Free Expression Friday: From Crisis to Action with Lindsay Schultz (The Spine Bookshop) and Keri Lambert (Rutherford County Library Alliance)

Free Expression Friday is an interview series from ABA's American Booksellers for Free Expression celebrating the amazing work of booksellers, organizers, and book people in general fighting for the right to read. Lindsay Schultz didn't open The Spine Bookshop looking for a hill to die on, but she wasn't going to back down when book banners came to town and started threatening librarians. She found allies in Keri Lambert and the rest of the Rutherford County Library Alliance, and together they stood up and made their voices heard. They weren't ultimately able to stop books from being banned, but it led Schultz to turn her store into a community space, launch a book access program for banned and diverse books, and plan a read-in in her store for next year. Schultz and Lambert join Philomena Polefrone to explain what happened, what made the Rutherford County School Board meetings uniquely unhinged, and how they stood up against it. Follow the American Booksellers for Free Expression on Instagram at @ABFEFreeExpression to keep up with ABFE's advocacy efforts and tune into their Free Expression Friday series. Additional bookstore education resources can be found at www.bookweb.org.   Theme by Constant Companion