Libraries, Access, and Intellectual Freedom - Softcover

Jones, Barbara M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 083890761X ISBN 13: 9780838907610

Publisher: ALA Editions, 1999

Synopsis

Intellectual freedom is one of the guarantees of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution...

...Thanks to their role as guardians of information, librarians are tasked with ensuring the benefits of intellectual freedom. The very differences in library patrons who come from varying backgrounds and with diverse tastes presents the dilemma: What one person considers enlightening and informative, another may consider immoral and offensive. Librarians are often caught in the middle.

How well librarians respond to censorship challenges will depend in large part on the planning and policy making that has gone on beforehand. Clear, precise library policies are the best approach to balancing conflicting interests.

Libraries, Access, and Intellectual Freedom is a comprehensive guide to the key intellectual freedom "hot buttons" and the legal issues involved. This unique book offers a practical approach to developing, promoting, and implementing intellectual freedom policies that work.

The success of intellectual freedom policies often hinges on how well librarians combine local community dynamics with national perspectives and legal and political realities. Librarian and intellectual freedom activist Barbara M. Jones explains the major intellectual freedom issues, including access to computer networks, requests from government agencies for circulation records, and the effects of federal, state, and local laws on policy making. She describes how to develop intellectual freedom policies that incorporate legal decisions and are clear and acceptable to users.

When used in conjunction with the Intellectual Freedom Manual, Fifth Edition, Libraries, Access, and Intellectual Freedom provides the necessary tools to promote and protect intellectual freedom in the library.

About this title

Reviews

A former chair of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee focuses on developing intellectual freedom policies. She discusses how libraries fit in the legal concept of the public forum, especially the limited public forum, then reviews intellectual freedom in the public forum. About half the book covers developing, preparing, and implementing intellectual freedom policies; and relevant policy statements from the ALA and other organizations are included. Edward Swanson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

If any librarians out there think our jobs are easy, they haven't had to come to grips with Internet access in their libraries. This book will help. It will also help everyone else who is grappling with intellectual freedom policies already in place. Jones, who has extensive American Library Association (ALA) experience with intellectual freedom issues as well as a Ph.D. focusing on U.S. legal history, has written a concise, practical manual covering areas of vital importance to librarians in a clear and readable style. She succinctly delineates core information on which library policy must be anchored: the legal backbone on which intellectual freedom principles in this country rest and the professional principles established by librarians via ALA. Among the issues Jones discusses are the right to privacy, sexually explicit materials, the Internet, and the effects of state and federal laws on library policymaking. Coupled with ALA's Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th ed. (Professional Media, LJ 6/1/96), this is a must buy for academic and public librarians who are developing and implementing policy.
-Dolores Maminski, Frederick Cty. P.L., MD
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: ALA Editions
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 083890761X
• ISBN 13: 9780838907610
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 266