The Words & Money Weekly Newsletter: August 28, 2026

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We're in the final weeks of summer, so another abbreviated newsletter this week, although there is still plenty of news to share. Among the headlines in our weekly media roundup, The Queue: librarians react to the death of Dolly Parton; an Arkansas County agrees to settle a lawsuit filed by a librarian fired for resisting censorship; author and librarian (and Words & Money contributor) Kalyn Gensic responds to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick's threat to punish schools for not banning more books; New Jersey's library ebook bill gets a vote of confidence; a digital publishing veteran offers a thoughtful take on AI as a writing tool; and Penguin Random House's Skip Dye lands a prestigious industry honor.

The Queue: Library News for the Week Ending August 28, 2026

Dolly Parton's Enduring Legacy

This week, America lost a national treasure. Dolly Parton was that rare public person in America who was able to remain above the partisan political fray without sacrificing her core values and beliefs. According to a recent poll, she was literally the most well-liked person in America. And how lucky we are that beyond her enormous talent and gracious personality, her enduring legacy (as so many news reports of her death have pointed out) is as "the book lady."

Over at School Library Journal Illinois librarian Cindy Shutts shared an excellent, heartfelt tribute to Parton. "Now more than ever, it is important to follow in Dolly’s footsteps," she concludes. "We are moving into a world where technology CEOs want to use AI to tell their kids’ bedtime stories. Reading to your child nightly is one of the best ways to set up a child for success. We do not need more AI automation that pushes people away from dreaming, from critical literacy. We need more Dollys."

Through her Imagination Library, Dolly Parton gifted more than 300 million books (and counting) to children across the country. To recognize her contributions, the American Library Association in 2023 awarded Parton Honorary Membership, the ALA's highest honor. Alas, Dolly couldn't be on hand in person to accept the award at the 2023 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. She did, however, deliver a lovely video, in which she closed by singing a lyric from one of her most famous hits to librarians: "I will always love you."

Unfortunately, as much of the reporting around her death has also shared, Dolly's literary legacy is not entirely secure. The Imagination Library requires some state funding to operate, and several states have quietly backed away (or considered backing away) from doing their parts in recent months and years.

"In Indiana last year, Governor Mike Braun cut state funding for the program entirely, prompting the state’s first lady, Maureen Braun, to launch a fundraising campaign to keep it afloat. Kentucky lawmakers proposed a budget reduction this year that would have effectively shut down the program in about half of Kentucky’s poorest counties before restoring the state’s 50% funding match after public outcry," reports Ash Wu, at the New York Times. "In Maine, the program ended in June after losing state funding, according to WAGM," with the United Way attempting to step in with another program. "And Missouri slashed $4 million in funding for the nonprofit in its 2027 budget, effectively freezing new enrollment."

It's unfathomable to me that any state would decline to come up with the tiny amount of funding it takes to administer such a hugely successful program that provides real, tangible benefits to children. In Missouri, for example, the $4 million cut comes from a state budget of roughly $50 billion, leaving some libraries in the state attempting to find the funds to continue the program on their own.

Then again, it is also unfathomable to me that so many librarians today find themselves threatened with prison time in several states simply for doing their jobs.

Dolly Parton is a huge loss. Yet, it's been reaffirming to see how much her support for libraries and reading has resonated. There's really not much more I could add, except to suggest that, as we celebrate Dolly's remarkable legacy, that we also resolve to honor it. Finding ways to support and expand the Imagination Library is certainly one way to do that. But perhaps more importantly, Dolly Parton showed that libraries and librarians deserve to be celebrated and supported for their public service, not attacked. What a fitting tribute it would be for voters to remind legislators of that fact.

New Hampshire Lawmakers Look to Protect and Expand Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Following the news of Dolly Parton's death, New Hampshire Public Radio reports on a bipartisan bill that would expand the Imagination Library in the Granite State. "On Thursday, state Sens. Darryl Abbas, R-Salem, Donovan Fenton, D-Keene, and Suzanne Prentiss, D-Lebanon, announced they planned to file legislation for the Imagination Library Act," the report states. "Their plan would use state funds, administered through the state Department of Education, to help provide the free books to participating families. According to their announcement, their proposal would cost up to $750,000 per year once it is fully expanded over the next five years. They plan to file the proposed legislation in September."

Meanwhile Courtney Vashaw, the director of the Whitefield Public Library, told reporters that the Dolly Parton Imagination Library program she administers has received two donations since the news of Dolly's death, and that she also received a letter from the Imagination Library Foundation reporting that the organization is in strong shape. “Dolly had a lifelong commitment to the organization, and she wanted that to live well beyond her,” Vashaw said.

Texas School Librarian Fires Back at Texas Lt. Governor Over School Library Censorship Demands

The Texas Observer has another great piece from author and school librarian (and Words & Money contributor) Kalyn Gensic, this one in response to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick's ominous warning last week to Texas schools to ban more books, or else.

"I imagine that most people heard this tirade and saw a blustering politician gearing up for election season. What librarians saw was more alarming. We saw a hostage situation taking shape," Gensic writes. "Were Patrick’s statements last week an empty threat, an effort to distract from more urgent, substantive matters, or the next chapter in the nightmare that has been unfolding for librarians for many years now? I fear it largely depends on how people vote come November. Do we say no to politicians making up rules as they go like a 4-year-old trying to win at cards? Are we tired yet of playing games we can’t win only to watch our state come in and wrest away local control?"

Arkansas County Settles with Librarian Who Was Fired for Standing Up to Censorship

In Arkansas, Tess Vrbin at the Arkansas Advocate reports that Saline County has settled a lawsuit filed by former director Patty Hector, who was fired in 2023 for standing up to an order to censor books in the library. According to the report, Hector will receive a $275,000 payout. Hector joins a long and growing list of librarians who have won settlements after being robbed of their careers, including Brooky Parks in Colorado, Suzette Baker in Texas, and Terri Leslie in Wyoming.

"Standing up for the freedom to read cost me a job and a career I loved, but I never believed that staying silent was the answer," Hector said in a statement. “Libraries belong to everyone, and librarians should be able to serve their communities according to professional standards without fearing political retaliation. I hope this settlement sends a message to librarians and other public servants across Arkansas that their voices and their constitutional rights matter."

New Jersey's Library Ebook Bill Gets a Vote of Confidence

Patch.com reports that the Board of Trustees of the Westfield (New Jersey) Memorial Library has adopted a resolution "formally expressing the Library’s strong support" for New Jersey's library ebook bills, Senate Bill 1674 and Assembly Bill 4956. "The Board’s resolution urges state legislators representing Westfield to add their names as co-sponsors of the bills, and calls on the Legislature to take prompt and favorable action toward enactment," the report notes.

“When publishers charge inflated prices and restrictive terms to public libraries, the people who pay the price are the Westfield taxpayers,” said library director Allen McGinley. “This is a matter of fiscal responsibility, as well as equity,” McGinley added. “Every dollar a library spends repurchasing a title it already licensed, or paying a publisher a premium that no consumer would ever face, is a dollar not spent on literacy and other critical services for our community.”

New Jersey is one of several states that will be closely watched in the closing months of 2026, along with Illinois. If either state passes its library ebook legislation, it could trigger Connecticut's legislation, passed in 2025, which is set to take effect once another state or states with a population of seven million or more passes similar legislation.

Latest Entry in Palace Project's 'Digital Shelf' Webinar Series to Tackle 'Accessibility' Issues

With digital content in libraries surging in popularity, the latest entry in the Palace Project's 'Digital Shelf' webinar series will focus on a key, often overlooked issue: "how accessible are the platforms and reading apps we rely on every day, and what can libraries do to optimize their digital offerings for patrons with accessibility needs?" The series, hosted in partnership with COSLA and ReadersFirst, is an excellent resource, sharing library expertise across a wide array of issues in the digital space.

The upcoming webinar on accessibility is set for September 29 at 1 p.m. EST, and you can register here. It will feature "a panel of accessibility advocates, library technology specialists, and digital publishing experts," who will "examine current reading standards (WCAG, VPATs, EPUB3), and share practical strategies for making your library’s digital shelf truly inclusive."

HathiTrust Lands Mellon Grant to Create Public AI Training Corpus

Dave Hansen at the Authors Alliance reports that the HathiTrust has been awarded a five-year, $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation for Transparent Books: AI Infrastructure for Discovery and the Public Interest, in partnership with the Authors Alliance and the Northeastern University Library.

The grant follows the completion of a plan for the Public Interest Corpus (a Mellon-funded initiative co-led by the Authors Alliance and Northeastern in 2024 and 2025) to explore how libraries can make collections "lawfully available for computational research in ways that serve authors, scholars, and the reading public, instead of leaving book-based AI development to a small number of companies working from datasets of uncertain and contested provenance."

"This next phase puts the lessons from The Public Interest Corpus into practice, using HathiTrust’s collection of more than 19 million digitized volumes as its foundation," Hansen writes. "HathiTrust will serve as the central partner and steward of the corpus. Northeastern will develop the tools and infrastructure for search, discovery, and text and data mining. Authors Alliance will lead the project’s policy and convening work." For more, see the announcement from HathiTrust.

Tim O'Reilly on AI as a 'Medium' and as a 'Power Tool' for Writing

At O'Reilly Radar, Tim O'Reilly, one of the great thinkers on digital publishing, offers a typically insightful take on AI as a writing tool. "A lot of professional writers say they never do it. And for writers who do, the consequences can be serious. Book contracts have been withdrawn. People have lost jobs," he writes. "I have a contrarian view. I say AI is a medium, like painting, sculpture, photography, music, or language itself."

O'Reilly goes on to suggest that if AI is a medium,"the idea that you can’t write with it will someday seem as odd as the idea that you can’t make a good portrait or landscape with a camera, only with paint or pen and ink." He goes on to detail his own writing process with AI, noting that he's "proud" of the way he uses AI in his writing process.

"I’m not saying we should give AI slop a pass. I hate it as much as the rest of you, and I react badly when people send me unedited AI output as if they’d written it," he concludes. "But I’ve got nothing against those who use AI as a power tool to get more done or to deepen the writing that they are doing. I judge the output, not the means used to produce it."

Why This Utah School District Should Have Talked About Fight Club

The first rule of Fight Club may be that you don't talk about Fight Club, but, in a twist, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that a Utah school board is facing a backlash for banning Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club without talking about it. The report notes that an appeal of the Davis school district's ban on Fight Club, filed by Davis parent Jessica Horton, who runs a freedom to read advocacy group called Let Davis Read, argues there wasn't enough detail explaining how the book ran afoul of the state's "sensitive materials" standard, as is required by Utah law.

Cleveland Public Library Workers Ink New Contract, Avoid Work Stoppage

Good news in Cleveland, as News 5 reports that Cleveland Public Library workers have ratified a new three-year union contract avoiding a potential work stoppage. “The ratification comes after tensions between the union and the library reached a point where workers authorized a strike earlier this week,” the report notes. “Under the new contract, workers will receive a 15% average wage increase over the three-year agreement. The deal also includes 5% retroactive wage payments dating back to January 2026, along with a ratification bonus of $500 for full-time employees and $250 for part-time employees,” the report notes.

Series on Prison Censorship Concludes

Over at Book Riot, Kelly Jensen leads off her weekly censorship news column the third and final installment of writer and librarian Aaron Blumberg's three-part series on prison censorship.

And Finally This Week...

The Book Industry Study Group has named Penguin Random House SVP Skip Dye as the 2026 recipient of the Sally Dedecker Award for Lifetime Service, recognizing "his decades of leadership, advocacy, and service on behalf of libraries, publishers, readers, and the freedom to read." It's another well-deserved honor for Dye, who, among his many contributions, has been the driving force among the major publishers in defending the freedom to read. Dye will accept the award during the BISG@50: Book Publishing Next Forum & Anniversary Celebration, set for September 16 at The New York Historical Society in New York City.

"During nearly three decades at Penguin Random House, Dye has become one of the publishing industry’s most prominent advocates for libraries and intellectual freedom," a BISG release notes. "As head of Penguin Random House’s Intellectual Freedom Task Force, he has helped lead the publisher’s efforts to defend the freedom to read through public awareness, author education, employee engagement, and legal action."

In 2025, the ALA awarded Dye Honorary Membership, its highest honor, for his work supporting libraries. And in 2024, Dye was honored with the prestigious Library Champion award in his home state of Delaware. The BISG award is named for Sally Dedecker, a publishing veteran and BookExpo’s Head of Education, who died in 2017 at the age of 62 after a battle with cancer.

“I’m deeply honored to receive the Sally Dedecker Award for Lifetime Service," Dye said, in a statement. "Having had the privilege of working with Sally for many years and seeing firsthand the contributions she made to our industry, receiving an award bearing her name is especially meaningful to me."