Fwd: Confronting Censorship and Battling Book Bans: A Film Screening of The Librarians (2025) and a Discussion with Amanda Jones

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Sally Stieglitz

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9:11 AM (11 hours ago) 9:11 AM

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Sharing an event on behalf of Stony Brook University Libraries:

Confronting Censorship and Battling Book Bans: A Film Screening of The Librarians (2025) and a Discussion with Amanda Jones

Join us on April 2, 2026 at the Union Auditorium, from 3:00 PM - 5:30 PM for a film screening of The Librarians (2025) followed by a discussion on the fight against book-banning and censorship with Amanda Jones, moderated by Dean of Libraries, Karim Boughida.

The Librarians (2025) is an American documentary film that follows librarians in Texas, Florida, and other states, as they unite to combat book banning in the United States. In the film, “Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities.”

Joining us for a discussion following the screening, is Amanda Jones, a school librarian who is featured in the film. Amanda Jones made national headlines in 2022 when she was targeted by extremists in her town for speaking out at a public library board meeting. She decided to fight back and took her harassers to court, while continuing to speak out at both the local and national level against the pro-censorship movement. Amanda chronicles what it is like being the target of white Christian nationalists and the importance of standing up for intellectual freedom, in her book, That Librarian: Fighting Book Banners in Today’s America.

Currently, Amanda is the Executive Director of the Livingston Parish Library Alliance, a local group dedicated to the “importance of preserving the freedom of the library to provide services to all patrons no matter their ethnicity, religion, gender identity, education status, political affiliation, socioeconomic status or any other diversity of life and thought.” She is also a co-founding member of Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship, a grassroots organization fighting censorship in the bayou state.

Amanda was the 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year, a 2021 Library Journal Mover and Shaker, and the 2020 Louisiana Librarian of the Year.

This event is open to all! (Registration is not required to attend)

Cheers,

Sam

Sam Horstmann, MA, MSILS

Acquisitions Specialist, Content Acquisitions and Services

Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library, W-2510

Stony Brook University

Email: samuel.h...@stonybrook.edu

Phone: (631) 632-1506

Sally Stieglitz (she/her)

Communications & Outreach Coordinator | Long Island Library Resources Council

Editor-in-Chief, Association of Jewish Libraries News and Reviews

Chair, Jewish Information Committee, EMIERT/ALA