Like many urban systems, the Chicago Public Library (CPL) offers robust support for immigrant communities: collections in multiple languages, English language and citizenship classes, and voting rights events. In October 2025, as the invasion of Chicago by federal forces ramped up, the Uptown branch hosted an ICE-alert kit making event, inviting the public to assemble packets of whistles and zines…
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Since the outbreak of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip in 2023, the destruction has not been limited to homes and public infrastructure. It has also extended to cultural and intellectual heritage, as libraries and archives across the enclave have endured major attacks and significant losses. Reports from human rights and academic organizations indicate that more than 87 public libraries and archives…
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“A lot of people in power view knowledge as dangerous,” says organizer Mariame Kaba. In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly Hayes speaks with Kaba and organizers Alison Macrina and Katie Clark about why public libraries matter, not just as places to borrow books, but as vital public infrastructure. They discuss libraries as spaces where people can gather without spending money, learn together…
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A library in rural Alaska needed help providing free Wi-Fi and getting kids to read. A children’s museum in Washington wanted to expand its Little Science Lab. And a World War I museum in Missouri had a raft of historic documents it needed to digitize. They received funding from a little-known federal agency before the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried to dismantle it last year.
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We are living through a coordinated assault on knowledge. In a moment when Big Tech is waging war on complex thought, a fascist government is targeting higher education, and the media landscape is being demolished by the same oligarchs driving this era of smash-and-grab politics, libraries are under-appreciated outposts of struggle, sharing and survival. They are sites of refuge…
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On any given day in Howard County, Maryland, teenagers play Dungeons & Dragons, adults practice English conversation skills, and toddlers and their caregivers play together, all in clean and well-lit public libraries that are kept warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Anyone can walk in and use the space and its collections, and they do in great numbers. In its latest annual report…
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