Tag: intellectual freedom
St. Marys City Renews Library Lease
After months of debate, public protest, and letters of support from the Kansas Library Association, OIF, and ACLU of Kansas, the St. Marys City Commission voted to renew the lease for Pottawatomie Wabaunsee Regional Library for another year.
The Iranian Protests Are a Reminder of the Need for Praise of Salman Rushdie
We in libraries can do nothing to ameliorate Mr. Rushdie’s physical pain. We can and should, however, proudly display and recommend his works. To support Mr. Rushdie and to celebrate his works is not to attack a religion. It is only to excoriate, as we should, the mindless and soulless adherence to the wrong-headed, hateful, and evil interpretation of a religion promulgated by mere–and mistaken–men.
Banned Book Week Ideas for Rural Libraries
While book banning is a growing trend nationwide, the majority of successful book bans happening right now seem to be occurring in rural areas (both fringe and remote rural) as well as some suburban areas. The initiatives and toolkits presently available for all librarians are great, but they are created by urban LIS professionals and best-suited for urban and suburban audiences. The current rhetoric used in these one-size-fits-all toolkits may not be effective in rural areas.
What is a “Challenge”?
Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas. Keep reading for more intellectual freedom definitions from ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
Explore Intellectual Freedom in these #ALAAC21 Sessions!
The ALA Annual Conference offers numerous opportunities to explore and celebrate intellectual freedom. This post highlights fourteen intellectual freedom-themed conference sessions, including live panel discussions and on-demand sessions, the Intellectual Freedom Awards Celebration, and business meetings. As you plan your #ALAAC21 calendar, consider adding these sessions to your schedule!
An Invitation to Danger: Perspectives on Intellectual Freedom and Information War
The first task of information warfare is to recognize when you’re in one, because you might not be fighting the information war, but the information war is fighting you. This essay revisits the wartime writing of Archibald MacLeish, poet-warrior, playwright-propagandist, and Librarian of Congress from 1939 through 1944. It explores whether we’re experiencing an information war now, and how the library community can respond.
The FBI and Student Surveillance: A Sputnik for Our Time
A recent push by the FBI for US universities to monitor Chinese students is alarming – but this siren rings with a different tonality depending on your listening equipment. To Senator Mark Warner, it’s about national security. But to me, it sounds a whole lot like government-sanctioned censorship.
Academe, Heal Thyself: Reflections on the Free Speech Executive Order Discussion at ACRL
By: guest contributor Sarah Hartman-Caverly – The true threats to intellectual freedom on college and university campuses cannot be solved by outside intervention – most especially not by state intervention. In this post, Hartman-Caverly extends criticism of the recent Executive Order on free inquiry by challenging its emphasis on learner data tracking, and questions whether intellectual freedom can meaningfully exist without intellectual privacy.
The Public Library as a World Stage: An Analysis of Censorship
The common misconception that any library espouses the content of its collection and programming can lead to feelings of patron alienation. An imagining of the library as an equitable world stage can help to mitigate resulting acrimony directed at this institution.
Bill of Rights Day and Intellectual Freedom
Today, December 15, 2018, we celebrate the 227th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Bill of Rights Day on this day in 1941 to honor and observe the preservation of our individual rights.