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.

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.

We can all be heroes. That's the inspiring message of this New York Times Bestselling picture book biography series from historian and author Brad Meltzer. Even as a child, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shocked by the terrible and unfair way African-American people were treated. When he grew up, he decided to do something about it--peacefully, with powerful words. He helped gather people together for nonviolent protests and marches, and he always spoke up about loving other human beings and doing what's right. He spoke about the dream of a kinder future, and bravely led the way toward racial equality in America. This lively, New York Times Bestselling biography series inspires kids to dream big, one great role model at a time. You'll want to collect each book.

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.

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.

In this sweeping revision of a text that has become an authoritative standard, expert instructor and librarian Peggy Johnson addresses the art of controlling and updating library collections, whether located locally or accessed remotely.