# data[].attributes.headline
Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression's Bookmobiles

# data[].attributes.subject
Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression's Bookmobiles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Their horses splashed through iced-over creeks. Librarians rode up into the Kentucky mountains, their saddlebags stuffed with books, doling out reading material to isolated rural people. The Great Depression had plunged the nation into poverty, and Kentucky-a poor state made even poorer by a paralyzed national economy-was among the hardest hit.

The Pack Horse Library initiative, which sent librarians deep into Appalachia, was one of the New Deal's most unique plans. The project, as implemented by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), distributed reading material to the people who lived in the craggy, 10,000-square-mile portion of eastern Kentucky. The state already trailed its neighbors in electricity and highways. And during the Depression, food, education and economic opportunity were even scarcer for Appalachians.

They also lacked books: In 1930, up to 31 percent of people in eastern Kentucky couldn't read. Residents wanted to learn, notes historian Donald C. Boyd. Coal and railroads, poised to industrialize eastern Kentucky, loomed large in the minds of many Appalachians who were ready to take part in the hoped prosperity that would bring. "Workers viewed the sudden economic changes as a threat to their survival and literacy as a means of escape from a vicious economic trap," writes Boyd.

This presented a challenge: In 1935, Kentucky only circulated one book per capita compared to the American Library Association standard of five to ten, writes historian Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer,. It was "a distressing picture of library conditions and needs in Kentucky," wrote Lena Nofcier, who chaired library services for the Kentucky Congress of Parents and Teachers at the time.

There had been previous attempts to get books into the remote region. In 1913, a Kentuckian named May Stafford solicited money to take books to rural people on horseback, but her project only lasted one year. Local Berea College sent a horse-drawn book wagon into the mountains in the late teens and early 1920s. But that program had long since ended by 1934, when the first WPA-sponsored packhorse library was formed in Leslie County.

Unlike many New Deal projects, the packhorse plan required help from locals. "Libraries" were housed any in facility that would step up, from churches to post offices. Librarians manned these outposts, giving books to carriers who then climbed aboard their mules or horses, panniers loaded with books, and headed into the hills. They took their job as seriously as mail carriers and crossed streams in wintry conditions, feet frozen in the stirrups.

Carriers rode out at least twice a month, with each route covering 100 to 120 miles a week. Nan Milan, who carried books in an eight-mile radius from the Pine Mountain Settlement School, a boarding school for mountain children, joked that the horses she rode had shorter legs on one side than the other so that they wouldn't slide off of the steep mountain paths. Riders used their own horses or mules--the Pine Mountain group had a horse named Sunny Jim-or leased them from neighbors. They earned $28 a month-around $495 in modern dollars.

The books and magazines they carried usually came from outside donations. Nofcier requested them through the local parent-teacher association. She traveled around the state, asking people in more affluent and accessible regions to help their fellow Kentuckians in Appalachia. She asked for everything: books, magazines, Sunday school materials, textbooks. Once the precious books were in a library's collection, librarians did everything they could to preserve them. They repaired books, repurposing old Christmas cards as bookmarks so people would be less likely to dog-ear pages.

Soon, word of the campaign spread, and books came from half of the states in the country. A Kentuckian who had moved to California sent 500 books as a memorial to his mother. One Pittsburgh benefactor collected reading material and told a reporter stories she'd heard from packhorse librarians. "Let the book lady leave us something to read on Sundays and at night when we get through hoeing the corn," one child asked, she said. Others sacrificed to help the project, saving pennies for a drive to replenish book stocks and buy four miniature hand-cranked movie machines.

When materials became too worn to circulate, librarians made them into new books. They pasted stories and pictures from the worn books into binders, turning them into new reading material. Recipes, also pasted into binders and circulated throughout the mountains, proved so popular that Kentuckians started scrapbooks of quilt patterns, too.

In 1936, packhorse librarians served 50,000 families, and, by 1937, 155 public schools. Children loved the program; many mountain schools didn't have libraries, and since they were so far from public libraries, most students had never checked out a book. "'Bring me a book to read,' is the cry of every child as he runs to meet the librarian with whom he has become acquainted," wrote one Pack Horse Library supervisor. "Not a certain book, but any kind of book. The child has read none of them."

"The mountain people loved Mark Twain," says Kathi Appelt, who co-wrote a middle-grade book about the librarians with Schmitzer, in a 2002 radio interview. "One of the most popular books...was Robinson Crusoe. " Since so many adults could not read, she noted, illustrated books were among the most beloved. Illiterate adults relied on their literate children to help decipher them.

Ethel Perryman supervised women's and professional projects at London, Kentucky during the WPA years. "Some of the folks who want books live back in the mountains, and they use the creek beds for travel as there are no roads to their places, " she wrote to the president of Kentucky's PTA. "They carry books to isolated rural schools and community centers, picking up and replenishing book stocks as they go so that the entire number of books circulate through the county "

The system had some challenges, Schmitzer writes: Roads could be impassable, and one librarian had to hike her 18-mile route when her mule died. Some mountain families initially resisted the librarians, suspicious of outsiders riding in with unknown materials. In a bid to earn their trust, carriers would read Bible passages aloud. Many had only heard them through oral tradition, and the idea that the packhorse librarians could offer access to the Bible cast a positive light on their other materials. (Boyd's research is also integral to understanding these challenges)

"Down Hell-for-Sartin Creek they start to deliver readin' books to fifty-seven communities," read one 1935 newspaper caption underneath a picture of riders. "The intelligence of the Kentucky mountaineer is keen," wrote a contemporary reporter. "All that has ever been said about him to the contrary notwithstanding, he is honest, truthful, and God-fearing, but bred to peculiar beliefs which are the basis of one of the most fascinating chapters in American Folklore. He grasped and clung to the Pack Horse Library idea with all the tenacity of one starved for learning."

The Pack Horse Library ended in 1943 after Franklin Roosevelt ordered the end of the WPA. The new war effort was putting people back to work, so WPA projects-including the Pack Horse Library-tapered off. That marked the end of horse-delivered books in Kentucky, but by 1946, motorized bookmobiles were on the move. Once again, books rode into the mountains, and, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Kentucky's public libraries had 75 bookmobiles in 2014-the largest number in the nation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression's Bookmobiles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Their horses splashed through iced-over creeks. Librarians rode up into the Kentucky mountains, their saddlebags stuffed with books, doling out reading material to isolated rural people. The Great Depression had plunged the nation into poverty, and Kentucky-a poor state made even poorer by a paralyzed national economy-was among the hardest hit.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia (Videos) | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

# data[].attributes.subject
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia (Videos) | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

# data[].attributes.body
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia tells the story of pack horse librarians–women hired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression to travel on horseback to deliver library books and magazines to people in Eastern Kentucky, braving creeks, mountains and inclement weather along the way.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Pack Horse Librarians of Appalachia tells the story of pack horse librarians–women hired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression to travel on horseback to deliver library books and magazines to people in Eastern Kentucky, braving creeks, mountains and inclement weather along the way.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky

# data[].attributes.subject
The Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
During the Depression, they delivered books and other reading materials in remote rural areas, to people with no other access to the world of reading.
A few months back, I came across a novel by Kentucky writer Kim Michele Richardson, "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek." Compulsively readable, Richardson's novel tells the story of Cussy Carter, the last of the "Kentucky Blue" people, who takes a job with the Depression-era WPA Pack Horse Library project to deliver books into the remote mountains of eastern Kentucky.

I love the mountains; I love books. I love horses; I love brave women. So how come I'd never heard of this steep-trail horseback library project, launched by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the depths of the Depression? A project that, from its inception in 1935 to its end in 1943, reached 1.5 million Kentuckians and enabled nearly 1,000 women to support themselves and their families in 48 Kentucky counties? That in 1956 inspired Kentucky Congressman Carl D. Perkins (who'd benefitted from the Pack Horse Library program as a teacher in Knott County) to sponsor the Library Services Act, which provided the first federal appropriations for library service.

I went in search of the story. What I learned taught me a lot about the power of words in hard times, and the courage of those who traveled to shared them.

By 1933, unemployment in Appalachia had risen to 40%. Hundreds of coal mines had been closed in response to the shutdown of factories nationwide; thousands of miners were out of work. A few years into the Great Depression, reporter Lorena Hickock traveled to Appalachia and witnessed infant starvation, rampant pellagra and a severe lack of sanitation. Poor rocky soil made growing food difficult. Desperate times in the mountains.

In response, FDR's Works Progress Administration (WPA) program set out to put people to work. Putting people back to work most often meant putting men back to work, and most WPA jobs involved heavy manual labor. Roads and schools and parks were built; tunnels were dug; buildings were constructed.

As the Depression intensified, men abandoned their families, leaving many women as heads of households. In response, WPA jobs were created that were seen as more "seemly" for women-sewing, the creation of Braille books, work in schools and cafeterias.

And the Pack Horse Librarians project. Book delivery? That could be accomplished by women. Never mind that it often meant traveling by horse or mule (or by foot) up a nearly invisible trail, covering 18-20 miles a day. Never mind that one Pack Horse Librarian, Mrs. Mary Littrell, recalls rainy-day roads that were knee-deep in mud. ("I'd have to hold my feet out to the sides of the horse, the mud was so deep on the roads....And the horse would have to swim the creek when it rained. Old Pearl took me every place that I wanted to go.")

It's no surprise that Kentucky was home to one of the earliest pack horse library programs: the state was notoriously under-booked at the start of the Depression, with 63% of its residents having no access to public libraries. The first Pack Horse Library program was established in 1934 in Leslie County. Within two years, nearby Harlan, Clay, Whitley, Jackson, Owsley and Lee Counties had their own programs.

In their young-readers book "Down Cut Shin Creek," Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer do an admirable job of conveying the structure of the pack horse project:
The way it worked was simple. The WPA paid the salaries for the librarians to maintain a headquarters library, usually at the county seat, and to carry books on horseback throughout the county. Their circuits were worked out so that new books were dropped off at Center 1, the books already there were taken on to Center 2, and so on. A center might be a school, or community center, a post office, or even a home.
Salaries for the librarians and supervisors were the only thing supported by the federal government. (The "Book Women," as they were called, were paid $28 a month, from which pack horse feed and lodging had to be paid.)

Finding the books fell to the localities. And it wasn't easy. At the request of the Kentucky State PTA president, Mrs. B.W. Whitaker, PTAs across Kentucky donated used books and magazines. It wasn't long before word got to Lena Nofcier, the chair of Library Services for the Kentucky Congress of Parents and Teachers, who set up the Penny Fund Plan. The result? $101.70 raised; 131 new books purchased. Over time, donations came from all over the country.

Most desired were children's books-"Robinson Crusoe," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and "Gulliver's Travels" were favorites. Picture books were a plus; the pictures helped nonreaders figure out the story. Poetry was often requested, with Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" at the top of the list. Men sought magazines like Popular Mechanics; women requested Woman's Home Companion and Ladies' Home Journal.

Not allowed in the Book Women's sacks were "thriller" magazines like Love Story and True Story, or detective magazines. Always, Bibles were available-and sometimes were read from as declarations of faith and trustworthiness.

Pack horse librarians stopped at schools, where they were greeted by grateful teachers and students. And sometimes, they stopped at a cabin so remote that the resident hadn't seen a soul since the last book delivery. Book women often did double duty, carrying messages, letters, and news of the world through the mountains.

Packing reading materials in saddle bags and feed sacks and slinging them across the backs of horses and mules left the materials in constant need of repair. Heavy usage by patrons was also damaging, a problem that some pack horse librarians solved by making highly treasured bookmarks from old Christmas cards to keep readers from folding the page corners.

Many librarians took magazines and newspapers so worn they couldn't be restored, and made scrapbooks from the pages. Jason Vance of Middle Tennessee State University's James E. Walker Library traveled to the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, to read and photograph the collected scrapbooks. They fall, Vance writes in his 2012 article in Library & Information History, into 11 theme categories: "recipes, mountain ballads, pictures, postcards, biographical sketches of famous people, local histories, Kentucky history, quilt patterns, odd place names, local flora, and collections of articles on a given subject." There was a great demand for religious materials, and many of the scrapbooks featured Scripture and Sunday School lessons.

The scrapbooks were compiled by pack horse librarians during weekly report gatherings at county library headquarters, and included many contributions from library patrons along their routes. In 1940, Vance writes, 2,653 scrapbooks were circulated among Pack Horse Library patrons. "They became important cultural artifacts that offer a window into the lives and interests of readers in the Depression-era Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky," Vance asserts.

In this way, worn-out reading material found new life-and allowed the Pack Horse Librarians to conduct what Vance calls "a unique, federally funded guerrilla publishing programme."

You can't really know what pack horse librarians accomplished in eastern Kentucky until you're on the roads they traveled. So I set out to find Cut Shin Creek in Leslie County.

Confession: I did it mostly by car, all-wheel drive. On real roads, albeit twisted and potholed. With GoogleMaps. Even so, it wasn't an easy climb up that single-lane gravel road, and I left with full appreciation for the Book Woman brand of courage.

Standing at road's edge, you can hear Cut Shin Creek a few hundred feet below, a nearly vertical drop. Deer paths wind up from the creek through heavy tree stands, rocks and tangled vines.

Behind me, the road cut rises high, eroded by runoff. Somewhere up there, likely a homestead stood. Likely the pack horse librarian was a rare and welcome visitor. And what she delivered must have been a bound miracle.

In a New York Times essay from September 9, 2018, Eric Klinenberg made a plea for continuing library support in a time when books and the communities they create seem less crucial in our culture.

"It's worth noting that 'liber,' the Latin root of the word 'library,' means both 'book' and 'free,'" he writes. "Libraries stand for and exemplify something that needs defending: the public institutions that-even in an age of atomization, polarization and inequality-serve as the bedrock of civil society."

We have Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to thank for providing both to pack horse librarians in Depression-era eastern Kentucky: freedom from poverty, and the freedom of books, shared. It's a story worth remembering.

Want to Know More?

"The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" by Kim Michele Richardson

"Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky" by Kathi Appelt and Jeanne Cannella Schmitzer

"Reaching Out to the Mountains: The Pack Horse Library of Eastern Kentucky," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Winter 1997.

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (kdla.ky.gov) has a large photographic record of the Pack Horse Library project, as well as photocopies of newspaper articles written in the 1930s-40s.

The Kentucky Historical Society has a series of recorded interviews with Pack Horse Librarians as well as Lena Nofcier, who solicited money for book purchase and donations of used materials.

A podcast of the Kitchen Sisters' National Public Radio story on the pack horse librarians at kitchensisters.org.

The author is grateful to Jason Vance for sharing his photographs of the Book Woman scrapbooks and interviews with Pack Horse Librarians, to Lisa Thompson of the Kentucky Department for Library and Archives for her sharing of archival materials and photographs, and to Chuck Almarez for historic photo resolution work. The story above is from our November/December 2019 issue. For more like it, subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
During the Depression, they delivered books and other reading materials in remote rural areas, to people with no other access to the world of reading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
The Kitchen Sisters Podcast - Length 27:16

# data[].attributes.headline
Episode 101 - The Keepers: The Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky

# data[].attributes.subject
Episode 101 - The Keepers: The Pack Horse Librarians of Eastern Kentucky

# data[].attributes.body
During the Depression, as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Kentucky WPA hired pack horse librarians, mostly women, to carry books to isolated cabins, rural school houses and homebound coalminers in the poverty stricken Appalachian Mountains.

# data[].attributes.headline
American Library Association: Statement Regarding Censorship

# data[].attributes.subject
American Library Association: Statement Regarding Censorship

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The American Library Association promotes the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinions even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular, and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those viewpoints to all who wish to read them. The following is a list of frequently asked questions on banned and challenged books:

What is the difference between a challenge or banning?

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

Why are books challenged?

Books usually are challenged with the best intentions-to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.

Censorship can be subtle, almost imperceptible, as well as blatant and overt, but, nonetheless, harmful. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty: "If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

Often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from "inappropriate" sexual content or "offensive" language. The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom:

1. the material was considered to be "sexually explicit"

2. the material contained "offensive language"

3. the materials was "unsuited to any age group"

Although this is a commendable motivation, Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that, "Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents-and only parents-have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children-and only their children-to library resources." Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment.

As Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson, said most eloquently: "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

If we are to continue to protect our First Amendment, we would do well to keep in mind these words of Noam Chomsky: "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Or these words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, in The One Un-American Act: "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

Who challenges books?

Throughout history, more and different kinds of people and groups of all persuasions than you might first suppose, who, for all sorts of reasons, have attempted-and continue to attempt-to suppress anything that conflicts with or anyone who disagrees with their own beliefs.

In his book Free Speech for Me-But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes that "the lust to suppress can come from any direction." He quotes Phil Kerby, a former editor of the Los Angeles Times, as saying, "Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second."

According to our infographics, parents challenge materials more often than any other group.

Does ALA ban books?

No. The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries, schools, and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the country. We compile lists of challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools. The ALA condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information. For more information on ALA's efforts to raise awareness of censorship and promote the freedom to read, please explore Banned Books Week.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The American Library Association promotes the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinions even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular, and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
A WEBSITE OF THE ALA OFFICE FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
-Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publ…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs."
- Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom

Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read and spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. For more than 40 years, the annual event has brought together the entire book community - librarians, teachers, booksellers, publishers, writers, journalists, and readers of all types - in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted for removal or restriction in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.

In a time of intense political polarization, library staff in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom ALA documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 book challenges reported in 2021. Of the record 2,571 unique titles targeted for censorship, most were by or about LGBTQIA+ persons and Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

The theme for Banned Books Week 2023 is "Let Freedom Read." When we ban books, we're closing off readers to people, places, and perspectives. But when we stand up for stories, we unleash the power that lies inside every book. We liberate the array of voices that need to be heard and the scenes that need to be seen. Let freedom read!

Join the Movement

About Book Bans and Challenges

Books are still being banned and challenged today. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials.

While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.

Censorship by the Numbers

Additional Resources

Banned Books Week Q&A
This resource offers issues, strategies, and resources for preparing your professional community (teacher librarians and public librarians) to celebrate Banned Books Week.

A History of Banned Books Week
Read about the history of Banned Books Week and ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom in American Libraries Magazine.

Report Censorship
Report challenges to or bans of materials, resources, programs, and services to ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Media Inquiries
For media inquiries or to schedule an interview related to Banned Books Week or other ALA intellectual freedom initiatives, contactALA's Communications and Marketing Office.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read 33.1k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. From the author of Me Before You, set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of...

# data[].attributes.headline
Intellectual Freedom: Issues and Resources

# data[].attributes.subject
Intellectual Freedom: Issues and Resources

# data[].attributes.body
The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) is actively involved in providing confidential legal guidance and strategic support to libraries and library professionals in communities across the country impacted by the recent surge in book challenges.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Intellectual Freedom: Issues and Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A commitment to intellectual freedom transforms your library. ALA actively advocates and educates in defense of intellectual freedom—the rights of library users to read, seek information, and speak freely as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Intellectual freedom is a core value of the library profe…

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
DoD Safe Helpline is the sole secure, confidential, and anonymous crisis support service specially designed for members of the Department of Defense community affected by sexual assault.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the National Domestic Violence Hotline provides essential tools and support to help survivors of domestic violence so they can live their lives free of abuse.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
List of leading national and global organizations focused on domestic violence and sexual assault.

# data[].attributes.headline
International List of Sexual & Domestic Violence Agencies

# data[].attributes.subject
International List of Sexual & Domestic Violence Agencies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Agencies in Countries A - Z " HotPeachPages International

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
searchable list of abuse hotlines, shelters, refuges, crisis centres and women's organizations, by country, plus index of domestic violence resources in over 110 languages

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jojo Moyes Has Been Accused Of Publishing A Novel With “Alarming Similarities” To Another Author’s Book

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The historical novels The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and The Giver of Stars, published a few months apart, share some noticeable similarities. Book Woman author Kim Michele Richardson has raised concerns; Moyes denies having read Richardson’s book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, and , The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and her short story collection Paris for One and Other Stories. Her novels have been translated into forty-six languages, have hit the number one spot in twelve countries and have sold over fifty million copies worldwide.

Me Before You has now sold over fourteen million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major film starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke.

Jojo's next book, Someone Else's Shoes, is out now in hardback, eBook, and audiobook.

Jojo lives in Essex.

For more information about all of Jojo's novels, please visit the books page here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, After You and Still Me, The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jojo Moyes. 306,000 likes · 46 talking about this. This page is run by Viking, a division of Penguin Group (USA). For more info on Jojo’s books: http://jojomoyes.com/

# data[].attributes.body
Instagram

# data[].attributes.body
Twitter

# data[].attributes.body
USO Indo-Pacific and USO Europe | Middle East | Africa will host our monthly Overseas Virtual Book Club discussing "The Giver of Stars" by Jojo Moyes on April 11th at 2000 JST on Zoom

Stay up to date with the Overseas Virtual Book Club by joining our Facebook Group: USO Overseas Virtual Book Club

Register here:

hhttps://register.uso.org/4111BMB7/4a3I8XJUXT

#usoovbc #usoreading #bookclub

# data[].attributes.body
Do you enjoy USO Overseas Virtual Book Club? Let us know what you think: Post Event Survey

We appreciate your feedback as we strive to continue to support our service members, their families, and the community!

# data[].attributes.body
Since we're spread out across the world, please share your location (without sharing your exact address) on the padlet map! ** Feel free to share a quick bio in the thread, and/or directly on the padlet map (link below). -- What's your name? How do you identify (pronouns)? Where do you live?

USO OVBC Intros

# data[].attributes.body
What are you currently reading?

# data[].attributes.body
Any book recs to share with us?

# data[].attributes.headline
1. What do you know about Kentucky? Does this novel confirm your notion about this state? Are there other states that you think of while reading the novel?

# data[].attributes.subject
1. What do you know about Kentucky? Does this novel confirm your notion about this state? Are there other states that you think of while reading the novel?

# data[].attributes.headline
2. Did you know anything about the real-life Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky prior to reading this novel? Would you want to be a mobile librarian if you lived in a small town in Kentucky? Would it be worth the risks for you?

# data[].attributes.subject
2. Did you know anything about the real-life Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky prior to reading this novel? Would you want to be a mobile librarian if you lived in a small town in Kentucky? Would it be worth the risks for you?

# data[].attributes.headline
3. Why do you think Alice married Bennett? What kind of life did she expect in America?

# data[].attributes.subject
3. Why do you think Alice married Bennett? What kind of life did she expect in America?

# data[].attributes.headline
4. Life in rural Kentucky in the ’30s was not easy. How do you think you would have handled it?

# data[].attributes.subject
4. Life in rural Kentucky in the ’30s was not easy. How do you think you would have handled it?

# data[].attributes.headline
6. Why did Alice decide to join the librarians on their quest? Why it was so important for these women to share literacy with rural residents?

# data[].attributes.subject
6. Why did Alice decide to join the librarians on their quest? Why it was so important for these women to share literacy with rural residents?

# data[].attributes.headline
7. Literacy and censorship are significant issues in THE GIVER OF STARS, issues that affect the women of the novel very differently from the men. Why do you think Moyes chose to focus on these topics?

# data[].attributes.subject
7. Literacy and censorship are significant issues in THE GIVER OF STARS, issues that affect the women of the novel very differently from the men. Why do you think Moyes chose to focus on these topics?

# data[].attributes.headline
8. The novel features families from vastly different backgrounds, and one of the central issues in the book is that of class inequality. In which scenarios did you see these dynamics play out, and between which characters?

# data[].attributes.subject
8. The novel features families from vastly different backgrounds, and one of the central issues in the book is that of class inequality. In which scenarios did you see these dynamics play out, and between which characters?

# data[].attributes.headline
9. What do you think caused some men to feel wary of the mobile library? What motivated them to stop their wives and children from reading? (other than the Bible)

# data[].attributes.subject
9. What do you think caused some men to feel wary of the mobile library? What motivated them to stop their wives and children from reading? (other than the Bible)

# data[].attributes.headline
10. Why do you think Margery refuses to marry Sven at first?

# data[].attributes.subject
10. Why do you think Margery refuses to marry Sven at first?

# data[].attributes.headline
11. What do you think of Izzy’s character growth? Think about the scene when she rescues the children from the flood.

# data[].attributes.subject
11. What do you think of Izzy’s character growth? Think about the scene when she rescues the children from the flood.

# data[].attributes.headline
12. What motivates Mr. Van Cleve, especially later in the book?

# data[].attributes.subject
12. What motivates Mr. Van Cleve, especially later in the book?

# data[].attributes.headline
13. What do you think about Bennett? Do you think Alice’s marriage would have worked?

# data[].attributes.subject
13. What do you think about Bennett? Do you think Alice’s marriage would have worked?

# data[].attributes.headline
14. What did you think of Sophia’s character? Is working at the library good for her?

# data[].attributes.subject
14. What did you think of Sophia’s character? Is working at the library good for her?

# data[].attributes.headline
15. This book explores male violence, with many women (Margery, Alice, Sophia) having violent or intimidating encounters with men. Meanwhile, the rest of the women are reprimanded for showing their strength. Do you think the book explored this issue well?

# data[].attributes.subject
15. This book explores male violence, with many women (Margery, Alice, Sophia) having violent or intimidating encounters with men. Meanwhile, the rest of the women are reprimanded for showing their strength. Do you think the book explored this issue well?

# data[].attributes.headline
16. What does this book want to say about the importance of books?

# data[].attributes.subject
16. What does this book want to say about the importance of books?

# data[].attributes.headline
17. Which of the female characters was your favorite one? Why?

# data[].attributes.subject
17. Which of the female characters was your favorite one? Why?

# data[].attributes.headline
18. What did you take away from the story? What has changed in society and what hasn’t?

# data[].attributes.subject
18. What did you take away from the story? What has changed in society and what hasn’t?