ALA 11 Conference Wrap-Up: Intellectual Freedom Committee
This week, the OIF Blog will be featuring wrap-ups of last month’s ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, each post featuring a different intellectual freedom group. Today’s featured group: the Intellectual Freedom Committee.
- IFC brought forth two Resolutions for ALA Council to adopt: “Resolution to Protect Library User Confidentiality in Self-Service Holds” (drafted by the IFC Privacy Subcommittee) and “Resolution to Continue Opposition to the Use of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and the Use of National Security Letters to Violate Reader Privacy” (IFC/COL joint resolution). The full text of each Resolution can be found in the IFC Report to Council. Both Resolutions were adopted by ALA Council during its third session on Tuesday, June 28.
- IFC’s Privacy Subcommittee discussed the issue of reader privacy and the use of library records by third party vendors and set a final release schedule for the revised “Questions and Answers on Privacy: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights” document.
- Jonathan Kelley, program coordinator of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, moderated a great IF 101 program on Friday, June 24. Slides of the presentation can be found on ALA Connect.
- IFC sponsored a joint program with COL, “When it Leaks it Pours: WikiLeaks, National Declassification System, and Access to Government Information,” which featured Tom Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
- IFC also sponsored a program with the Association of American Publishers, “Whose Common Sense? How Labeling Systems Hurt Young Readers.” Interviews with speakers Jeffrey Nadel and David Levithan can be found below.