American Library Association releases 2025 Most Challenged Books List as National Library Week Begins State of America’s Libraries Report reveals 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, marking the second-highest total on record

Just remember, whatever stats ALA drops, the reality is even worse. A not insignificant number of schools don't report to ALA, and ALA doesn't have the staff in OIF to go out and track down this information. This looks bad, but it's likely worse.
www.ala.org/news/2026/04...

A photo of a tree sillhouette with the moon and Venus to the left

the moon and venus looking beautiful tonight 🌒

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity

10,000 Chicago Concert Recordings Are Being Uploaded to the Internet Archive: Nirvana, Phish, Sonic Youth, They Might Be Giants & More Perhaps you've had the experience of moving to a new city and immediately being told that you've missed its golden age of live music. To an extent, this has happened in more or less every period of th...

10,000 Chicago Concert Recordings Are Being Uploaded to the Internet Archive: Nirvana, Phish, Sonic Youth, They Might Be Giants & More

People in the Middle Ages Slept Not Once But Twice Each Night: How This Lost Practice Was Rediscovered The importance of a good night's sleep has been featured now and again here on Open Culture. But were a medieval European to visit our time, he'd probably ask — among other questions — if we didn't me...

People in the Middle Ages Slept Not Once But Twice Each Night: How This Lost Practice Was Rediscovered

I think most people would prefer this. #Science

A striped cat appears to be “yelling” at a kitten with the exact same coloring. The kitten’s eyes are wide open and their ears pinned back.

you just know somebody’s being called by their full name right now

Rare and beautiful 'extinct' bird rediscovered after 100 years of no sightings The night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) is a small green-and-yellow bird species long considered near-mythical across Australia’s interior.

Rare and beautiful 'extinct' bird rediscovered after 100 years of no sightings:

www.earth.com/news/rare-bi...

Wikimedia Foundation is Shutting Down #News Project #Wikinews (via @heiseonlineenglish.bsky.social) www.heise.de/en/news/Wiki... #journalism #media @wikimediafoundation.org

Our Information Literacy Framework Review and Revision Task Force is pleased to announce that the first draft of the revised Framework is ready for feedback from the community. Details on feedback opportunities, including two webinars this month, are available on ACRL Insider. https://bit.ly/4vmkWUF

PEN America Announces Plans to Launch New Program to "Safeguard U.S. #Authors Facing Harassment and Threats" pen.org/press-releas... #publishers @penamerica.bsky.social

ICYMI Americans Still Opt For Print #Books Over Digital or Audio Versions; Few Are In Book Clubs (via @pewresearch.org) www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/... #ebooks #audiobooks #publishing #libraries

Company News: EBSCO Information Services to Release The New Yorker Magazine Archive (via @ebsco.bsky.social) about.ebsco.com/news-center/... #archives #magazines #newyorker

Spotify Expands Audiobook Features, and Printed Book Sales Go Live in the US and UK newsroom.spotify.com/2026-04-15/a... @bookshop.org #audiobooks #books

From Fixed Search Workflows to Agentic Academic Search: Promise, Progress, and the Invisible Menu Problem Undermind's Projects features gives a taste of the promise and challenges of managing agents by users

[Blogged] From Fixed Search Workflows to Agentic Academic Search: Promise, Progress, and the Invisible Menu Problem -
First-gen AI search: fixed pipelines Now: agents that pick their own tools. However, now it is harder to know what is possible....
aarontay.substack.com/p/from-fixed...

ICYMI Anna’s Archive Loses $322 Million Spotify Piracy Case Without a Fight (via Torrent Freak) torrentfreak.com/annas-archiv...

Before AI Agents Act For Us, We Need to Know How #AI Searches For Us (via @lseimpactblog.bsky.social) blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... ||| Direct to Full Text Report www.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/SummerSc... #agenticAI #research #libraries

How much of NARA has been digitized? 📜
h/t Eira Tansey
www.archives.gov/findingaid/r...

Supreme Court won't hear Texas library case: List of banned books The Supreme Court lets stand a ruling allowing a Texas county to remove 17 library books, rejecting a First Amendment challenge.

When we look back on how stupid this era is, I hope we remember to emphasize that 41% of the books in this case (7 of 17) were picture books with butt or fart jokes, like "Larry the Farting Leprechaun."
www.newsweek.com/supreme-cour...

Covid: April 16, 2026 | Threat Model Get more from Threat Model on Patreon

Thanks for the shout-out, @violetblue.bsky.social!

"Threat Model: Covid," an invaluable resource for Covid-related news, free every Thursday.

Please consider becoming a patron if you're able.

www.patreon.com/posts/covid-...

STUDY of 4-year follow-up of #COVID19 patients hospitalized in 2020 finds that reinfection is a significant risk factor for abnormal fatigue (OR 2.393). “This finding highlights the critical importance of preventing reinfection.”

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/4...

COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 Studies

My spreadsheet of the long-term effects of #COVID19 has surpassed 3,400 studies. Newer research finds associations between infections and cardiovascular outcomes, brain damage, chronic inflammation, and more. Reinfections increase health risks.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

COVID Very Low in the U.S.: Update for April 17, 2026 COVID has fallen to very low levels across the U.S., and the current level of COVID in wastewater is the lowest it’s been in years. Given…

My last weekly update for a while. With #COVID19 at historic lows and no sign a new surge will start soon, I'm suspending my weekly updates.

- COVID is very low in 39 states & low in 8 states.
- Mississippi has moderate viral activity, and West Virginia is high.

medium.com/@augieray_66...

World’s Largest Group of Chimps Waging Deadly ‘Civil War,’ Scientists Discover At least 24 chimpanzees have been killed in a war that has split the Ngogo group of wild chimpanzees in two, turning former kin into enemies.

"It must be their interpersonal social bonds and daily conflicts, reconciliations, and avoidances—all those dynamics. If that's the case with chimps, to what extent is it the case in humans? It’s a hypothesis to be tested.”
www.404media.co/worlds-large...

Banned AI-generated Iran propaganda videos using Legos have gone viral A series of animated videos slamming President Donald Trump and his policies — using a beloved childhood toy — was banned on YouTube but is exploding everywhere else.

I told @ms.now it isn't just that Iran is 'winning' its propaganda war with new tech - the US is losing it with narratives that don't resonate beyond his MAGA base at home, and definitely not with international audiences. This gives Iranian propaganda a lot to work with. www.ms.now/news/banned-...

The Urgency of Standards for Synthetic Data in the Era of Agentic AI Synthetic data fuels AI but risks bias, opacity, and weak accountability—demanding standards, transparency, and governance frameworks, argues Marcelle Momha.

Synthetic data may solve AI’s data shortage—but it also risks creating a distorted “mirror” of reality, writes Marcelle Momha. Without standards for quality, transparency, and accountability, errors and bias can scale invisibly across systems.