Author: Frederic Murray
Intellectual Freedom: A Response
As curators of collections, authorities on access, or just plain bookworms, we have an important role to play right now. If intellectual freedom is based on exploring, changing, improving through the discovery of new ideas then we have an opportunity, because of our particular skill set, to help shift the conversation.
Responding to Database Challenges
Most librarians are aware of books that get challenged and the tools needed to protect their library against censorship, but censorship can also affect our digital content, whether it’s databases, e-books, streaming content, apps or electronic tools. Be aware of the current trend in challenges to these materials and how ALA is working with librarians and vendors to protect access to these great resources.
Twitter in a Tempest
We have an obligation to understand the inherent weaknesses of social media environments and actively educate about them. It might serve us to remember that at one point the implantation of OPACs’, or the migration of journals into databases, or the growth of digital archives as dynamic new platforms of publishing and dissemination also seemed foreign to our mission. Our profession is constantly evolving and social media has become a maelstrom.
![Fiorito, K. Unity Billboard [Digital image]. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://karenfiorito.wixsite.com/buddhacat](https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Unity-730x297.jpg)
The Interview Project: A Q&A with Artist Karen Fiorito
The work of advocating, facilitating and protecting intellectual freedoms is important activity, and is often carried out by everyday people. I thought it would be useful to speak with those whose work is dependent on intellectual freedom, and how libraries impact who they are and what they do.
![Kendi, I., & Nation Books, I. [Author Photo]. Retrieved August 7, 2017, from https://www.ibramxkendi.com](https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IKendi.jpg)
The Interview Project: A Conversation with Historian Ibram X. Kendi
One of the benefits of writing for the Office of Intellectual Freedom, this past year, has been to recognize the amazing work done by a variety of people who continually promote and protect the right of free expression in this country. The work of advocating, facilitating and protecting intellectual freedoms is important activity, and is often carried out by everyday people. I thought it would be useful to speak with those whose work is dependent on intellectual freedom, and how libraries impact who they are and what they do.
![King, A. M. (2017, July 28). [Author Photo]. Retrieved September 12, 2017.](https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/AishaKing.jpg)
The Interview Project: A Q&A with Teacher Aisha M. King
The work of advocating, facilitating and protecting intellectual freedoms is important activity, and is often carried out by everyday people. I thought it would be useful to speak with those whose work is dependent on intellectual freedom, and how libraries impact who they are and what they do.
Campus Speech: Accusations, Harassment, Threats
Free speech on a college campus is a form of public engagement. And public engagement is always a challenge. Ask any of the professors named above. A good response is to sharpen your game and be ready.
Let’s Pretend It Never Happened
As a profession we are concerned with the integrity of information, whether we agree with it or not. If something is to be removed, it is because it is outdated, or being updated, not because it offends us politically.
Fear Itself
The attacks on the press are about lockouts, manipulation and threats. Lockouts are bad for the free flow of information. Manipulation is (and always has been) a two-way street … but threats? Threats now shape our public discourse, and again, to belabor the point over and over, this is not normal.
Origins
On June 26, 2017, hearings began in the U.S. District Court for Arizona to decide the fate of Tucson’s Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program. It has been seven years for this educational program to get its day in court. That’s at least two generations of high-school students, who because of narrow minded political concerns, were denied the right to study their own origins.