Category: Information Access
Intellectual Freedom Fighters, Part 2: Flash Drives for Freedom
The second spot of the Intellectual Freedom Fighter series is Flash Drives for Freedom, a Human Rights Foundation initiative to provide USB drives to North Korean defectors to smuggle into the country.
NCOSE’s Dirty Dozen Censorship
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has included the American Library Association on their annual “Dirty Dozen” list of sexual exploitation enablers. You might be led to believe that the ALA was promoting open, free, and unfettered access to pornography—it’s not. Instead, NCOSE is targeting something alltogether different–the freedom of library patrons.
New Jersey parents upset at reduced access to books
Parents in Mahwah, NJ are expressing distress that the school district has, in their view, reduced student access to books in the school libraries.
Anyone Can Sue: Legal Intimidation as a Censorship Tool
It is axiomatic that anyone can sue, over any issue. To file a lawsuit is as simple as drafting a document that purports to allege facts that support a claim for legal relief, paying a fee, and filing the document with a court.
Is literacy a right? My internal conflict
A federal district court ruling earlier this month which held that there is no clearly established constitutional right to literacy in the United States has reminded me that the various pieces of my background are sometimes in conflict with one another.
How Libraries Can Help Migrant Children: A Book List
We, as librarians and information specialists, can use our skills and our platform as a center of the community to educate our patrons about the immigrant experience and what it means for children and families to leave behind everything familiar for an unknown country.
Net Neutrality Represents Ongoing Debate about Affordable Broadband in America
The main premise of “Net Neutrality: An Intellectual Freedom Issue” is that intellectual freedom and the full functioning of libraries in America will be impeded by allowing internet service providers (ISPs) to throttle content in pursuit of their financial and customer service interests. I have to admit that the two ideas seemed unrelated to me. Is the premise really true? How exactly does net neutrality relate to public libraries and their provision of internet access?
Reflecting on James Madison’s legacy today
While James Madison is most often remembered as the drafter of the Bill of Rights, he was also an advocate for open government and transparency. For Madison’s birthday we should pause and consider what Madison might have to say about support for libraries and the press and the state of open government today.
Dickey: How One Congressman Helped Ban Research on America’s Gun Problem…and Lived to Regret It
Question: How is the United States’ preeminent body tasked with preventing disease and poor public health to accomplish its mandate if it is barred from doing so?
Fire and Fury at the White House
Let me repeat that. Trump attempted to halt the publication of a book about him just because he didn’t like it. That, my friends, is censorship. It is a violation of the First Amendment. And it is unconstitutional.