Funding: PEN America Receives $1.4 Million From the Mellon Foundation to Support America’s Public Libraries

PEN America announced today a $1.4 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to fortify its work fortifying the freedom to read, with a heightened focus on supporting public libraries and librarians. This gift will enable PEN America to extend its groundbreaking research and analysis, public awareness campaigns, and coalition building to include public libraries and librarians who are facing escalating threats to their work, safety and core mission.

New initiatives will include:

• Research and analysis of educational censorship in public libraries through the lens of free expression,
• public education campaigns to highlight the free speech implications of book bans on library systems,
• and safety resources and trainings for librarians who face harassment for the books they shelve and the public programs they mount.

This investment comes at a critical time, as book bans soar to historic levels, according to PEN America’s latest data. Both PEN America and the Mellon Foundation share a steadfast belief that equitable public access to diverse stories and information is fundamental to a healthy, pluralistic democracy.

“As open access to books has come under increasing attack, the historic role of public libraries as powerful community spaces for building empathy and critical thinking is in jeopardy,” said Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s Sy Syms Managing Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs. “The right to access information, stories, and ideas of others is one of our most fundamental and universal values, and our libraries must be free to support that, serving as unfettered gateways to the universe of knowledge. As a society we have to be able to engage with complex histories and ideas, but now more than ever, the libraries and librarians that uphold this democratic value need the public’s support.”

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