Katie's parents never told her "no" when she asked for a book, which was the start of most of her problems. She has an MLIS from the University of Illinois and works full time as a Circulation & Reference Manager in Illinois. She has a deep-rooted love of all things disturbing, twisted, and terrifying and takes enormous pleasure in creeping out her coworkers. When she's not at work, she's at home watching the Cubs with her cats and her cardigan collection. Other hobbies include scrapbooking, introducing more readers to the Church of Tana French, and convincing her husband that she can, in fact, fit more books onto her shelves.
Twitter: @kt_librarylady
The end of the year is seeing a flurry of legal wins and challenges for libraries across the country, whether it’s trademark infringement lawsuits, school board elections, or bad laws being struck down. Let’s catch up with the highlights (and the lowlights).
OverDrive Sues OpenAI for Trademark Infringement
OverDrive is suing OpenAI for trademark infringement over the Sora name. Sora is Open AI’s text-to-video generation app, but it’s also the name of OverDrive’s service that “‘facilitate[s] pre-K-12 students’ access to specifically selected and vetted, age-appropriate digital content, including e-books, audiobooks, read-alongs, picture books, magazines, digital comics, graphic novels from their school library, as well as related goods and services.'” OverDrive’s Sora was launched in 2018. OpenAI states that there should be no marketplace confusion over the identical names; however, OverDrive has received multiple instances of people contacting them about troubleshooting their AI Sora app. More to come, I’m sure.
Democrats Win Big With Texas, Ohio School Board Elections
Democrats didn’t just win big in mayoral and gubernatorial elections – they also swept a large number of school board elections in states like Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Oooh, I just love to see Moms for Liberty lose big. It does my heart good.
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Law Criminalizing Missouri School Employees Struck Down
A circuit court judge just struck down a Missouri law that criminalized school employees for supplying “sexually explicit material” to students. These types of laws haven’t gained much traction so far, but they’re still very alarming. I never want to see the day when they do take hold.
Help Pass These Anti-Book Ban Bills in 2026
Did you know that as of August 2025, 13 states have passed anti-book ban legislation in some form? (And Illinois was the first – woot woot!) Well, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania are all poised to pass anti-book ban legislation in 2026, and Kelly Jensen has a guide for what’s actually in these bills–and what isn’t–along with suggestions for how we can help pass them next year.
What Is the Take Back the Classroom Website?
But all that being said, let’s not lose sight of the other censorship fights still happening. For example, Take Back the Classroom is a parental-rights website that will be mentioned in many 2026 board meetings as proof that libraries are providing inappropriate materials to children. Kelly Jensen does a deep dive into TBtC’s origin and mission.
Want more library-focused chat? Check out this guide to reading while neurodivergent, written by a librarian.
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