Those facing censorship challenges can find support and inspiration in this book, which compiles dozens of stories from library front lines.

Those facing censorship challenges can find support and inspiration in this book, which compiles dozens of stories from library front lines.

A lively and controversial overview by the nation's most celebrated First Amendment lawyer of the unique protections for freedom of speech in America The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the US Constitution--the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, examines the degree to which American law protects free speech more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is the case anywhere else in the world, including democratic nations such as Canada and England. In this lively, powerful, and provocative work, the author addresses legal issues from the adoption of the Bill of Rights through recent cases such as Citizens United. He also examines the repeated conflicts between claims of free speech and those of national security occasioned by the publication of classified material such as was contained in the Pentagon Papers and was made public by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.

These stories provide a rich platform for debate and introspection by sharing real-world examples that library staff, administrators, board members, and students can consider and discuss.

"An insightful and humorous look into the complex issues of censorship, Jamie LaRue's book is at times intellectually and emotionally challenging—like all of the best books should be." —R. Alan Brooks, Comics Creator and Professor, Professor of Graphic Narrative, Regis University In America today, more books are being banned than ever before. This censorship is part of a larger assault on such American institutions as schools, public libraries, and universities. In On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US, respected long-time public librarian James LaRue issues a balanced and reasonable call to action for all citizens. LaRue, who served as director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, highlights the dangers of book banning and censorship in our public and educational spaces. Synthesizing his more than twenty-five years of experience on the front lines of these issues, he takes the reader through attempts he encountered to remove or restrict access to ideas, while placing the debate in the greater context about the role of libraries and free expression in a democratic society. LaRue covers topics such as: The role of the library in American culture and community The consequences of cancel culture Seven things citizens can do to quell book banning and censorship attempts By examining past efforts at censorship and their dangerous impacts, LaRue asks the reader to reflect on how those times are not so different from today. This book is essential reading for all those who believe in free expression, who support libraries, and who cherish the central freedoms that American democracy represents.

The first comprehensive history of American public school librarianship. "Can I get a library pass?" Over the past 120 years, millions of American K–12 public school students have asked that question. Still, we know little about the history of public school libraries, which over the decades were pulled together and managed by hundreds of thousands of school librarians. In American Public School Librarianship, Wayne A. Wiegand recounts the unseen history of both school libraries and their librarians. Why, Wiegand asks, did school librarianship turn out the way it did? And what can its history tell us about limitations and opportunities in the coming decades of the twenty-first century? Addressing issues of race, social class, gender, and sexual orientation (among others) as they affected American public school librarianship throughout its history, Wiegand explores how libraries were transformed by the Great Depression, the civil rights era, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, and more recent legislation like No Child Left Behind, Common Core, and the Every Student Succeeds Act. Wiegand touches on censorship, the impact of school segregation on school libraries, disparities in funding that fall along lines of race and class, the development of school librarianship as a profession, the history of organizations like the American Association for School Librarians, and how emerging technologies affected school librarianship. Wiegand clarifies the historical role of the school librarian as an opponent of censorship and defender of intellectual freedom. He also analyzes the politics of a female-dominated school library profession, identifies and evaluates the profession's major players and their battles (often against patriarchy), and challenges the priorities of librarianship's current agendas, particularly regarding the role of "reading" in the everyday lives of children and young adults. Filling a huge void in the history of education, American Public School Librarianship provides essential background information to members of the nation's school library and educational communities who are charged with supervising and managing America's 80,000 public school libraries.

A fascinating and informative read for librarians, library staff, and MLIS students, this book offers practical information and professional guidelines to examine current issues in censorship and libraries while also enabling readers to consider their own opinions about intellectual freedom. This book addresses contemporary issues in censorship and intellectual freedom and can serve as an invaluable resource for librarians and other library staff and as an eye-opening read for MLIS students. It covers the waterfront of intricate and thorny issues regarding intellectual freedom, including determining strategies for patron privacy, deciding how to filter public computers, handling challenges to items in a collection, and recognizing and eliminating under-the-radar self-censorship during collection development and weeding. Readers will also gain an understanding of the perils of over-reliance on community assessments and other evaluative tools and consider important concerns of public library employees, such as whether to restrict borrowing privileges of R-rated movies and M-rated video games to patrons of various ages, and the legalities that surround these questions. Each chapter blends instructive background narrative with practical advice, research findings, and relevant information about librarianship's professional guidelines, including the ALA's Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement. Vignettes, "what would you do?" examples, effective nonconfrontational techniques for conflict resolution, and lists of tips and traps help readers to think critically about their own biases and rehearse possible responses to controversial situations. Librarians, library staff, and MLIS students can use this book for personal professional development, as supplemental reading for MLIS courses or professional training workshops, or as a resource for library policy-planning discussions.

There are few places an LGBTQ teen can turn for help – searching the internet at home leaves a potentially discoverable trail, teachers may condemn youth who seek their help, and certainly, in many cases, a teen’s parents are not an option. While there have been advancements in acceptance of the LGBTQ population, there is still a firm stronghold on discrimination and teens still face the fear of potential alienation. This leaves one of the only safe places for a teen to find information and, and indeed, find themselves in the context of the world – at the library. Serving LGBTQ Teens offers the librarian a practical guide to library service to LGBTQ teens – from collection development, understanding terminology, dealing with censorship issues, programming and outreach, readers’ advisory, and even to creating welcoming displays, librarians will find the tools they need to offer exceptional services for LGBTQ teens.

Intellectual freedom is a complex concept that democracies and free societies around the world define in different ways but always strive to uphold. And ALA has long recognized the crucial role that libraries play in protecting this right. But what does it mean in practice? How do library workers handle the ethical conundrums that often accompany the commitment to defending it? Rather than merely laying out abstract policies and best practices, this important new collection gathers real-world stories of intellectual freedom in action to illuminate the difficulties, triumphs, and occasional setbacks of advocating for free and equal access to information for all people in a shifting landscape. Offering insight to LIS students and current practitioners on how we can advance the profession of librarianship while fighting censorship and other challenges, these personal narratives explore such formidable situations as presenting drag queen story times in rural America; a Black Lives Matter “die-in” at the undergraduate library of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; combating censorship at a prison library; hosting a moderated talk about threats to modern democracy that included a neo-Nazi spokesman; a provocative exhibition that triggered intimidating phone calls, emails, and a threat to burn down an art library; calls to eliminate non-Indigenous children’s literature from the collection of a tribal college library; and preserving patrons’ right to privacy in the face of an FBI subpoena.

Requests for the removal, relocation, and restriction of books—also known as challenges—occur with some frequency in the United States. Book Banning in 21st-Century American Libraries, based on thirteen contemporary book challenge cases in schools and public libraries across the United States argues that understanding contemporary reading practices, especially interpretive strategies, is vital to understanding why people attempt to censor books in schools and public libraries. Previous research on censorship tends to focus on legal frameworks centered on Supreme Court cases, historical case studies, and bibliographies of texts that are targeted for removal or relocation and is often concerned with how censorship occurs. The current project, on the other hand, is focused on the why of censorship and posits that many censorship behaviors and practices, such as challenging books, are intimately tied to the how one understands the practice of reading and its effects on character development and behavior. It discusses reading as a social practice that has changed over time and encompasses different physical modalities and interpretive strategies. In order to understand why people challenge books, it presents a model of how the practice of reading is understood by challengers including “what it means” to read a text, and especially how one constructs the idea of “appropriate” reading materials. The book is based on three different kinds sources. The first consists of documents including requests for reconsideration and letters, obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests to governing bodies, produced in the course of challenge cases. Recordings of book challenge public hearings constitute the second source of data. Finally, the third source of data is interviews with challengers themselves. The book offers a model of the reading practices of challengers. It demonstrates that challengers are particularly influenced by what might be called a literal “common sense” orientation to text wherein there is little room for polysemic interpretation (multiple meanings for text). That is, the meaning of texts is always clear and there is only one avenue for interpretation. This common sense interpretive strategy is coupled with what Cathy Davidson calls “undisciplined imagination” wherein the reader is unable to maintain distance between the events in a text and his or her own response. These reading practices broaden our understanding of why people attempt to censor books in public institutions.