June 16, 2017 – Collated by OIF Staff and News Interns

Intellectual Freedom Highlights

• OIF and Intellectual Freedom in Chicago | OIF Blog; Committee meetings and programs at ALA Annual including a downloadable calendar!
• Privacy @ ALA Annual 2017 | Choose Privacy Week;  Privacy events and meetings at ALA Annual
• Trigger warnings and intellectual freedom | OIF Blog; “Trigger warnings, initially designed to give advance notice of content potentially detrimental to those who have suffered trauma, have made their way into everyday situations and become code for ‘stuff that may be offensive or upsetting.'”
• Natalya Sharina Judgement: Statement by IFLA President Donna Scheeder |  IFLA Blog

Censorship

• NLS votes to keep controversial book in the classroom | West Central Tribune (Minnesota); The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian
• Suicide book booted from classrooms (Thirteen Reasons Why) |The Anderson News (KY)
  • Anderson County Middle School Ban ’13 Reasons Why’ | Lex18.com (KY)
• How outrage built over a Shakespearean depiction of Trump | The New York Times
• Ten years after a challenge: An interview with Cassandra Barnett | OIF Blog
• When a challenge becomes personal | OIF Blog; “In May of 2015, Hood County Library in Granbury, Texas, found itself in the middle of a censorship attempt that led then-Director Courtney Kincaid to leave that library for both professional and personal reasons.”

Access

• Transgender man files complaint against Seattle library over private restroom | The Seattle Times
• Schools tap secret spectrum to beam free internet to students | Wired
• Report on the state of Open Data 2017 | Open Knowledge International Blog
• Webcomics and Web cultures archives now on loc.gov | Library of Congress
• OverDrive to introduce cost per circ option | Library Journal

Privacy

• Woman says librarians know who hit her car but can’t tell her | WSB-TV (GA)
• Privacy vs. Security: Council debates merits of library video surveillance system | Planet Princeton (NJ)
• Opposing Trump, conservative bloc demands reforms to internet spy law  | Reuters

See more privacy updates on the Choose Privacy Week blog.

Net Neutrality

• Net neutrality is dying. Speak out now before it’s too late | Forbes
• Trump to nominate FCC commissioner who backs net neutrality | CNet
• Why Netflix decided to back net neutrality after all | Fortune
• FCC makes net neutrality commenters’ email addresses public through API | Ars Technica

Campus Speech/Academic Freedom

• Court Rules Iowa State U. Officials Violated Student Activists’ Speech Rights | The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Einstein on academic freedom and political institutions | Academe Blog
• Adviser suspended after pro-Trump messages were edited out of high school yearbooks | The Washington Post
• Your rights, my rights: Academic freedom faces off with a clarion call for safety on campus | The Globe and Mail
• Free speech loses ground as Harvard retracts offers to admitted students | Chronicle of Higher Education
• Retired Indiana teachers sue school district over free speech violations | Newseum

First Amendment Issues

• In Atlanta, murals as art, and as zoning law test cases | The New York Times; “Artists contend that the First Amendment is their surest shield against rules that municipal officials argue are necessary to prevent works that some find obtrusive.”
• Blocking Twitter Users from the Presidential Account |  Lawfare
• First Amendment lawyer defending neo-Nazi website publisher | The New York Times
• Parent sues school for forcing son to recite the Pledge of Allegiance | NCAC

Around the Web

• Library of Congress names Tracy K. Smith Poet Laureate | Library of Congress
• How to keep your college admission offer: Start with digital literacy | The New York Times
• Portland helps thwart Trump attempt to censor climate change data | Portland Tribune
• The Corporate Committee for Library Investment defends libraries to Congress | Information Today
• Why there should be cameras in the Supreme Court | Los Angeles Times
• Making Google the censor | The New York Times; “Proposed laws making platforms go beyond notice and takedown to proactively police users’ speech would be even worse than Germany’s draconian takedown proposals.”

International Issues

• Meet the Macedonian teens who mastered fake news and corrupted the US election | Wired
• China’s latest book ban: An award-winning novel about the deadly consequences of land reform | The News Lens
• May and Macron’s ridiculous adventure in censoring the internet | TechDirt
• Saudi Arabia bans books of Yusuf Al-Qardaoui | Middle East North Africa Financial Network
• Bus TV is Venezuelan journalists’ new weapon against media censorship | Newsweek
• Growing censorship crackdown in Egypt | Defence Web
• Co-author of controversial book ‘The King’s Torah’ indicted for incitement over 2 op-eds | Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Israel)
• NLB pulls another 130 titles by publisher of controversial series on religion and history | The Straits Times (Singapore)

OIF News

• How to get your hands on the new Censorship “Field Report” | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “The Field Report is a great resource to showcase the variety of books and unique situations of each challenge….The office hands the Field Reports out at all of the intellectual freedom programs at ALA’s conference, and they’re available for purchase through the ALA Store if you want to give them out during Banned Books Week — only $35 for 50 copies.”
• IF & Advocacy Boot Camp at TLA 2017 | OIF Blog

ALA News

• Nominate a librarian for 2017 I Love My Librarian Award | ALA
• ALISE Awards, Grants, and Competitions: The Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) sponsors several funding opportunities, including the the ALISE/Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Competition, due June 30
• Spotlight on Rural, Native and Tribal Libraries at ALA Annual Conference
• New Workshop: Cyber Security and Privacy: Protecting Yourself and Your Users
• Fight for Libraries! Include #SaveIMLS on Twitter when you advocate for libraries.
• Join the Intellectual Freedom Round Table and volunteer for a committee.

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