Annual Report 2024

Welcome from the Executive Director

Library Futures began as a scrappy nonprofit in the middle of a global pandemic, matured into our home at NYU Law, and now celebrates our fourth year as a mature, fierce, and central voice in the fight for digital library rights. We serve as a research hub, an advocacy center, a policy shop, and a convener of digital rights advocates around the country.

We are proud to be the organization where so many in the library world have found a proactive home where they can learn, experiment, research, grow, and fight for their rights, and we look forward to continuing our work for years to come.

As we wrote in The Blue Skies Statement: An Equitable Policy Vision for Libraries, we work now “not from defeatism but from hope, not from resignation but from inspiration, not from the belief that we are powerless but from the knowledge that, together, we can build a better future.” We carry that forward into the next year.

2024 was a huge year for us; we were able to reach thousands of supporters with our mission and vision of equity. Thank you for being a part of that community. We hope to see you all in the coming year, whether in person or on the internet!

Warmly,

Jennie Rose Halperin,

Executive Director, Library Futures

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Who We Are

Library Futures is the vanguard nonprofit organization uncovering and confronting the fundamental policy issues that threaten libraries in the digital age.

Through fresh research, visionary policy and advocacy initiatives, and engaging education efforts, Library Futures empowers these critical audiences with the information and resources they need to protect, advocate for, and advance a fair digital future for libraries and the communities they serve.

Adovocacy with Impact

E-Books, Ownership, and Vendor Accountability

2024 saw Library Futures launch our flagship ebook advocacy site E-Books for Us. With interactive games illustrated by Kenny Keil, E-Books for Us offers an entertaining and engaging way to educate library workers and patrons on the inequitable ebook market – and what we can do about it.

Mobsters small

Our Principles on Library Ownership of Digital Books made their first real-world foray with the Digital Public Library of America’s collection of e-books libraries can own.

With the help of our community, we engaged Hoopla on their junk content.

In Court and On Capitol Hill

We signed on to statements and amicus briefs in court cases and legislation with far-reaching implications for libraries and digital library lending, including Sony v. Cox, NetChoice, the Hachette v. Internet Archive appeal, and the Pro Codes Act.

And Some Fun!

We cosponsored Weird Tales from the Public Domain with the Internet Archive and Necromancers of the Public Domain with the Engelberg Center at NYU.

And, of course, we launched Copyright and Technology Scribblings (CATS is just an acronym, okay?), our lighthearted look at all the library copyright news that’s fit to scratch.

Engaging Education

We continued our educational efforts by providing multiple continuing education opportunities for our community and by continuing our flagship internship program, which helps train the next generation of library policy and advocacy professionals.

Webinars

We learned How to Read a Contract with Sandra Aya Enimil, Program Director for Scholarly Communication and Information Policy at Yale Library and ONEAL Project founders Scarlet Galvan and Katharine V. Macy.

how to read a contract

We partnered with Library Freedom Project to present Campus Protests in the US: A History.

And we rounded out the year with our Meet Me at the Library Book Talk with Shamichael Hall, Sierra Sangetti Daniels of News Futures, and Jennie Garner of the North Liberty Public Library.

Internship Program

Our flagship internship program welcomed twelve students and recent graduates with a wide range of backgrounds and interests spanning PhD candidates, information science graduate students, law students, and high-performing undergraduates.

Our 2024 cohort contributed to research on Open Educational Resources (OER) in public libraries, digital censorship in U.S. libraries, and the role of libraries in creating a sustainable digital future.

Get Ready, Get Set, Research!

Keeping an Open Mind: OER in Public Libraries, our research on the role OER do and can play in public libraries, was featured in conference presentations and posters at OER24, the American Library Association annual conference, the Association of Small and Rural Libraries conference, and Open Texas.

OER blog post image

2024 also saw Library Futures welcome our first research grant recipients. The Lounsbery Foundation generously provided the funding that allowed us to fund the research for five big, bold ideas in digital librarianship. Outputs from our first research cohort will be presented at the American Library Association conference in 2025.

Read All About It!

We made the news – and so did the issues we work on!

Library Futures in the Media

And E-Books in the Media

Our Community

Library Futures is nothing without you. If we saw you in person in 2024 at one of our social events at the Public Library Association conference, the American Library Association conference, or Necromancers of the Public Domain, hello again!

If you got to know us through our webinars, our mailing list, or, of course, CATS (it’s just an acronym!), we hope to see more of you online or in person!

Thank you to each and every one of you who has read a newsletter or blog post, attended a webinar or event, or liked or shared a social media post. You mean the world to us!

Ecosystem Wide