA National Library Week promos.

-My colorful bookshelf.

-A 12-year-old Black girl named Gwendolyn Crawford is arrested by two white male cops at Albany Carnegie Library in protest of segregation. Crawford spent over 10 days in jail and the library finally allowed Black folks access a year later. -WALB News 10