In today's developing view of education, a disquieting trend looms--the erosion of students' right to choose what they read. This erosion, fueled by an alarming surge in censorship attempts, casts a shadow over the very essence of intellectual exploration. Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented number of challenges aimed at restricting…

Stemming from an American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Chapters concern, the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Emerging Leaders team was charged with creating a guide for AASL to support school librarians in addressing challenges related to censorship and patron privacy issues, particularly with LGBTQ+ materials. "Defending…

The school library profession has gone through an evolution since its inception in the early 1900s. School librarians hold strong to unwavering core principles that remain true throughout time. Students today are tech-savvy consumers of information. With smartphones and tablets galore at their fingertips, they have access to all the knowledge of…

Every day in school libraries nationwide, students' privacy rights are under attack, but many principals, teachers, parents, and community members do not know much about these rights. Even though school librarians are among the strongest proponents of privacy, the subject is rarely discussed, probably because state and federal laws can be…

In this article, the author shares how she encountered unique challenges when parents complained about some books in the school library. Typically, parents' complaints focus on objectionable language, references to witchcraft, and mention of alcoholic beverages. To protect students' right to read a variety of books, the author contends that…

Winter 2007 marked an episode of high anxiety in the library science profession, when the latest Newbery winner, "The Higher Power of Lucky," triggered discussion about words and their suitability for young readers. It seems that the entire world now knows that the word "scrotum" appears on the first page of the book. School…

Identifies significant issues raised by cases involving censorship efforts in junior and senior high school libraries and examines manner in which they have been resolved by judicial opinion. Discussion covers academic freedom for library professionals, students' right of access to library holdings, and shelf-tenure concept for library materials.…

Through an examination of U.S. circuit, district, and Supreme Court school library censorship cases from 1972 to 1982 an attempt is made to discover whether school officials' actions and court officials' decisions show a reverence for the spirit of First Amendment freedom of expression guarantees. (MBR)