Libraries and schools are some of the largest institutional book buyers in the country. What they purchase directly shapes the book market. Authors and publishers write and market books based on expected demand. That demand is not random — it is heavily influenced by the American Library Association (ALA), as shown in this flowchart.
Booklist and Choice are ALA publications. They pay reviewers for reviews that are selected for publication. Only reviews that align with what those publications choose to feature are paid. That creates an obvious incentive: reviews that reflect ALA-approved perspectives are far more likely to be published and compensated.
Major book vendors then use Booklist, Choice, and ALA-generated reviews to build recommended purchasing lists. Librarians, working with limited time and budgets, often select books from these curated lists. That means the initial ALA filter heavily influences what books even enter the purchasing pipeline.
The ALA’s influence continues through its awards and curated reading lists. The Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, and Printz Award are all ALA-administered awards. Books that win these awards are widely treated as essential library purchases. The ALA also produces “must read” lists for children, teens, and adults. When the nation’s largest library advocacy organization labels a book a “must read,” libraries are strongly incentivized to purchase it.
Library directors are increasingly expected to hold master’s degrees in library science. The ALA controls accreditation for those programs. It also sponsors continuing education, conferences, and professional development that reinforce ALA policies and priorities, including strong emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks.
Librarians technically retain local discretion. But in practice, they operate within a professional ecosystem saturated with ALA standards, publications, training, and peer expectations. Departing from those norms carries professional risk.
The ALA’s influence extends beyond purchasing into promotion. Banned Books Week, an ALA-sponsored annual event, drives national marketing and display campaigns for selected titles, many of which lean heavily toward the left. Libraries and bookstores build featured displays of “banned” books each year, which predictably increases circulation and sales of those titles. The ALA even provides incentives and recognition for libraries that choose to participate.
The ALA also promotes specific programming priorities. An archived ALA advocacy article encouraged librarians in conservative communities to take “small steps” to move their libraries “progressively forward.” It described being a “secret librarian advocate operative” and advised librarians to “sneakily” incorporate preferred themes into existing programs — for example, changing “Mama bear and Papa bear” to “two Papa bears” during story time. It also encouraged inviting LGBTQ organizations to host events and identified Drag Queen Storytime as an admirable goal that libraries should work toward.
In contrast, in 2023, ALA intellectual-freedom leadership hosted a webinar advising librarians on how to use public-forum policies and meeting-room rules to maintain control of facilities after learning that the Christian publisher Brave Books planned nationwide library story hours. The guidance focused on how libraries could legally prevent Brave Books events while remaining within policy frameworks.
The pattern is clear. The ALA influences which books are reviewed, recommended, awarded, promoted, how librarians are trained, and how programming priorities are set. That influence directly affects what ends up on library shelves and what is promoted to the public. If your child’s school or public library has been feeling less and less “viewpoint neutral,” you’re not imagining it. Libraries are being deliberately reshaped into progressive propaganda machines, and the ALA is driving that change.
[Guest post]
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