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“Fundamental to life”: Library Workers, Advocates Share Predictions, Freedom to Read Experiences Ahead of National Library Week

“The right to make my own choice is fundamental to life, and intellectual freedom with the right to choose what to read is necessary to maintain what I believe is inherent to all of us,” says Salt Lake County librarian Wanda Mae Huffaker. In anticipation of National Library Week 2020 and the State of America’s Libraries report announcing the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2019, we share book challenge experiences, 2019 top challenged title predictions, and our passion for the freedom to read.

Scott Walker's Wisconsin continues to scrub its websites of climate change mentions. 2017. BoingBoing. By Corey Walker. Web. 30 Mar. 2017. . Image Cropped/Renamed CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Data Disagreement: Make it Disappear

On the EPA’s website of the Office of Science and Technology, the word ‘science’ has been removed from its mission statement. At the University Of California San Diego, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan, scientists are voicing their concerns about their ability to do their jobs threatened with draconian budget cuts at the Federal level, and the specter of vanishing data sets in Federal repositories. Neither has become a reality, but awareness and action are needed on both fronts.