Intellectual Freedom Stories from a Shifting Landscape

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; andpreserving patrons' right to privacy in the face of an FBI subpoena.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.

"The depth and breadth of case studies described in this book illustrate the many ways in which librarians must grapple with complex intellectual freedom challenges in all areas of their work. Even in the cases which may be more familiar to readers like book challenges, the case studies provide useful examples of policies and procedures to follow when encountering these intellectual freedom challenges ... [This is] an important book for current times as threats to intellectual freedom continue to be a concern for all in librarianship and in the wider world. " -- Against the Grain, "These stories provide lived examples from banned book challenges to drag queen story time to a Black Lives Matter die-in and much more. They will spur librarians to reflect on the programs they have organized and give them ideas for future programming and responding to community backlash ... The conclusion asks readers to share their stories around intellectual freedom and librarianship as an ongoing project. Now more than ever, librarians should use their libraries to mobilize change, and they must continue to listen to and learn from one another." -- CHOICE

Valerie Nye is the library manager at Santa Fe University of Art and Design's Fogelson Library. She previously worked as a library consultant at the New Mexico State Library, where she started researching and training others on intellectual freedom and banned books. Nye earned her MLIS from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has coauthored two guide books with Kathy Barco, and one literary research guide with R. Neil Scott, Postmarked Milledgeville: A Guide to Flannery O'Connor's Correspondence in Libraries and Archives. Nye is a trustee on the board of the New Mexico Library Foundation.