Friends,
The EveryLibrary Institute and EveryLibrary have partnered with researcher Tasslyn Magnusson, Ph.D., to track and expose the individuals, networks, and organizations behind the growing wave of book bans and challenges in school and public libraries across the United States. Since 2021, Dr. Magnusson has maintained a publicly accessible, meticulously organized database that documents these efforts by school district, library type, and affiliated groups.
This vital resource equips educators, librarians, and advocates with the information they need to defend intellectual freedom and the fundamental right to read. Free to access and grounded in public records, the database is updated regularly with input from the community, helping us all distinguish between genuine local concerns and politically motivated censorship.
In this Epoch of Institutional Unraveling, it’s more important than ever to ask: What knowledge is disappearing? This archive shows us what’s under threat—knowledge we can still access, even if it’s no longer available through many of our schools, classrooms, and libraries.
This is all so incredibly Midieval. The idea that knowledge, stories, and voices are being suppressed or erased through coordinated bans recalls the darkest periods of history when books were burned, censored, or locked away from the public. What we're seeing today—this rollback of intellectual freedom and critical inquiry—echoes those times when fear and power sought to control not just what people could read, but what they were allowed to think.
I’d venture to say this may be the best reading list ever assembled. I even found my award-winning book Subtractive Schooling listed—and I take that as my badge of honor.
—Angela Valenzuela
The EveryLibrary Institute and EveryLibrary are partnering with Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson, an independent researcher focused on the networks, organizations, and individual actors who are leading book banning and book challenge efforts in our nation's school libraries and public libraries.
Access the Data Here: Censorship Attacks
Dr. Magnusson's spreadsheet of book bans and challenges has been available online since October 2021 to aid library organizations, library staff, education stakeholders, and concerned parents. Her findings have helped numerous school libraries and public libraries. Through this partnership, EveryLibrary and ELI are supporting her ongoing research and monitoring as well as aiding in the discoverability of these valuable resources online. All of these resources continue to be available free of charge to aid local and statewide efforts to defend the freedom to read, the role of libraries in communities and schools, and, most especially, support the people and ideas the books represent.
Dr. Magnusson's Database of Book Bans and Challenges in the United States 2021 - Present
Dr. Magnusson’s research begins near the start of the 2021-22 school year. The tabs are organized by School District, Books Challenged/Banned in School Districts, by public libraries, and books banned/challenged in school libraries. Additional tabs include lists of groups formed to push book bans and challenges and organizations and groups formed to push back against these political actions. The final tab is a list of other relevant articles found during research which includes student and teacher responses to bans as well as investigative pieces on funding of the political groups supporting bans.
The data is available as view only - with sorting capabilities at: “Censorship Attacks”.
Please note that no personal information is collected or solicited by Dr. Magnusson or EveryLibrary/ELI when you visit these free resources. Information about groups and individuals who are involved in book bans or materials challenges are cross-referenced from publicly available sources like news reports, online forums, and social media posts. Dr. Magnusson invites people to report new information or help correct errors and omissions by contacting her at Bookbanschallenges@gmail.com.
Our hope is to help stakeholders understand and differentiate between legitimate questions of local concern and the politicized or performative book and materials challenges that are attacking our libraries. If you are concerned with book banning efforts in schools and libraries, please visit EveryLibrary's Action site to learn more and to sign up to be a part of this national network.
The EveryLibrary Institute is a donor-supported 501c3 non-profit research and public policy organization dedicated to the future of libraries. We are only able to support this kind of important work because of our donors.
Please consider making a donation today.
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