Claire Kelley

While the Frankfurt Book Fair is known primarily as a rights fair—where book publishers, agents, and literary scouts gather to buy and sell translation and distribution rights—it’s also an opportunity for librarians to get a sense of the international children’s literature landscape. This global lens for library collections offers what children’s literature scholar and educator Rudine Sims Bishop calls “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” into other cultures for communities across the United States.

Solidarity—not just as a theme but as a practice—was an undercurrent at the 2025 American Library Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia. As librarians face budget cuts, attacks on intellectual freedom, and the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence, this year’s gathering went beyond professional development on these topics and centered collective action, mutual support, and a renewed focus on labor rights in librarianship.

Although considerably smaller than ALA’s Midwinter and LibLearnX conferences of the past, there was a palpable sense of community and nostalgia around the last midwinter gathering.

The Prison Library Support Network, established in 2015, works to meet the information needs of people who are incarcerated through a nationwide letter-writing project. Since the reference by mail program started in 2021, the New York City–based collective of librarians, graduate students, and activists has responded to nearly all of the 3,000 queries it has received from people in prisons across the United States, with the majority of letters coming from Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and Florida.

KKR's potential acquisition of Simon & Schuster will undergo scrutiny from the Department of Justice before proceeding and could raise questions about how Simon & Schuster will do business with OverDrive in the future.

On June 26, the eve of Emily Drabinski’s ALA presidency, campaign workers, school librarians, activists, colleagues, friends, and family members gathered in her suite in the Chicago Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. Against the backdrop of boats slowly moving across Lake Michigan, she addressed supporters. “Tonight we’re celebrating library wins,” she said. “In our communities, against censorship, and for the common good.”