January 25, 2019 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Editors

Highlight

• ALA Midwinter 2019: Intellectual Freedom and the Law: Issues and Updates for Meeting Rooms, Drag Queen Storytimes, and Library Displays Saturday, January 26, 1:00-2:00PM
• Celebrate libraries this weekend with a rally | KING TV (WA); “7,000 librarians are converging on Seattle for the American Library Association’s (ALA) Midwinter Meeting. President of the ALA Loida Garcia-Febo joins New Day Northwest to talk about libraries and the vital roles they play in communities today.”
• New eCourse: The First Amendment and Library Services | ALA news (begins March 4)
• Librarian shutdown stories | American Libraries; “The partial federal government shutdown has entered its second month, with no end in sight. Some librarians on furlough expect to be compensated for the paychecks that stopped arriving when the shutdown began on December 22, 2018. But others, working on contract, may never get paid for the lost hours.”

Censorship

• The public library as a world stage: An analysis of censorship | OIF Blog
• First Drag Queen Story Hour in Berks draws big crowd to Wyomissing Public Library | Reading Eagle (PA)
• Nassau County’s first Drag Queen Story Hour draws a crowd to East Meadow library | Long Island Herald (NY)
• NCAC protests political censorship at Ground Zero | NCAC
• Drag queen story time not a ‘contagious’ event, expert says | Detroit Free Press
• Drag queen storytime for children: Is listening to a drag queen read a story dangerous for your child? | Psychology Today
• Huntington Woods mayor on Drag Queen Storytime: Library events are a local issue | Detroit Free Press
• Public Library receives ‘inappropriate computer use’ complaint | KVOA (AZ)

Privacy

• Battle lines forming ahead of a looming US privacy law fight | ABC News
• Coming soon to a police station near you: The DNA ‘magic box’ | New York Times

Net Neutrality and Broadband Access

• Broadband expert says USDA shutdown is hurting rural internet expansion | StateScoop
• Remember when Ajit Pai said killing net neutrality would boost network investment? About that… | TechDirt
• Rural broadband in Minnesota: Evidence is in: The government should butt out | Minnepolis Star Tribune

Access

• Integrating libraries and books | OIF Blog
• Intellectual Freedom Fighters, Part 1: Reclaim the Records | OIF Blog
• Actions shutting down information and freedom – Interior’s attack on FOIA | OIF Blog
• Libraries embracing their new roles as social services hub | Next City
• Pay for Trump’s border wall with $20 online porn fee, Ariz. lawmaker says | Ars Technica
• Los Angeles Public Library Stepped Up During Teachers’ Strike | School Library Journal

Copyright

• Don’t put robots in charge of the internet | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Academic Freedom & Campus Speech

• Christian schools like Karen Pence’s are the real threat to academic freedom | Huffington Post
• State lawmaker criticizes U. of Wisconsin professor’s syllabus over characterization of Trump | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Community-college professor is fired after making a Nazi salute at a system meeting | Chronicle of Higher Education

First Amendment and Free Speech

• Citizens celebrate First Amendment wall in Branford | Zip 06 (CT)
• Kiah Morris case: How far do free speech protections go in the US? | BBC News
• Tomah School Board to consider banning Confederate flag displays | The Tomah Journal (WI)
• First Amendment rights protect hate speech in racist video, according to OU legal counsel | The OU Daily (OK)

Around the Web

• Choosing books that challenge: Shaking up students’ beliefs | Knowledge Quest
• The Times Square pro-choice art piece that was censored, but not forgotten | Daily Beast
• Stonewall defends ‘vital’ LGBT children’s books after spate of ban attempts | The Guardian
• LGBTQ youth group donates pro-gay marriage books to Karen Pence’s Christian school | Washington Post
• Acclaimed German novel banned by Nazis gets first English translation | The Guardian
• Dirty books and filthy laws | Lance Dutson (blog)
• To slang or not to slang: Defending authentic language in YA and children’s literature | School Library Journal

International Issues

• ‘Right to be forgotten’ used to force Google to remove medical negligence link | The Verge
• India’s plan to curb hate speech could mean more censorship | Wired
• Netflix and Hotstar will now be self-censoring some of their content in India | Quartz
• The fight over Europe’s internet just got even messier | The Verge
• Canadian Internet Filtering Company Says It’s Stopped ‘Alternative Lifestyles’ Censorship | Motherboard
• Censorship spreads to Turkey’s publishing houses | Ahval
• Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, is the latest website to be blocked under China’s strict online censorship rules | Business Insider

ALA News

• Meeting room policies, displays and drag queen storytimes to be discussed at ALA Midwinter Meeting
• ALA announces 2019 Policy Corps members
• ALA joins W.K. Kellogg Foundation in observance of 2019 National Day of Racial Healing
• Booklist announces July 2019 as Graphic Novels in Libraries Month
• New eCourse—US Copyright Law in the Library: A Beginner’s Guide
• PLA to offer regional symposia on equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice in libraries (click for dates and locations)

 

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