Summer sun to fall leaves to cold winter mornings, July to December–having served five months as president of AASL, it is time to think back on challenges and celebrations and to reflect and share. Challenges: As I reflect, I am… Read More ›
intellectual freedom
Limitless Libraries: A Collaborative Partnership that Supports At-Risk Students
What is Limitless Libraries? At an AASL ESSA information session during the 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, Kent Oliver, director of the Nashville Public Library, spoke to attendees about an extraordinary partnership between the Nashville Public Library and Metro Nashville… Read More ›
Being Proactive About Censorship and Intellectual Freedom
Before I share the professional development for November, I want to write to you about some banned book information that I have been reading. For the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking about censorship and book challenges because… Read More ›
Filtering: The Critical Difference between “All” and “Most”
One of the nine common beliefs set forth in the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner is as follows: “Equitable access is a key component to education. All children deserve equitable access to books and reading, to information, and to… Read More ›
Step 1: Celebrate Banned Books Week
Each September, librarians, teachers, and students celebrate their right to read and fight censorship by observing Banned Books Week (BBW). For 2016, BBW will occur from September 25 to October 1. Using the tagline, “Stand up for your right to… Read More ›
Defending Looking for Alaska
It Was Bound to Happen I never thought it would happen to me. Sure, when I was in library school, we role-played talking down an angry parent during a book challenge, but living in the liberal icon of Austin, I… Read More ›
ALA in Orlando: Conference Kaleidoscope
Because of the mass shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando, my memories of ALA’s Annual Conference in Orlando will always be rainbow hued. Attendees wore rainbow ribbons and black arm bands provided by the Task Force on Equity,… Read More ›
School Library Research: AASL’s Hidden Gem
Recently I became re-acquainted with School Library Research (SLR), AASL’s open-access research journal available on the AASL website. I was looking for research about self-censorship and found that SLR contained many other articles within the broader realm of intellectual… Read More ›
Choose Privacy Week, May 1-7, Spotlights Minors’ Privacy
In 2009 the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom created Choose Privacy Week (CPW) as an annual observance to raise awareness of and provide education about the threats to individuals’ privacy. Traditionally observed the first week in May, for the first… Read More ›
American Libraries: The Library World at Your Fingertips
You are familiar with the KQ Blog and AASL’s Knowledge Quest, but here’s another option for you—American Libraries, the American Library Association’s (ALA) multi-faceted news source. Have you read about Chicago Public Schools’ Sara Sayigh and her students’ protest to… Read More ›