Category: Censorship

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Emerging Leaders Team at Work on IFRT Project

Four members of the 2023 ALA Emerging Leaders cohort are now at work on a research project for the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. The project team, made up of Maya Bergamasco, Paul McMonigle, Sarah Colbert and Rach Wells, recently sent a survey to the library associations of all 50 states. The goal is to use the information they gather to create a resource for librarians facing materials challenges.

Intellectual Freedom Round Table American Library Association, Banned and Challenged Books, Censorship, Intellectual Freedom Round Table

Do People Who Fill Out “Request for Reconsideration” Forms Have a Right to Privacy?

Public records requests are a way for journalists and other interested parties to find out information about request for reconsideration forms that have been submitted to libraries and gain insight into book challenges that are happening at libraries near them. A legal debate in Colorado has raised the question of whether individuals submitting request for reconsideration forms are protected by library privacy laws or if their names and other identifying information is public record along with the rest of the request.

Tayla Cardillo Banned and Challenged Books, Censorship, Privacy

The Iranian Protests Are a Reminder of the Need for Praise of Salman Rushdie

We in libraries can do nothing to ameliorate Mr. Rushdie’s physical pain. We can and should, however, proudly display and recommend his works. To support Mr. Rushdie and to celebrate his works is not to attack a religion.  It is only to excoriate, as we should, the mindless and soulless adherence to the wrong-headed, hateful, and evil interpretation of a religion promulgated by mere–and mistaken–men.

ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Staff Authors, Banned and Challenged Books, Censorship
The words “Banned Book Reading Group” on a gray background. A image of Texas with the Prosper Independent School District logo on top of it is to the left of the text.

“Banned Book” Reading Group Among Parents in Prosper Texas in the Face of Book Challenges in Their School District

In January of this year the Prosper Citizen Group Political Action Committee (Prosper PAC), a conservative political action group operating in Prosper, Texas, asked the Prosper Independent School District (PISD) to remove a list of 82 books from their libraries on the grounds that they were sexually graphic, violent and inappropriate for children. A group of Prosper ISD parents have created a reading group so they can decide for themselves whether these titles should be removed from Prosper schools. One of those parents is Holly Lister Draper who in February posted a review of one of the books from the Prosper PAC’s list, The Pants Project by Cat Clarke, on her Facebook page.

Tayla Cardillo Banned and Challenged Books, Censorship, School Libraries