Libraries are so much more than just hubs to check out books. They’re computer labs for people without regular Internet access. They’re safe, accessible public spaces for everyone from LGBTQ+ teens to the unhoused. They are community centers and connectors: some libraries are even hiring social workers in order to provide public health and mental health support, connecting people to resources, information, and in some cases, to each other. These days, they’re also the site of vicious right-wing attacks, ranging from defunding threats, targeted harassment of library workers, preventing the circulation of books that address race, gender, sex, and sexuality, and in some of the more severe cases, even bomb threats. According to the Washington Post, a large number of complaints and book challenges, specifically about books with LGBTQ content, filed in the 2021-2022 academic year came from a “minuscule number of hyperactive adults.”
In places like Miami, where book bans are expanding, activists are going to bat for libraries. Amid escalating attacks on education, and on young people, queer folks, and Black folks, organizers are thinking about how to not only protect libraries, but how to expand their resources, Yanelis Valdes, the director of organizing and advocacy at Engage Miami, an organization that works to engage young people on policy and advocacy, told Teen Vogue.
“We're really looking at our libraries as community hubs that provide so many incredible services and can do so much more as well,” Valdes said. A driving factor of Engage Miami’s campaign, Valdes explained, is to “really imagine a world in which we want to live and what kind of resources should exist, and how libraries can be a microcosm of that.”
Amid authoritarian challenges to libraries in schools and communities, young people are working not just against book bans, but for libraries. Some are speaking out at school board meetings, or working within libraries, while others, like Engage Miami, are focused on organizing around libraries as community spaces.
“One thing that we always say to people is, What is a public space that you can be in for free that has air conditioning? And the library is the only answer,” said Z Spicer, 23, a climate and community justice organizer with Engage Miami, told Teen Vogue. “There aren't many places that you can go [in] Miami and just exist without having to spend any money.” Both Spicer and Valdes stress the multiple ways libraries intersect with issues impacting young people: there are labor concerns, Spicer said, because librarians are important workers, who were tasked with jobs like distributing COVID tests and masks throughout the ongoing pandemic on top of their usual workload, but often aren’t compensated accordingly. Many libraries function as early voting sites, Valdes noted, so making sure libraries expand as spaces for civic expression for young people can also help turn young voters out in local elections.
Access to “third places,” or communities beyond school, home, or workplaces, is important, explained Spicer, especially somewhere like Florida, where Spicer said there is poor public transit and people can feel siloed, in part because of divisive politics. “To have places where you can sort of erase all of those things and just be a person, it's really powerful,” Spicer said. “And that's, I think, why people do connect with the library.”
In neighboring Georgia, young people are also standing up against censorship. Cobb County students recently protested the removal of several books from school library shelves. Ayomide Lowo, 15, recently attended a Cobb County School Board Meeting, where some students emphasized issues they believed were more pressing to their schooling, like lack of funding.
“What we're hoping to accomplish [is] to have our legislators and school leadership know our opinions on these actions that they're taking, because they say that they're doing them for our good,” Ayomide, an organizer with the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, told Teen Vogue. “It's limiting our voices.” Noting that she has “formed my identity from reading books,” Ayomide pointed out that bans and attacks on libraries “creates sort of like a barrier between [students] and the outside world.”
Leigh Hurwitz, coordinator of school outreach services at the Brooklyn Public Library, agrees that bans can have an outsized impact on young people, and it’s not just about access to books: “When you are being told that the person that you are is dangerous or should be removed from public life—that you shouldn't exist at all—that's what you're being told when a book is being challenged or banned,” they said. “It has a really big impact on teens' lives.”
Because so many spaces are hostile to teenagers, Hurwitz said, libraries can be spaces where they are prioritized, centered, and safe. According to the Young Adult Library Services Association, 87% of public libraries offer services or programs for teenagers.
In addition to their Books Unbanned Initiative and National Teen eCard, which lets people ages 13 to 21 in all 50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico apply for a library card that grants free access to the full eBook collection and learning databases, the Brooklyn Public Library also runs the Intellectual Freedom Teen Council, where teenagers can connect virtually with a peer support network. “It's really important to give them the tools and support to be able to advocate for themselves, and to harness the power that they have, and be able to connect with each other,” said Hurwitz. “I think that's [something] that happens with a lot of well-intentioned people — they’re not centering teens at all. They're trying to do what they think needs to happen and not listening to teens and what they need.”
As of August, the Brooklyn Public Library has issued over 7,000 library cards to young people in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, and said those using Books Unbanned cards have checked out over 156,000 books, according to Fritzi Bodenheimer, a press officer with BPL.
Anthos, 18, whose last name is being withheld to protect privacy, is among card holders who don’t live in New York. After a few months of using their card to check out books with queer characters, which they said were not safe to access around their family, they discovered the Intellectual Freedom Teen Council, where they now join monthly meetings with young people around the country to learn about anti-censorship advocacy and take action.
"I feel like at least for me, as a minor, there's not a lot of things that you can do,” Anthos told Teen Vogue. “You're living with your parents, you probably can't go to different places, or you can't really be out in school sometimes or things like that." Access to the library, and the Intellectual Freedom Teen Council being on Zoom, feels huge, they said. “For example, that was really like the first place where I used they/them pronouns,” Anthos said of the IFTC. “ It was the first time that I used my chosen name. It was really the first place where I can just be out and talk about something that I really love, which is books, and talk about how I can hopefully share my favorite books with other people and other people can be able to access them.” It’s a way of giving people “a sense that they can belong somewhere,” they added.
As Spicer and Valdes mentioned, organizing can also encourage people to use the library and build awareness of library programming, including expanding programming for young people ages 16 to 25. “How can people be part of the processes and the decision-making that goes into our community resources, like our libraries?” Valdes asked.
Zhariyah Laughlin, a 17-year-old customer service representative for a Detroit children’s library, said she brings her friends to the library when she’s done shelving books to do homework, play chess, or use the resources in the H.Y.P.E. Center, built for teenagers.
She’s also been following the ongoing attacks on libraries and book bans nationally. “Seeing people literally take [books] off displays because they don't want kids to see more diverse characters, it’s very shocking and it's sad,” she told Teen Vogue. “I try my best to expose people to different characters with different experiences, and diverse characters, because it's important to see yourself.” Pushback to diverse books is not something she thought she’d experience as a teen bookshelver in a children’s library, she said.
“For teenagers, especially those like me in Detroit, seeing representation and witnessing stereotypes being shattered in literature is not just empowering but also affirming of their identities,” she added. Challenges, she said, serve as a “call to action for libraries, communities, and readers to stand up for diversity, ensuring that libraries remain welcoming spaces for everyone, where the power of storytelling transcends barriers.”
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