A New Way ALA Misleads Parents: The National Trainer Who Wrote as the Local Director

Peter Bromberg:
EveryLibrary Board of Directors
Director of the SCLSNJ

This is another method by which the American Library Association (ALA) and its political partner EveryLibrary mislead parents and elected officials. It is not a false job title. It is a national advocacy officer, trained to switch language by audience, writing as if he were only the county library director. Further, he uses his own technique to manipulate the public in an effort to excuse local librarians for promoting Chicago ALA's own political goals that harm children.

On Sept. 1, 2026, New Jersey Hills published an opinion column by Peter Bromberg, identified only as director of the Somerset County Library System of New Jersey (SCLSNJ). The piece is titled “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America.” It quotes Ronald Reagan and James Madison. It calls libraries “strong supporters of parents and families.” It says libraries “curate age-appropriate zones and displays.” It tells readers that if a title offends, they are “free to reach for something else.”¹

That is the local byline. It is not the whole record.

Bromberg became SCLSNJ director on Aug. 1, 2025. For the four years immediately before that he was Associate Director of EveryLibrary, the national 501(c)(4) that organizes against book challenges and trains library boards in political messaging. On May 30, 2025, announcing the Somerset job, he wrote that he looked forward to “continued service on the EveryLibrary Board of Directors.” EveryLibrary’s board page still lists him. His own résumé lists the associate-director post as May 2021–June 2025 and the board seat as 2014–present. When SCLSNJ hired him, MyCentralJersey reported the EveryLibrary job. The system’s official staff bio does not. Neither did the column.²

EveryLibrary is not a book club. It is the national political-action shop for libraries. Its companion 501(c)(3), the EveryLibrary Institute, publishes training for the same fight. Bromberg was the named presenter for the Institute’s webinar “Advocacy in a Polarized World,” that teaches Arnold Kling’s Three Languages of Politics and how to “intentionally use language” across the spectrum. In 2021 he gave the Utah Library Association the talk “Advocating Effectively Across the Political Spectrum.” In September 2023 Niche Academy listed him, then still with EveryLibrary, on a webinar that walked the same framework and a “27-9-3” message formula: 27 words, 9 seconds, three points, mapped to the audience.³

The worksheet for that method is not a rumor. A 2023 EveryLibrary Institute handout, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook, includes a page headed “The Three Languages of Politics,” filed under “Intellectual Freedom and Book Challenges.” The page tells staff that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives each have a default moral language, then gives the assignment:

• Progressives: frame the library in “equity, social justice, a leveling of the playing field… and equal treatment for all.”
• Libertarians: frame it in “liberty, self-determination, and support for those that are motivated to help themselves.”
• Conservatives: frame it in “preservation of tradition, local community history, help with assimilating new arrivals, and traditional American values.”⁴

A related EveryLibrary presentation the same spring supplied fill-in sentences for the conservative ear: the Constitution, the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, the Founding Fathers, and “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution.” Another line: “We should never usurp the role of parents.”⁵

Read the Somerset column against that page. Bromberg did not write in the progressive dialect. He wrote in the other two.

• “Freedom. Liberty. Justice. For all.”
• “Self-determination, intellectual freedom, and liberty for all.”
• “Forge our own destinies without government overreach.”
• USA250. Reagan. Carnegie. Roosevelt. Madison.
• America versus “authoritarian regimes where state officials strictly dictate what citizens read, think, and believe.”
• “Strong supporters of parents and families.”
• “The parent’s role to set and enforce boundaries.”
• “Family values.”
• If a book offends, “we are free to reach for something else.”

That is the conservative and libertarian tip list, aimed at a Somerset Hills paper, in the same week the same paper group was covering a Pride-program petition and a local official urging towns to question library programs.⁶

The column never quotes the rule the script is built to protect.

Article V of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights says a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” ALA’s official interpretation, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” is plainer: the right to use a library means “free access to all services, materials, and facilities and unrestricted use of everything the library offers.” Restrictions based solely on age, apparent maturity, educational level, or legal status “violate Article V.” ALA “opposes any efforts to restrict access based on age.”⁷

A children’s room is furniture. Under that interpretation it is not a lock. “Age-appropriate zones and displays” is what the playbook would call conservative language. “Unrestricted use of everything the library offers” is the written professional rule. Only one of those sentences appeared in the newspaper.

Parents and elected officials are the intended audience for the first sentence. They are not told about the second. They are also not told that the author spent four years as the national group’s associate director, remains on its board, and taught librarians how to switch dialects by audience so the access policy still wins.

Using different words for different listeners is ordinary rhetoric. Hospitals do it. Campaigns do it. The problem is the combination: a national advocacy officer, writing as a local director, in a live materials fight, in the dialect his shop published for conservatives, while leaving the shop and the age rule off the page.

The authorities the column skipped are the ones that actually speak to minors. In United States v. American Library Association (2003), Justice Kennedy wrote that “the interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” President Eisenhower, at Dartmouth in 1953, told students not to join the book burners, then added the clause library essays usually drop and ALA's own 2025 movie "The Librarians" actually dropped: use the library “as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.”⁸

Madison on knowledge is not an answer to age. The playbook does not ask directors to answer age. It asks them to talk liberty and family until the question of age goes away.

Somerset County’s Library Commission sets policy for SCLSNJ. It can ask its director, in public, three questions that do not require a theory of anyone’s soul:

1. Does SCLSNJ adopt ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and the Minors interpretation as collection policy?
2. If a parent asks that a child’s card not check out adult or s[*]xually explicit titles, will the system honor that limit?
3. Why did a column on “liberty for all,” published during a local program fight, omit the author’s EveryLibrary board seat and the Institute’s published conservative-language tips?

Those are records questions. The playbook page, the résumé, the LinkedIn post, and the byline are already public. The only thing missing from the newspaper was the second half of the sentence.

Parents who only read the byline were not given the shop, the script, or the age rule. That omission is the method. 

So this is a new way ALA misleads parents and politicians: 1) the national trainer who wrote as the local director to 2) attempt to manipulate local people into affirming Chicago ALA’s anything-goes for children policies, 3) using the very means by which he trains people to manipulate others.

The Three Languages of Politics

---

Notes:

1. Peter Bromberg, “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America,” New Jersey Hills / Bernardsville News, Sept. 1, 2026, https://www.newjerseyhills.com/bernardsville_news/opinion/columns/liberty-for-all-public-libraries-and-the-promise-of-america/article_0cc5e4e4-ff48-44d3-a095-fbf5befe4dc5.html.

2. Somerset County Library System of New Jersey, “Peter J. Bromberg,” staff biography, https://sclsnj.org/about-us/staff/peter-bromberg; Peter Bromberg, résumé, https://peterbromberg.com/resume/; Peter Bromberg, LinkedIn post, May 30, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peterjbromberg_after-nearly-4-years-at-everylibrary-i-activity-7334307222258143233-Vt7C; EveryLibrary, “Board of Directors,” https://www.everylibrary.org/board-directors; Cheryl Makin, “Somerset County Library System has a new director,” MyCentralJersey.com, June 30, 2025, https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/2025/06/30/somerset-county-library-system-has-a-new-director/84259228007/.

3. EveryLibrary Institute, “FREE WEBINAR: Advocacy in a polarized world,” presenter Peter Bromberg, Associate Director, EveryLibrary, https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/advocacyinpolarizedworld; Peter Bromberg, “Advocating Effectively Across the Political Spectrum,” Utah Library Association Annual Conference, May 21, 2021; Peter Bromberg, “Future-Proofing the Library,” Niche Academy webinar, Sept. 6, 2023, https://www.nicheacademy.com/hubfs/Future-Proof%20Your%20Library%20(Niche%202023)%20(1).pdf. Bromberg’s résumé also lists the NJLA Public Policy Forum keynote “Libraries are Political (And So Can You!),” Livingston, N.J., Nov. 14, 2025.

4. EveryLibrary Institute, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook (file dated April 1, 2023), p. 4, “The Three Languages of Politics,” circulating as https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hvATAuYlYrTv7rHfEDNr7bz2qb8BEWjB/view. Parallel text appears in “Real World Policy and Messaging,” June 2023, Wisconsin Public Library Consortium packet, https://www.wplc.org/files/5a115d098/Real-world-policy-and-messaging-June-2023.pdf. Arnold Kling, The Three Languages of Politics (Cato Institute).

5. John Chrastka, EveryLibrary, “Answering Censorship Challenges: EveryLibrary’s Fight for the First Initiative,” Towson University, April 27, 2023, https://towson.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=71758347 (conservative sample: Constitution, Founding Fathers, “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution”; “We should never usurp the role of parents”).

6. New Jersey Hills package teaser published with the Bromberg column: “Pride v. Prejudice? Petition to Keep County Library Branch Starts as Sweeney Urges Other Towns to Question Programs.” Peapack-Gladstone is a SCLSNJ member community.

7. American Library Association, Library Bill of Rights, Art. V, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill (“age” included 1967; reaffirmed 1996); ALA, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/minors.

8. United States v. American Library Ass’n, 539 U.S. 194, 215 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring); Dwight D. Eisenhower, commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 14, 1953.

---

Opinion for Publication Submitted to Editor September 1, 2026:

New Jersey Hills:

Peter Bromberg’s Sept. 1 column, “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America,” identifies him only as director of the Somerset County Library System. That title is true. It is not the whole identification.

From May 2021 until June 2025, Mr. Bromberg was Associate Director of EveryLibrary, the national 501(c)(4) that organizes against book challenges and trains library boards in political messaging. On May 30, 2025, announcing the Somerset job, he wrote that he looked forward to “continued service on the EveryLibrary Board of Directors.” EveryLibrary’s board page still lists him. His résumé lists that board seat from 2014 to the present. MyCentralJersey reported the EveryLibrary post when he was hired. The system’s staff biography does not mention it. Neither did the column.

EveryLibrary Institute published the method. A 2023 handout, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook, includes a page headed “The Three Languages of Politics,” filed under "Intellectual Freedom and Book Challenges.” It tells staff that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives each have a default language, then assigns the frame:

Progressives: “equity, social justice, a leveling of the playing field… and equal treatment for all.”  

Libertarians: “liberty, self-determination, and support for those that are motivated to help themselves.”  

Conservatives: “preservation of tradition, local community history, help with assimilating new arrivals, and traditional American values.”

A related EveryLibrary presentation the same year supplied conservative sample copy: the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, Freedom of Religion, and “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution.” Another line: “We should never usurp the role of parents.”

Mr. Bromberg’s column is written in the conservative and libertarian dialects. Reagan. Madison. The Constitution versus “authoritarian regimes.” “Freedom. Liberty. Justice. For all.” “Self-determination.” “Strong supporters of parents and families.” “Family values.” If a title offends, “we are free to reach for something else.” It is not written in the progressive dialect. It was published as the same paper group covered a petition and a local official urging towns to question library programs.

The column never quotes the rule that script is written to protect. Article V of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights says a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” ALA’s official interpretation, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” states that this right means “free access to all services, materials, and facilities and unrestricted use of everything the library offers,” and that limits based solely on age, apparent maturity, or legal status “violate Article V.” A children’s room is furniture. Under that interpretation it is not a lock.

“Age-appropriate zones and displays” is what the playbook would call language for a conservative paper. “Unrestricted use of everything the library offers” is the professional text. Only the first sentence ran.

Using different words for different listeners is ordinary rhetoric. The problem is the combination: a national advocacy officer, writing as a local director, during a local materials fight, in the dialect his shop published for conservatives, while leaving the shop and the age rule off the page.

The authorities that actually address minors were also left off. In United States v. American Library Association (2003), Justice Kennedy wrote that “the interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” President Eisenhower, at Dartmouth in 1953, warned against book burners then added the clause usually dropped: use the library “as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency.”

The Somerset County Library Commission sets policy. It can ask, in public, whether SCLSNJ adopts the ALA Minors interpretation; whether a parent may limit a child’s card; and why an EveryLibrary board seat was omitted from a column on “liberty for all.” Those are records questions. The playbook page, the résumé, and the byline are already public.

Dan Kleinman  

Chatham, N.J.

NOTE ADDED 2 SEPTEMBER 2026:

Tonight I spoke at the commission meeting wherein Peter Bromberg is a member. He was there. So I confronted ALA head on. You see, people, it's not that hard. I've done it before. Don't be intimidated by them.

Here is what I said, along with other graphics showing the extent of the problem. It's my own recording as the commission makes no recordings.

Tonight I spoke at the library commission meeting where American Library Association and EveryLibrary’s board member is also a commission member.

Hear 👂 me speaking, asking where his loyalties lie and whether there’s an ethics issue.

Related pics tell a story of harm by ALA. https://t.co/pRqX0uHSgg pic.twitter.com/GH9abciIRv

— Dan Kleinman @OccupyLibraries (@OccupyLibraries) September 3, 2026

—

URL of this page: 

safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/09/a-new-way-ala-misleads-parents.html

Follow Protect Salado Kids on X: @ProtectSaladoKs

Follow Kelly on X: @patriotesse

Follow Dan on X: @OccupyLibraries @SafeLibraries @WLibraryA

Join World Library Association:

WorldLibraryAssociation.org

Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech

Librarians Finally Admit the Reviews They Hide Behind Are Useless

School librarians have spent years telling parents, school boards, and courts that every book in the collection was carefully selected using professional reviews. That claim has been the standard defense. “We follow the selection policy. The books have multiple positive reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist…”

It was also the shield used against parents who dared to object to s[*]xually explicit material in school libraries. Challenge a book? You’re told the professionals already reviewed it. Object too loudly? You risk being labeled a book banner, a bigot, or worse—and in multiple cases sued.

Now the librarians themselves are admitting, in their own research and on their own podcast, that those reviews cannot be trusted.  Audio, transcript, and journal article available below.

In a 2026 study published by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL, a division of the American Library Association), Books and Barriers: The Influence of Book Censorship on the Role of School Librarians, Their Self-Efficacy, and Well-Being, researchers Misty S. Schattle and Johnny R. O’Connor, Jr. interviewed eleven school librarians in one large Texas district. The librarians reported that collection development now takes far longer because:

“they often feel that the reviews cannot be trusted, requiring the need to read books in their entirety before placement on the shelf.”¹

One elementary librarian put it bluntly:  

“It’s almost like we can’t go on our reviews. I’ve been reading a lot more books.”¹

Dr. Schattle expanded on these findings on the School Librarians United podcast:

“lots of librarians that I talk to were saying that they couldn’t really rely on reviews anymore because… they read a review, but are they gonna get something that is questionable… so they might still find that they needed to read it before it could go on the shelf… they’re just finding that it’s taking so much time… because now you have to read all the books.”²

This is not new. I documented the same problem more than a decade ago.

In 2010, Kalida, Ohio Superintendent Don Horstman removed Lush by Natasha Friend after a fifth grader brought it home. The book contained graphic s[*]xual details. Horstman read it himself and said the glowing professional reviews had omitted those details entirely.³ Similar patterns appear in my 2011 post on incomplete reviews⁴ and my 2009 post on a Kentucky superintendent overriding ALA lists.⁵

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been even more direct. In August 2026 remarks, he stated that the librarians are the ones responsible for the presence of “dirty, filthy, and vulgar books” in school libraries, that they know what is on the shelves while many superintendents and teachers do not, and that the American Library Association trains librarians and considers such material “just fine.”¹⁰

Librarians themselves have used the same defense when suing parents. Amanda Jones, who filed a high-profile lawsuit against parents who criticized materials in her library, has stated: “As a professional librarian, I use professional reviews about where we place books in the library.”¹¹ Her justification for the books she selects rests on the very reviewing sources that Schattle’s research and the librarians she interviewed now say cannot be trusted to flag “something that is questionable.”

Meanwhile, the American Library Association itself continues to elevate those same professional reviews. Through its Unite Against Book Bans campaign, ALA created “Book Résumés”—documents packed with awards and glowing professional reviews, designed to be handed to boards and review committees.⁶ The résumé for Gender Queer is a perfect example: starred reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal, YALSA and Rainbow Project lists, the Alex Award, and more. What it carefully omits is any actual content from the book.⁷

At the same time, ALA’s official policy forbids the rating systems that do document content.

The 11th edition of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual (2026) is explicit. On page 8 it notes that school boards and lawmakers use ratings produced by “religious and political groups” to limit access to library books and control what is added to school libraries. Chapter 7 contains an entire section on rating systems and states:

“Using, enforcing, or approving of ratings systems violates the Library Bill of Rights.”

It further warns that rating or labeling materials based on assumed age-appropriateness “may be perceived as restricting access.”⁸

On page 145 the Manual specifically addresses the sites parents actually use:

“websites like BookLooks.org and RatedBooks.org often use legal-sounding language to falsely imply that certain books that do not comply with their moral or religious beliefs are illegal and ‘harmful to minors.’ … Their claims are false and have no basis in law. Libraries should not use ratings from these sites to justify removing books from their collections, limiting access to library resources, or making decisions about what books to purchase for library collections. … publicly funded libraries should not use private content rating systems to restrict access to materials. This policy should apply to all users, including children and young adults.”⁸

Kelly Jensen at Book Riot has likewise dismissed BookLooks, RatedBooks, and similar sites as “unprofessional, biased book reviews” and “politically-driven.”⁹ Tools such as RatedBooks and the National Book Rating Index (NBRI) that actually catalog explicit content are rejected, while the professional reviews that leave librarians unsure whether a book contains “something that is questionable” remain the approved standard—until parents notice the problem, at which point the response is often a lawsuit.

So the position is now fully circular:

• The professional reviews ALA has long promoted as the gold standard for selection and defense of books are admitted by ALA’s own researchers (in an AASL journal) to be inadequate. Librarians say they can no longer rely on them and must read the books themselves.
• The rating systems that actually describe s[*]xual content, language, and other details are denounced by ALA as illegitimate tools of “religious and political groups.” Using them violates the Library Bill of Rights.
• ALA’s Book Résumés lean on the same professional reviews while omitting the content those reviews fail to flag.
• When parents point out the resulting problems, some librarians sue them for defamation while continuing to cite the very reviews now acknowledged as unreliable.

Either the approved reviews work, or they don’t. If they don’t—as Schattle’s study and the librarians themselves now say—then the tools that do provide useful information about content are the ones ALA explicitly forbids, precisely because those tools can be used to keep inappropriate material away from children.

I spoke with Brooke Stephens, founder of RatedBooks.org and the National Book Rating Index (NationalBookRatingIndex.com). RatedBooks creates reports based on a content rating scale that uses the book’s own excerpts to justify each rating. The National Book Rating Index aggregates nearly 38,000 reviews from multiple sources and can be searched for free or used by librarians to process entire library inventories and generate rating reports on matched titles. The more the ALA defends giving mature content to minors while declaring professional reviews inadequate and parent-created rating tools illegitimate, the more obvious the need for these resources becomes. Stephens is both amused and grateful for the free publicity the ALA has given her work. She sees their rejection of transparent content rating systems as further diminishing any remaining need for the organization itself.

Parents who challenged books and were attacked for it were right. The professional reviews were never the rigorous safeguard claimed. They were a convenient shield. ALA still promotes that shield through Book Résumés and selection policies while simultaneously declaring the more accurate content ratings off-limits and supporting legal action against those who notice the gap.

The result is predictable: children retain access to material that even the librarians selecting it now say they cannot trust the reviews to identify—and, as Lt. Gov. Patrick noted, the librarians are the ones who know what is on those shelves.

NOTE ADDED 23 August 2026:

This article will have a followup article about teachers who truly are trusted experts and who truly care for teaching children, instead of indoctrinating them, like the requirements American Library Association added to all the various state Freedom to Read Acts and Right to Read Acts.  These teachers who truly care were directly vilified by American Library Association and its librarians, such as by Amanda Jones who is suing me for defamation calling one of them "a menace and a bully."  The only menace is to ALA as people wake up and realize the emperor has no clothes, something that Misty S. Schattle described in detail when we learned librarians have to read all the books for themselves.  Then when teachers do read all the books for themselves and decide some books are inappropriate for schools, they are vilified and sued, such as by PEN America, a partner with ALA in "Unite Against Book Bans."  So stay tuned for the upcoming post.

Endnotes:

1. Misty S. Schattle & Johnny R. O’Connor, Jr., “Books and Barriers: The Influence of Book Censorship on the Role of School Librarians, Their Self-Efficacy, and Well-Being,” School Library Research 29 (2026), https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/2026-06/schattleandoconnor.pdf.

2. Dr. Misty Schattle, “Censorship’s Impact on School Librarians and their Libraries,” School Librarians United with Amy Hermon, Episode 372, August 21, 2026, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/censorships-impact-on-school-librarians-and-their/id1434321470?i=1000784807311.

3. “School Excoriates Book Reviews that Fail to Disclose ‘Graphic S[*]xual Details’ in Books for Children; Lush by Natasha Friend is ‘Wildly Inappropriate’ for Certain Children,” SafeLibraries, December 16, 2010, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2010/12/school-excoriates-book-reviews-that.html.

4. “False Censorship Claims Exposed by WSJ Author Attacked for Exposing Truth About Young Adult Books; Meghan Cox Gurdon Decries Incomplete and Uninformative Book Reviews,” SafeLibraries, June 8, 2011, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2011/06/false-censorship-claims-exposed-by-wsj.html.

5. “Kentucky School Superintendent Exposes False Cries of Censorship; Removes Educationally Unsuitable Books from Curriculum Despite Being on ALA’s List for Reluctant Readers,” SafeLibraries, November 30, 2009, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2009/11/kentucky-school-superintendent-exposes.html.

6. Unite Against Book Bans (American Library Association initiative), Book Résumés, https://bookresumes.uniteagainstbookbans.org/.

7. Book Résumé for Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Unite Against Book Bans / ALA, https://bookresumes.uniteagainstbookbans.org/wp-content/uploads/kobabe_GenderQueer_20240214.pdf.

8. American Library Association, Intellectual Freedom Manual, 11th ed. (ALA Editions, 2026), pp. 8, 145 (and Chapter 7 on rating systems). See also ALA’s related “Labeling and Rating Systems: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.”

9. Kelly Jensen, “BookLooks, RatedBooks, and Other Unprofessional Book ‘Review’ Sites to Know: Book Censorship News, January 10, 2025,” Book Riot, January 10, 2025, https://bookriot.com/booklooks-ratedbooks-and-other-unprofessional-book-review-sites/.

10. “Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Opposes Explicit Books In Schools, Pleas for Parents to Act to Get These Books Removed, Calls Out School Librarians,” SafeLibraries, August 20, 2026, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/08/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-opposes.html (quoting Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s remarks holding school librarians responsible for the presence of explicit materials and noting ALA’s role in training them).

11. Maggie Heyn Richardson, “Livingston Parish’s Amanda Jones landed in a national fight about book banning. Now, ‘That Librarian’ Has Written a Memoir,” 225 Magazine, August 8, 2024, https://www.225batonrouge.com/our-city/livingston-parishs-amanda-jones-landed-national-fight-book-banning-now-librarian-written-memoir (quoting Amanda Jones: “As a professional librarian, I use professional reviews about where we place books in the library.”).

Hear the Admission:

Listen to the librarians themselves discussing how professional reviews can no longer be trusted, followed by a transcript of what they said:

Librarians Finally Admit the Reviews They Hide Behind Are Useless

Major exposé to be published soon.

Here's an excerpt of librarians lamenting how book reviews are no longer useful, forcing school librarians to read all books for themselves.

Transcript in attached post. pic.twitter.com/fY7y0LzkmP

— Dan Kleinman @OccupyLibraries (@OccupyLibraries) August 22, 2026

Transcript:

Amy Hermon:

[Y]ou know, these attacks on their collections were happening. 

Dr. Misty Schattle:

So what I found, and you have to keep in mind, this was a, this was, very much a small group of people. They were eleven librarians that I spoke with from one district, so you're talking about a very tiny population. But, they all found that their collection development processes were taking far longer than they ever had before. So, they, you know, we, we, all, as librarians, we, we read reviews, that's what we do, because unfortunately, as much as we would love to, we cannot read every book, there's just way too many out there. But I was finding that, that lots of librarians that I talk to were saying that they couldn't really rely on reviews anymore because, you know, they didn't know, were they going, you know, they read a review, but are they gonna get something that is questionable, um, you know, like, and then so they would, they might read a review and they might get something but then they might still find that they needed to read it before it could go on the shelf, or maybe they were going to public libraries and trying to find books so they could read them before they bought them. But then, you know, they're, they're still like, they're just finding that it's taking so much time, so much time that they don't have, right? And collection development, it's, it's a lengthy process anyway. Right? I mean well, maybe not, if you don't have much money to spend it don't take much time. But, if you, if you have a decent budget, you know, I, I, I don't know a single school librarian anywhere that's been like, "well, I had all this money to spend, so I was just buying whatever." I mean, nobody does that.

Amy Hermon:

Uhhh, (laughter) I, I was gonna say, back in the, uh, the ESSER days when we had ESSER funds, uh, after the pandemic, ah, there was something that I was aware was never gonna happen again in my career, but it involved a, a very small window of time and spending an amount of money that I could, could barely believe this was actually happening, it was like winning the lotto or something. But um, no, but I, I think that especially when you talk to people for whom they are not rookie librarians, these are not rookie librarians, you're dealing with people who are, in some cases, seasoned, they are veterans, they, they, this is not their first rodeo. They have built a collection repeatedly and you'd like to think that at some point you get better at this, and and you start to trust your, um, your judgment as a professional, and the longer you do this, in. The hope is that you become more confident in the decisions that you're making and you're not second-guessing yourself. But when somebody calls into question what you're doing, all of a sudden that hyper scrutiny that, that is imposed on, on the collection that we're building, this becomes an absolute, colossal, e-, e-, expensive time that we have to, to use, just to satisfy, uh, community members who have made it their life's mission to upend whatever sense of normalcy we have in our spaces.

Dr. Misty Schattle:

Yeah. It, it's just, you know, it's just crazy to me, like, I don't know. We have these degrees and, you know, we, we want to do our job, but sometimes it, it's hard, just finding the time to, to do all of the, the reading of, you know, all the books, because now you have to read all the books.

Amy Hermon:

So, I regularly hear from school librarians that there aren't enough hours in the day to do our jobs. We arrive before school early, we work through  lunch, we stay late. I'm already aware that there are, uh, a number of us who have extended calendars where we have built in days where we are working either, ah, before the school year starts or well into, uh, after the school year ends. Our professional training, our judgment, apparently isn't good enough when it comes to selecting the books that we oversee. And it's just, it's not just insulting, the burden that we now have to satisfy, uh, uh, somebody's expectations of, of how we are, are, you know, supposed to be doing our jobs.

Dr. Misty Schattle:

Yeah. I think it definitely makes that harder, because, like you said, we have training for this, we go to school to, to learn how to develop collections, and, you know, I, I'm sure you did as I did took classes on collection development, but not just that, I took children's literature, I took young adult literature. I mean, I enjoyed them. Honestly I was exposed to books I probably would've never picked up on my own. And I know, like, even now looking back, looking back at those classes, I can still, you know, recall some of those books that I read in those classes back in 2007. I can say, you know like, I know that I've put specific books that I read because of those classes in specific children's hands, because that was what they needed at that moment. I've always said that my most favorite part of my job as a school librarian was connecting kids with that just-right book for them. With that book that they didn't know they needed, but they needed.

Amy Hermon:

At Wayne State University, we had to pick two of the three categories, so we had, there was a young adult course, a middle grade course, and a, ah, children's, ah, literature. And these were actually the three classes that overlapped with our School of Education. And, so that was really interesting. And I'll never forget, it was the, you know, the, the assignment was legend, it was the hundred book project. And the hundred book project, the expectation was is that we would familiarize ourselves with a hundred books during the semester and write up synopses and, and all sorts of, ah, write ups and, and critical reviews, and, and, you know, we thought it absolutely daunting at the time, but now that I think about it, it was ay, some of the most memorable activities I did and I really, really enjoyed it.

—

URL of this page: 

safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/08/librarians-finally-admit-reviews.html

Follow Protect Salado Kids on X: @ProtectSaladoKs

Follow Kelly on X: @patriotesse

Follow Dan on X: @OccupyLibraries @SafeLibraries @WLibraryA

Join World Library Association:

WorldLibraryAssociation.org

Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech

The Double Standard: 'Destroy Them' and 'Go In for the Kill' Are Just Idioms—But a Red Circle Around a Librarian's Head Is Targeting

In the recent discussion of cartoonist Ryan Estrada, we saw him publish guidance for authors and activists confronting parents who challenge materials in school libraries. One section states: “And then, you get to the fun part… SIX: Destroy them; Everyone is on your side and paying attention. Now you go in for the kill.” (Emphasis in original.) He has also offered to provide more “ammunition” to those who email him. When called out, Estrada has framed the language as figurative—an idiom—and responded with a comic casting a critic as the big bad wolf.¹

Contrast that with the treatment of school librarian Amanda Jones.

In July 2022, after Jones spoke against censorship at a Livingston Parish Library Board meeting in Louisiana, the Facebook page of Citizens for a New Louisiana posted a photo of her speaking. The image placed a red circle (with a white border) around her head and asked why she was “fighting so hard to keep s[*]xually erotic and p[*]rnographic materials in the kid’s section.”²

Jones later described the circle as a “target.” In her memoir That Librarian she wrote: “They posted a picture of me with a target around my head. According to them, it’s just a circle, but who are they kidding?”³ She launched multi-year defamation lawsuits against the posters, arguing the image and accompanying text damaged her reputation and contributed to harassment.⁴

Yet her first reaction was different. In a training video she recorded for other librarians (August 28, 2023), Jones herself admitted:

“When I first started being attacked, I thought ‘This is not serious, like this is ridiculous.’ I went on their page and put the laughing emoji… and I wish I could take that back cuz it’s not funny… and they talk about that all the time. ‘She put the laugh, she thinks it’s funny.’ So I learned that the hard way.”⁵

What she initially treated as absurd enough to laugh at publicly became, within weeks, the foundation of sustained litigation. A red circle is one of the most ordinary tools in digital photo editing and annotation—the default highlight function in countless apps precisely because it draws the eye without implying violence. Treating that common editing mark as actionable “targeting” while dismissing explicit militaristic language directed at parents (“Destroy them,” “go in for the kill,” offers of “ammunition”) as mere idiom is the double standard in plain view.

Parents who speak at school board or library meetings are fair game for destruction rhetoric and cartoon portrayals as the big bad wolf. Librarians and their allies who face ordinary visual highlighting of their public comments receive multi-year lawsuits, national media sympathy, and awards for courage.

One set of statements is explained away as colorful language. The other is treated as a serious threat of violence—even when the person later suing over it first responded with a laughing emoji.

If you're a big bad wolf who wishes to support the legal defense of free speech against double standards and SLAPP-style suits arising from reporting on these issues:  

• Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech
• https://www.givesendgo.com/LegalFundForParents

———

END NOTES

1. See the detailed documentation and screenshots in “‘Destroy Them’: Cartoonist Ryan Estrada Turns Real Dictatorship Book Bans into a Campaign Against American Parents,” SafeLibraries, August 1, 2026: https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/08/destroy-them-cartoonist-ryan-estrada.html

2. The original Facebook post and the red-circle description appear in Jones’s own petition for damages (filed August 2022) and are summarized in contemporaneous reporting:  

• Petition for Damages: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22130936/amanda-jones-petition-for-damages-injunctive-relief.pdf  
• The Hill, August 13, 2022: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3599286-librarian-sues-for-defamation-after-conservative-activist-attacks-over-lgbtq-books/  
• Wikipedia summary of the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Jones_(librarian)

3. Amanda Jones, That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America (Bloomsbury, 2024), quoted in Oprah Daily, August 27, 2024: https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/books/a61600534/the-librarian-amanda-jones-book-bans/

4. Court records and appellate history confirming the multi-year litigation:  

• Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal opinion (October 7, 2025): https://law.justia.com/cases/louisiana/first-circuit-court-of-appeal/2025/2023ca0654.html  
• Additional coverage: New York Times, September 3, 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/books/amanda-jones-librarian-book-bans.html
• https://archive.ph/mDknI

5. Transcript of Amanda Jones’s August 28, 2023 training video for librarians (timestamp ~16:04), published on SafeLibraries, September 2024: https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2024/09/amanda-jones-trains-librarians-to-blind.html  

• Original video: https://youtu.be/yYr3qjvXXAA

—

URL of this page: 

safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-double-standard-destroy-them-and-go.html

Follow Protect Salado Kids on X: @ProtectSaladoKs

Follow Kelly on X: @patriotesse

Follow Dan on X: @OccupyLibraries @SafeLibraries @WLibraryA

Join World Library Association:

WorldLibraryAssociation.org

Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech