Intellectual Freedom Issues in School Libraries

231 Pages·2020·4.447 MB·English

by  April Dawkins (editor)

Intellectual Freedom Issues
in School Libraries
This page intentionally left blank
INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM ISSUES
IN SCHOOL LIBRARIES
April M. Dawkins, Editor
Copyright © 2021 by ABC- CLIO, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechan-
ical, photocopying, recording, or other wise, except for the inclusion of brief quota-
tions in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Dawkins, April M., editor.
Title: Intellectual freedom issues in school libraries / April M. Dawkins, editor.
Description: Santa Barbara, California : Libraries Unlimited, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020014984 (print) | LCCN 2020014985 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781440872365 (paperback) | ISBN 9781440872372 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: School libraries—C ensorship— United States. |
School libraries— United States— Administration. | Intellectual freedom—
United States. | Freedom of information—U nited States.
Classification: LCC Z675.S3 I447 2020 (print) | LCC Z675.S3 (ebook) |
DDC 025.1/9780973— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014984
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014985
ISBN: 978-1-4408-7236-5 (paperback)
978-1-4408-7237-2 (ebook)
25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5
This book is also available as an eBook.
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The information provided in this book does not, and is not intended to, constitute
legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials are for general infor-
mational purposes only. Readers of this book should contact their attorney to
obtain advice with re spect to any par tic u lar legal matter. Only your individual
attorney can provide assurances that the information contained herein—a nd your
interpretation of it—is applicable or appropriate to your part ic u lar situation.
Contents
Introduction ............................................... ix
PART I: INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IN SCHOOL LIBRARIES
1— What Is Intellectual Freedom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Helen R. Adams
2— Intellectual Freedom 101: Core Princi ples for
School Librarians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Helen R. Adams
3— The Choices That Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Christine Eldred
4— Fewer School Librarians: The Effect on Students’
Intellectual Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Helen R. Adams
PART II: INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM ADVOCACY AND
THE RIGHT TO READ
5— Intellectual Freedom Leadership: Standing Up for
Your Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Helen R. Adams
6— Advocating for Intellectual Freedom with Principals
and Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Helen R. Adams
7— Understanding Advocacy for Effective Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Elizabeth Burns
8— The Intellectual Freedom Calendar: Another Advocacy Plan
for the School Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Helen R. Adams
v
vi Contents
9— Banned Books and Celebrating Our Freedom to Read . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chad Heck
10—R eaching Out to Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Helen R. Adams
11—L ibrary Books and Reading- Level Labels: Unfettered,
Guided, or Constrained Choice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Maria Cahill
12—C omputerized Reading Programs: Intellectual Freedom . . . . . . . . 41
Helen R. Adams
13— Protecting Students’ Rights and Keeping Your Job . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Helen R. Adams
PART III: POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
14—C oping with Mandated Restrictions on Intellectual
Freedom in K–12 Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Sara E. Wolf
15— The Materials Se lection Policy: Defense against Censorship . . . . 53
Helen R. Adams
16—T en Steps to Creating a Se lection Policy That Matters . . . . . . . . . 55
April M. Dawkins
17—T en Steps to Creating Reconsideration Policies and
Procedures That Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
April M. Dawkins
18—C ollection Development Policies in Juvenile Detention
Center Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Kristin Zeluff
19—T he “Overdue” Blues: A Dilemma for School Librarians . . . . . . . . 66
Helen R. Adams
20—U nrestricted Checkout: The Time Has Come . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Kathryn K. Brown
21— Policy Challenge: Consequences That Restrict Borrowing . . . . . . 73
Judi Moreillon
22— Policy Challenge: Leveling the Library Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Judi Moreillon
23—P olicy Challenge: Closed for Conducting Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Judi Moreillon
PART IV: HANDLING CHALLENGES
24— Managing Challenges to Library Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Dee Ann Venuto
25— The Prob lem of Self- Censorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Rebecca Hill
26—E x Post Facto Self- Censorship: When School Librarians
Choose to Censor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
April M. Dawkins
Contents vii
27—C hallenging Opportunities: Dealing with Book Challenges . . . . . . 97
Sabrina Carnesi
28—T he Challenges of Challenges: Understanding and
Being Prepared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Gail K. Dickinson
29—T he Challenges of Challenges: What to Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Gail K. Dickinson
30—C an a School Library Be Challenge- Proof? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Helen R. Adams
PART V: FILTERING, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
31— Leadership: Filtering and Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Judi Moreillon
32—I nternet Filtering: Are We Making Any Prog ress? . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Helen R. Adams
33—E quitable Access, the Digital Divide, and the
Participation Gap! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Patricia Franklin and Claire Gatrell Stephens
34—B ring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Equitable Access
to Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Helen R. Adams
35— Baby Steps: Preparing for a One- to- One Device Program . . . . . . 125
Monica Cabarcas
PART VI: STUDENT PRIVACY IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY
36— Privacy: Legal Protections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Helen R. Adams
37—P ractical Ideas: Protecting Students’ Privacy in Your
School Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Helen R. Adams
38—P rotecting Your Students’ Privacy: Resources for
School Librarians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Helen R. Adams
39— How Circulation Systems May Impact Student Privacy . . . . . . . 142
Helen R. Adams
40— Retaining School Library Rec ords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Helen R. Adams
41—T he Age of the Patron and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Helen R. Adams
42—T he Troubled Student and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Helen R. Adams
43—C onfidentiality and Creating a Safe Information
Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Chad Heck
viii Contents
44—P rivacy Solutions for Cloud Computing: What Does
It Mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Annalisa Keuler
PART VII: ACCESS, EQUITY, AND DIVERSITY
45—L ibrary Access on a Fixed Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Ernie Cox
46—U sing Assistive Technology to Meet Diverse Learner Needs . . . . 160
Stephanie Kurtts, Nicole Dobbins, and Natsuko Takemae
47— Online Accessibility Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Heather Moorefield- Lang
48—G oogle Accessibility for Your Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Heather Moorefield- Lang
49— Deaf ≠ Silenced: Serving the Needs of the Deaf/
Hard- of- Hearing Students in School Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Kimberly Gangwish
50— Serving Homeless Children in the School Library . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Helen R. Adams
51—L it er a ture as Mirrors, Wind ows, and Sliding Glass Doors . . . . . . 177
Lucy Santos Green and Michelle Maniaci Folk
52—C ollection Development for Readers: Providing Wind ows
and Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Mary Frances Zilonis and Chris Swerling
53—B uilding School Library Collections with Wind ows
and Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Mary Frances Zilonis and Chris Swerling
54—M oving Diverse Books from Your Library Shelves and into
the Hands of Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Mary Frances Zilonis and Chris Swerling
55—S erving Rainbow Families in School Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Jamie Campbell Naidoo
56—W hose History Is It?: Diversity in Historical Fiction for
Young Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
April M. Dawkins
57— Progressive Collection Development = A Foundation for
Differentiated Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Judi Moreillon
Annotated Bibliography .....................................199
Sources .................................................203
About the Editor and Contributors .............................207
Index ...................................................211
Introduction
Intellectual freedom is a basic tenet of the library profession. However, as school
librarians, we are often challenged to defend the rights of our students, sometimes
even defending t hose rights with other adults in our own school buildings. My first
true experience with censorship actually occurred early in my career as a high
school librarian. I had just completed a display of new arrivals in the library when
a member of the faculty wandered in during his planning period. I excitedly encour-
aged him to explore all of the new books that had just been added to the collection.
After several minutes of perusing the new books, he brought one of them to me with
the question, “Why on earth would you include this book in the library?” I was
taken aback. I was totally unprepared for the question. The book was Boy Meets
Boy by David Levithan. Luckily, I recovered quickly and was able to have a conver-
sation with this teacher about why teena gers should have access to books that
might not reflect his own personal beliefs. While he did not leave that day in agree-
ment with me, I believe that our conversation was a pivotal moment in my own
belief in the importance of protecting the rights of students to read.
When hearing the phrase “intellectual freedom,” many often equate the phrase
only with censorship and the banning of books. However, intellectual freedom has
a much broader application in the school library world. The rights associated with
intellectual freedom include not only the right to read, but also the right to f ree and
equitable access to technology, the right to privacy in intellectual and personal pur-
suits, the right to access diverse content that reflects not just our own identities
but provides insights into those dif fer ent from ourselves. As school librarians, we
are called upon to remove as many barriers to access to information as we possi-
bly can.
As the editor of this book, I have selected articles from School Library Connection,
and its pre de ces sors, School Library Monthly and Library Media Connection, which
highlight intellectual freedom issues that are faced by school librarians as they
seek to protect the rights of students and guarantee them equal and f ree access to
information. Each of the seven parts of this book addresses a dif fer ent aspect of
the intellectual freedom issues that arise in school libraries. While the book can be
read from beginning to end, I hope that you w ill be able to pull information from
the book as you find it useful in defending the intellectual freedom rights of your
ix