The American Association of School Librarians is presenting an informative and helpful preconference this year at its national conference in Charlotte, North Carolina:
“Law for School Librarians: Knowing Minors’ Rights” (Preconference)
Thursday, November 5, 8:00 a.m.—12:00 p.m., Charlotte, North Carolina
Fee: $109 (AASL member) / $214 (Non-member)
Preconference Summary: Learn how the First Amendment, state and federal laws, and judicial decisions affect the intellectual freedom of students using school library media centers. Topics to be covered include minors’ rights in school libraries, challenges to resources, labeling of resources, filtering Web resources, and privacy. Presenters will differentiate between public and private school libraries in terms of how laws apply, and will discuss the rights of younger versus older minors. Experienced library media specialists will facilitate group discussions and role playing related to challenges and students’ privacy, and will provide strategies for teaching students about their rights and responsibilities.
Presenters:
Deborah Caldwell-Stone is acting director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, where she works on projects dealing with censorship and privacy in libraries. An attorney by training, she practiced appellate law before the state and federal courts in Chicago before joining ALA in 2000.
Theresa Chmara is an attorney in Washington, DC and has served as counsel to the Freedom to Read Foundation for over fifteen years. She is on the steering committee of the Lawyers for Libraries program and has instructed at each of the twelve Lawyers for Libraries institutes as well as the Law for Librarians conference in 2006.
Pat Scales, a retired school librarian, is on the ALA faculty for Lawyers for Libraries, and is the author of Teaching Banned Books: 12 Guides for Young Readers (ALA 2001) and Intellectual Freedom in School Libraries (ALA 2001). She is currently the president of the Association for Library Service to Children.
Barbara Stripling is director of library services for the Department of Education in New York City. She has had a thirty-year career in education as a classroom teacher, K—12 library media specialist, Library Power director, and school district director of instructional services.
Dorcas Hand has been an independent school librarian in Houston, Texas since 1978, working at a variety of schools at all levels K—12 and surviving more than one challenge in those thirty years.
Helen Adams is a former school library media specialist and technology coordinator in Wisconsin and is currently an online instructor for Mansfield University, teaching a course focusing on legal and access issues in school library media programs. She authored Ensuring Intellectual Freedom and Access to Information in the School Library Media Program (Libraries Unlimited 2008) and is co-author of Privacy in the 21st Century: Issues for Public, School, and Academic Libraries (Libraries Unlimited 2005).
For more information and to register, please visit the AASL National Conference Web site.
