CIPA Education and Literacy Foundation

08/27/2026

Dolly Parton was an amazing advocate for literacy.

Dolly Parton spent decades gifting books to millions of children. Following her death at 80, the Dollywood Foundation plans to carry her mission with Imagination Library forward.

08/26/2026

The Library is devastated to learn of the passing of Dolly Parton, not only a talented musician, but also a true titan of children's literacy. Her Imagination Library has received multiple Library of Congress Literacy Awards and, in 2018, Dolly visited us to donate the program’s 100 millionth book to our collection. She even hosted story time. 🦋❤️

Watch the video of her story time reading at the Library. ⬇️ https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2020/12/dolly-parton-the-library-that-dolly-built/

Image: Dolly Parton reads to children in the Library’s Great Hall in 2018. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.

07/29/2026

If you don't think this is concerning, think again!
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1560227692142037&set=a.751440556354092

The world’s biggest AI companies are buying antiquarian books en masse so they can be scanned to train their large language models (LLMs) before being destroyed.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, has spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring millions of books to feed its demand for human-authored training material, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.

Codenamed Project Panama, the firm used a hydraulic powered cutting machine to lop off books’ spines and then slice individual pages, which could then be scanned with industrial-grade imaging equipment before being discarded.

Internal documents unsealed in legal filings in January revealed that Anthropic was acutely aware of how negatively such a project would be received outside the company.

“Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,” an internal planning document said. “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

Earlier this month a judge approved a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) payment in a class action lawsuit brought against Anthropic by a group of authors whose pirated work had been used to train Claude.

However, in the original ruling last year, a judge found that Anthropic's use of physical books was protected as fair use under US law, Futurism reported.

The company was able to evade copyright issues by hiding behind a legal rule known as first-sale doctrine, which allows a buyer to do what they want with an item after purchasing.

The doctrine enables the second-hand book trade to exist – and a new market has now sprung up explicitly catering to AI companies seeking to buy vast quantities of old books.

“I personally have mixed feelings about all of this,” one bookseller told 404 Media. “It benefits me financially as well as by clearing out old inventory that is otherwise unlikely to sell.

“I’ve been well-suited for these sales with inventory from overseas and foreign language books. On the other hand, I don’t like the end-use, and I don’t like that uncommon books are being pulped.”

07/28/2026

If you're a C**A member you should take advantage of this great opportunity for your book(s) to be seen and promoted at the 2026 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association FallCon in Denver on Oct 5th & 6th.

07/09/2026

The U.S. Copyright Office is offering a free webinar on July 15th. All publishers and authors should know about and understand how to protect their intellectual property via official copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Copyright of Intellectual Property is something ALL C**A members should know about and understand:. Take advantage of this free webinar offered by the U.S. Copyright Office on July 15th.

U.S. Copyright Office Announces Copyright Essentials: Copyright 101 Webinar
The U.S. Copyright Office invites you to register to attend the upcoming online webinar, “Copyright Essentials: Copyright 101, on Wednesday, July 15 at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. This event is the latest edition in its educational series designed to teach copyright basics and key concepts to creators within various disciplines.

In this session, the Copyright Office discusses the foundations of copyright law, the process of copyright registration, and Copyright Office programs supporting research, enforcement, and understanding copyright concepts like fair use. We will answer commonly asked questions; review educational resources and registration options, such as the Office’s Copyright Registration Toolkit; and share how the Copyright Office’s Public Information Office can assist along the way.

Speakers:
Samantha Levin, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Public Information and Education
Taylor Schumacher, Attorney-Advisor, Office of Public Information and Education

The Copyright Office strategic goal of Copyright for All means making the copyright system as understandable and accessible to as many members of the public as possible, through initiatives including education and outreach. Subscribe to stay updated about future webinars in this series.

Watch the complete set of recordings on our Copyright Essentials event page.

United States Copyright Office
copyright.gov
(202) 707-3000
or 1 (877) 476-0778 (toll free)

This service is provided at no charge by U.S. Copyright Office.

07/04/2026

06/28/2026

TODAY! JUNE 28th from 10-5pm! The Barnes & Noble on Colorado Blvd is the place to be this Sunday to meet ten awesome C**A member authors/publishers and buy their books! A portion of the proceeds benefits the education and literacy efforts of the C**A Education and Literacy Foundation when you use code # 12949830 as you purchase any book at B&N in-store or online during and then up to five days after the event.