failing in 2016<\/a>, the practice is not uncommon. In 2024, the American Library Association recorded challenges to 2,452 different books across the country. The association said the majority of those challenges came from organized movements, many targeting sexual or LGBTQ+ content.<\/p>\nBooks Unbanned, a program started by the Brooklyn Public Library in 2022, provides access to that library\u2019s \u2014\u00a0as well as the Boston, LA County, San Diego and Seattle Public Libraries\u2019 \u2014 online catalog to United States teens and young adults aged 13 to 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started Books Unbanned in April 2022, and we really did it in response to all the stories we were hearing about books being banned across the country. \u2026 We wanted to figure out a way to get books in the hands of young people who were being denied them,\u201d said Fritzi Bodenheimer, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Public Library. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t feel like, as a public library, we could just sit back and watch this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Long Beach City Council voted on July 22 to join the program by authorizing the city manager to execute a license agreement and memorandum of understanding between the city of Long Beach and Brooklyn Public Library.<\/p>\n
Long Beach library cards will be accessible to youth in the U.S. between 13 and 19 years old, and possibly 20- to 24-year-olds if the library feels it can support extra participants, Susan Jones, the library\u2019s manager of automated services, said in an emailed statement. Participants will have to fill out an application and renew annually to gain and retain access to the card.<\/p>\n
Books Unbanned participants will be able to check out items from Long Beach Public Library\u2019s e-book and e-audiobook collection, which is housed on Libby, likely beginning in September or October 2025, in time for Banned Books Week. The campaign, which will run the second week of October, \u201caims to raise awareness about the rising number of book bans in schools and libraries and to advocate for the freedom to read,\u201d Jones said. \u201cSo the tie-in with this program is a natural fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long Beach Public Library officials expect between 150 and 200 new users to join their Libby platform,\u00a0adding to the 31,000 active Long Beach cardholders already using the site. To minimize the impact of this influx of users, the library plans to purchase additional e-books and e-audiobooks, paid for by an upcoming $100,000 fundraising campaign run by the Long Beach Public Library Foundation.<\/p>\n
The Foundation has been fundraising since the beginning of 2025, said Veronica Garcia D\u00e1valos, the Foundation\u2019s executive director and CEO. She added that the Foundation has already received a pledge from a private donor who plans to match every donation up to $10,000.<\/p>\n
Jones added that the library intends to purchase \u201ctitles that may be facing censorship challenges nationwide,\u201d as well as \u201cpopular interest and high demand hold titles\u201d to minimize wait times. The program\u2019s start date will not be affected by the success of the fundraising push, according to a spokesperson for the Long Beach Public Library Foundation.<\/p>\n
Bodenheimer, of the Brooklyn Public Library, said there\u2019s a clear demand for libraries like Long Beach to step up and provide books that might otherwise be inaccessible.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we launched in April of 2022, we\u2019ve had about almost 10,000 young people sign up for a card, and they\u2019re from all 50 states, and they\u2019ve checked out \u2026 close to or maybe over 300,000 books,\u201d Bodenheimer said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly exciting and heartwarming, and it\u2019s also incredibly heartbreaking because it means there\u2019s a need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free digital Long Beach Public Library cards will soon be available to teens across the nation in an…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":108191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-108190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}