ALA Fund helps librarians facing threats, challenges and wrongful termination.

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Deborah Caldwell-Stone, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom’s Director says “We’re seeing an unprecedented volume of challenges . . . In my twenty years with ALA, I can’t recall a time when we had multiple challenges coming in on a daily basis.” For those librarians across the country who are faced with these challenges and threats, financial support can be found …

The Constitution prohibits public bodies, such as libraries, from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint or censoring materials based on their message. Libraries uphold these Constitutional principles by enabling readers to choose materials representing a variety of ideas, opinions and views. ALA is alarmed by the increasing trend of censorship campaigns directed at libraries around the country. These proposals would strip readers of their freedom to choose and could make it impossible for libraries and librarians to fulfill their legal and professional responsibilities.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director, Office of Intellectual Freedom of ALA in a letter to The Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform

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Libraries cannot remain neutral about hate, oppression, censorship.

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In the current climate of well-funded campaigns to control what children read, Melanie Huggins, president of the Public Library Association (a division of the American Library Association), is speaking out in Public Libraries Journal Jan/Feb 2022. She shares that in the past, the diversity of a collection served as a library’s primary (and mostly quiet) act of resistance against hate, …

American Library Association

Libraries manifest the promises of the First Amendment by making available the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas, so that every person has the opportunity to freely read and consider information and ideas, regardless of their content or the viewpoint of the author. This requires the professional expertise of librarians who work in partnership with their communities to curate collections that serve the information needs of all their users. We stand opposed to censorship and any effort to coerce belief, suppress opinion, or punish those whose expression does not conform to what is deemed orthodox in history, politics, or belief. The unfettered exchange of ideas is essential to the preservation of a free and democratic society.

American Library Association, press release November 29, 2021

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