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Dear TLA colleagues, Good morning. By now you have surely heard of the books that have been banned from two TN county school districts yesterday. However, you may not have heard of the legislation filed this week to legally empower this censorship of our school libraries. You also may not have heard of our public library colleagues in our neighboring state of Mississippi who have had over $100K in funding withheld until they remove certain books from their collections. In a conversation with ALA yesterday, I learned that Gov. Kemp in GA mentioned school library collections in his State of the State last week. I would not be a bit surprised if Gov. Lee does the same thing in his. Y'all, it is going to take all of us, and then some, to fight this. Please do not make the assumption that your library is immune to these challenges to our freedom to read. This is a critical issue for ALL OF US, and we will be communicating Library Advocacy actions soon. When these call to action emails from us hit your inbox, please DON'T IGNORE THEM AND ASSUME SOMEONE ELSE WILL DO IT. We need your actions now. Library Advocacy is not a spectator sport. (Side note: we still need a chair of the Legislative Committee, or I'll end up planning leg day myself with a few others who've said they'd help. Please email me off of the listserv if you'd like to serve as chair.) Thank you for all you do for your communities!! Let's commit to work together to ensure we can continue our shared mission. In solidarity, Sharon Kay Edwards