Intellectual Freedom

I have been meaning to write about the recent death of Judith Krug. She was the director of the ALA office for intellectual Freedom since its founding in 1967. She died April 14, 2009, a great loss to the library community. Judith helped trustees and librarians when they were facing a challenge to materials placed in their library’s collection.

Intellectual Freedom is a core principle of the library field. It is probably the toughest one to up hold. Each year many books are challenged by parents or groups for a wide variety of reasons. They range from sex to witchcraft, violence to language and many, many more. Authors are often confused as to why a particular part of a book is being challenged? When I think of the loss of Ms Krug in juxtaposition with some of my recent readings on the topic of intellectual I had to write.

The first thing I read was the book by James LaRue, The New Inquisition : understanding and managing intellectual freedom challenges. Jamie, in his book, examines the reasons why books have been challenged at his library. He has found that they fall into specific categories of child development. Jamie also gives the librarian some samples of the letters he has written that explain to the parent why a book is being retained by the library. I feel this should be required reading by every librarian in a public or school library. (By the way RPLS has a copy in the professional collection.)

The second piece I read was an article from the February 2009 School Library Journal. (And yes I know I am behind in my reading of professional journals.) The title of this article by Debra Lau Whelan was “A Dirty Little Secret: Self-censorship is rampant and lethal”. The article speaks to the self-censoring that school and public librarians do when a book is controversial or has is about a topic or issue they are uncomfortable with. The librarians are reacting in fear and expectation of a challenge. Pat Scales, president of the Association of Library Services to Children sated in the article, “If you reject a book just because of its subject matter or if you think that it would cause you some problems, then that’s self-censorship. And that’s going against professional ethics.”

I encourage you to read and think about the issue of Intellectual Freedom.