Skip to content

Intellectual Freedom Blog

The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association

  • Home
  • Policy & Purpose
  • Writers
  • Blogger Application
    • Submit Guest Post

Author: Jamie LaRue

A hand covering the mouth of another person

Apostasy!

The Republican Right humiliated and punished all but its true believers, in a purge that left it less responsive to a changing world, and undercut broad support. Is the Left repeating the play?

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020 Jamie LaRue Advocacy, Censorship, General Interest, Intellectual Freedom Issues
Woman holding burning newspaper

News We Can Lose?

The media tends to report on politics as if it were sports. It’s A or B, a winner or a loser, a zero sum game. But now, the media covers politics like reality TV. It’s not even about winners and losers anymore. It’s about the spectacle, the outrage, the drama.

May 12, 2020May 11, 2020 Jamie LaRue First Amendment, Government Information, Information Literacy
Megaphone

Listen Up! Read-aloud Challenges

Some public challenges in 2019 focused on books that were read aloud to minors. The issues were LGBTQIA and race. But some challenges raise new questions.

April 22, 2020October 21, 2020 Jamie LaRue Banned and Challenged Books, Education
James G. Blaine

The Blaine Amendment: Bigotry or First Amendment Bulwark?

The Blaine Amendment, ensconced in some 37 state constitutions, prohibits the expenditure of public funds for private religious education. But the United States Supreme Court seems poised to strike it down.

March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 Jamie LaRue Education, First Amendment, Religion
Exit sign with strobe light

When Free Speech is a Crime

The framers of the Constitution did not anticipate texting your boyfriend to encourage his suicide, or the sending of strobe GIFs that precipitate epileptic seizures. Sometimes, free speech is a crime.

March 5, 2020March 3, 2020 Jamie LaRue First Amendment, Hate Crimes, Intellectual Freedom Issues
DeRay Mckesson

Sticks & Stones: A Heckler’s Veto?

…if bad actors or provocateurs can turn a peaceful protest into a violent altercation, and fix the blame on protest organizers, free speech now faces an impossible burden.

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 Jamie LaRue Civil Liberties, First Amendment
Shadow of patron opening a book between library shelves

Safety in Libraries: a Continuum

I’d like to offer an approach I’ll call the continuum of safety, offered from the perspective of the patron, the person who uses the library but is not a member of the staff. My goal is to establish a framework for the supervision of public space, in keeping with the values of the profession.

October 16, 2019December 18, 2019 Jamie LaRue Civil Liberties, Diversity, Intellectual Freedom Issues, Policies
Sorry Event Cancelled

Appeasement Doesn’t Work

Some of the lessons we learn in our professional career are painful. And to all of you have made a decision you regret, I say: Welcome to the club. The best response is to learn from those decisions. The takeaway here: our policies articulate our values. Let’s not throw them away just because someone yells at us. Let’s live them.

October 17, 2018October 17, 2018 Jamie LaRue Policies, Programming

Education is not pornography

EBSCO, and the Colorado Library Consortium, have been sued by parents seeking to remove EBSCO research databases from Colorado schoolrooms, based on spurious claims that the databases access “pornography.” The problem here isn’t pornography in library databases. The problem is a group of people who believe their prudery should be public policy.

October 12, 2018October 24, 2018 Jamie LaRue Censorship, General Interest
Banning Books Silences Stories

Conflicting Visions?

“Often the most challenged books are the stories that need to be heard the most,” muses the bannedbooksweek.org website. Here are reflections from Rev. Emily Gage on banned books week, the silencing of stories and why what we share and how we listen matters. 

October 1, 2018October 1, 2018 Jamie LaRue Banned Books Week

Posts navigation

Older posts
Social Media
  • View ALAOIF’s profile on Facebook
  • View oif’s profile on Twitter
  • View BannedBooksWeek’s profile on Pinterest
  • View BannedBooksWeek’s profile on YouTube
At the ALA Store
Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access
Popular Links
  • ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF)
  • Report Censorship
  • Banned Books Week
  • Intellectual Freedom News
Subscribe to the Blog
Stay updated on intellectual freedom issues by subscribing to receive an email when a new post is published on the Intellectual Freedom Blog.


 

Tweet #intellectualfreedom
Tweets by @OIF

Participation on this site is regulated by ALA’s Online Code of Conduct, available at https://www.ala.org/online-code-of-conduct.

The Intellectual Freedom Blog’s purpose is to educate and encourage discussions about intellectual freedom principles and promote the value of libraries, librarians, and professional membership in the American Library Association (ALA). The blog is managed and edited by staff of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) to raise awareness of time-sensitive news, issues in the field, upcoming events, helpful resources, and the work of members.

Our writers represent a broad range of types of libraries, backgrounds, viewpoints and passions. Publication by the Intellectual Freedom Blog does not constitute an endorsement of the content or represent the official position of OIF or ALA. Content will align with ALA policy or will be clearly stated otherwise. All writers are required to consent to the policy and purpose of the Intellectual Freedom Blog.

Lively commentary and reactions to posts are welcome but are moderated by OIF staff. Comments should be relevant to the specific post to which they refer. OIF reserves the right to remove, or not to publish, comments unrelated to the topic of the post or purpose of the blog. Spam, flaming, personal attacks, and off-topic comments are not permitted.

Archives

American Library Association

225 Michigan Ave, Chicago IL 60601
www.ala.org 1-800-545-2433

Copyright Statement | Privacy Policy

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: NewsAnchor by aThemes.