Library and Academic Institution Movements & the Law

"This book provides advice and support to help library employees best deal with sexually harassing patrons, unruly groups of students, gang members, thieves, Internet hogs, and others who can disrupt the safe library environment"--

A library in rural Southeast Washington could be the first in the nation to close over a fight about removing books. The debate revolves around a group of books in the library’s kids and young adult sections that some residents say aren’t age-appropriate. Seattle Times reporter David Gutman is here to explain how things got to this point, with some help from life-long Dayton resident John Hutchens.

Is the output of generative AI entitled to First Amendment protection? We’re inclined to say yes. Even though current AI programs are of course not people and d

The American Bar Association may soon require law schools to adopt free speech policies, a change that follows several high-profile campus incidents in which students disrupted controversial speakers.

If supporters won't show up to that Tuesday night meeting, the censors win.

From the Des Moines Register: The small farming community of Alta in northwest Iowa barely has 2,000 residents. The elementary school that shares its name has fewer than 300 students. Neither is big enough to have a quality library on its own. So for the last 20 years, the two have operated a library together, […]

No longer are just books under fire, but also the library administrators, teachers and long-beloved librarians who are defending them.

Although much of my work involves navigating digital information, I try not to forget that libraries are also physical spaces. Indeed, my lifelong love of libraries as places and structures is a bi…

Guest Post by Mari Cheney, Associate Director of Research and InstructionBoley Law Library, Lewis & Clark Law School I had the immense honor of attending this year’s annual meeting in Boston us…

In a new report,  Booklash: Literary Freedom, Online Outrage, and the Language of Harm, PEN America warns that social media blowback and societal outrage are imposing new moral litmus tests on books and authors, chilling literary expression and fueling a dangerous trend of self-censorship that is shrinking writers' creative freedom and imagination.

This personal narrative explores the tensions between libraries and academia as sites that reinforce colonialism, and what is required of vulnerable and minoritized populations in order to secure livelihood in the profession of librarianship. This paper explores the culture of diversity initiatives through the framework of conditional hospitality, and attempts to reconcile indigenous participation in libraries and academia as colonial power structures through historical trauma theory. Barriers to inclusion for indigenous peoples are also explored, including examination of how indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing are included within the LIS curriculum. This chapter is included in The Politics of Theory and the Practice of Critical Librarianship, edited by Karen P. Nicholson and Maura Seale, and published by Library Juice Press in March 2018.

Discussion Dens are consistently among my favorite programs at the AALL Annual Meeting, and Leslie Street’s Book Bans, Academic Freedom, and the Academic Law Library discussion was truly a highligh…

The campaign encourages people to get involved in efforts to protect libraries from book bans, and tools to help them do that. It comes as public libraries in Michigan and across the country are facing growing organized efforts to ban books some people object to, especially books that deal with themes like racism, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

"Neurodiversity in the Workplace presents a timely and needed perspective on the role and responsibility of employers, and those working to increase the effectiveness of workplace practices, to examine the many ways we preclude large segments of the population from employment and how we can create opportunities for building a truly inclusive work environment"--

"LIS educators and students, library directors, managers, frontline employees, and those who work behind the scenes all share how they are taking action and creating change. Thoughtfully addressing DEI issues related to policies, services, and programs, this collection's diverse chorus of voices will both enlighten and inspire. Cultural humility offers a renewing and transformative framework for navigating interpersonal interactions in libraries, whether between patrons and staff or staff members with one another. It foregrounds a practice of critical self-reflection and commitment to recognizing and redressing structural inequities and problematic power imbalances. This collection, the first book-length treatment of this approach in libraries, gathers contributors from across the field to demonstrate how cultural humility can change the way we work and make lasting impacts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in libraries." --;"This collection gathers contributors from across the field to demonstrate how cultural humility can change the way we work and make lasting impacts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in libraries"--

Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership makes explicit the ways in which a grounding in feminist theory and practice impacts the work of library administrators who identify as feminists. Recent scholarship by LIS researchers and practitioners on the intersections of gender with sexuality, race, class, and other social categories within libraries and other information environments have highlighted the need and desire of this community to engage with these concepts both in theory and praxis. Feminists Among Us adds to this conversation by focusing on a subset of feminist LIS professionals and researchers in leadership roles who engage critically with both management work and librarianship. By collecting these often implicit professional acts, interactions, and dynamics and naming them as explicitly feminist, these accounts both document aspects of an existing community of practice as well as invite fellow feminists, advocates, and resisters to consider library leadership as a career path. -- from back cover.

Betsy Gomez moderated a panel of librarians in "Libraries and the Challenges They Face" post-pandemic in countering book bans.

A federal judge in Fayetteville on Saturday temporarily blocked enforcement of two provisions of Act 372, a new state law on library materials, days before the law was scheduled to take effect on Tuesday.

We go inside a Florida college battling Gov. Ron DeSantis.

"Explores the experiences of women of color in library and information science (LIS), using intersectionality as a framework"--

By Marlena Okechukwu (Follow us on LinkedIn) Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash Conferences are big business. In fact, globally, the Meetings industry generates trillions of dollars annually – …

"The library is a growing organism" S.R. Ranganathan (1931) Home | Introduction Why Do I Need a Policy?Every library — academic, public, and school (public, private, charter, independent, and international) — should have a comprehensive written policy that guides the selection, deselection or weeding, and reconsideration of library resources. The most valuable selection policy is current; it is reviewed and revised on a regular basis; and it is familiar to all members of a library’s staff. The policy should be approved by the library’s governing board or other policy-making body and disseminated widely for understanding by all stakeholders.

I wrote a letter thanking librarians across the country for everything they’re doing to protect our freedom to read.

On July 21, the Movement for Black Lives’ National Day of Action, a team of four public librarians with backgrounds in social justice launched a new initiative, Libraries4BlackLives (L4BL). Jessica Anne Bratt, branch manager at Grand Rapids Public Library, MI; Sarah Lawton, neighborhood library supervisor for Madison Public Library, WI; Amita Lonial, learning experiences manager at Skokie Public Library (SPL), IL; and Amy Sonnie, adult literacy and lifelong learning librarian at Oakland Public Library, CA, joined forces earlier in the summer to create a website that would bring together library-based advocates who want to support the ideals and activism behind the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

AI is being used in DEI efforts to enhance insight and implementation in employee lifecycle-related tasks, and to scale and support the work of DEI staff.

Two Los Angeles County supervisors will propose Tuesday that the county library system make its eBooks available to all California teens and residents.

It is a book all LIS educators and administrators need to read now. The editors and author contributors show us by direct action what critical librarianship is. At the heart of the book is an ethics of care and self-care, an ethics born out of critical stances positioned in examining our rich intersectionalities and inter-being as people of color and allies. Librarians With Spines is a call to action that asks us to reflect on our intentionality as information professionals. It challenges librarians to proudly uphold and carry forward our duty to serve our communities in our daily work.

Funding will expand ALA’s intellectual freedom initiatives amid record number of book challenges CHICAGO (June 22, 2023) — The American Library Association (ALA) will distribute $1 million to support and expand intellectual freedom initiatives as the nation grapples with rising censorship challenges and seeks a greater array of resources to protect the right to read. ALA will use the funds to provide a major boost for its current efforts to support its members, library workers and libraries everywhere, as well as the communities they serve.