Banned Books Week – Book Challenges Explained

When people first hear about Banned Books Week, they often ask one of two questions: “Who doesn’t have the freedom to read?” and “Are books really banned?” Neither answer is quite as straight-forward as you might think.



Summer Film Tie-Ins

With summer reading comes summer blockbusters! Whether you’re beating the heat in your local Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh branch or in your neighborhood movie theater, we’ve got you covered. In keeping with CLP’s Summer Reading theme of Read Five!, here are five books to read before or after seeing each of these highly anticipated summer movies, that complement the films in different ways.


VITAL Funding for Vital Resources

Supporting libraries comes naturally for John Gismondi and his family. “Growing up, our family’s home, where my 98-year-old mother still resides, was within walking distance to the Uniontown Public Library, and my siblings and I were regular users. Although neither of my parents were educated beyond high school, … Continued


Saïd and Martha’s Story

Not long ago, while clearing out my mother’s belongings from her apartment on Centre Avenue, I happened to find two overdue library books. Knowing full well that she would have … Continued




Sloane’s Story

The first audition for American Idol wasn’t intimidating at all for 16-year-old Fox Chapel sophomore Sloane Simon. “It was virtual. I was in my kitchen and my mom was with … Continued


Pride Month and LGBTQIA+ Resources at CLP

It’s Pride Month again—and normally we’d be updating our online booklists with some of the titles we’ve added in the last year. It hasn’t been a normal year (to say the least), so we haven’t quite managed to do that (yet). But we’re happy to share some new titles here and to point out other ways to locate books on LGBT+ topics.