[aisle] Intellectual Freedom Resource Sharing

[Monica Caldicott]

Dear fellow #FReadom lovers,
With my fellow high school librarians Amy Wiggins and Melissa Aubin, I
wanted to share a positive outcome we had regarding our district's
procedures for the reconsideration of library materials
<https://www.d128.org/vhhs/students/student-services/library/library-media-center-materials-selection>
.
And, even more so, encourage you to ask for the same!

After attending several intellectual freedom sessions (including one
featuring Kristina Weber and ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom) at
#AISLEd22, we proposed several edits to our recently updated procedures and
forms.

Following attorney review, the district agreed to 3 important edits:

   - reconsideration forms will only be accepted from residents of our
   school district
   - reconsideration form repeatedly emphasizes that the person making the
   challenge has read/watched the work in its entirety; the required signature
   again confirms that the entirety of the work has been read
   - reconsideration forms WILL NOT be accepted if the "complaint would
   require the district to engage in unlawful discrimination based on (variety
   of social factors) ..."

This last point is huge:
>> if the person making the complaint targets books solely because they
contain queer or anti-racist content, we will not accept the complaint. To
do so would violate our district's own equity, diversity, and inclusion
policies.

I wish you all of the best as you stand up for your students' freedom to
read!
📚 Currently reading *We Are the Light
<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60321061-we-are-the-light>* by Matthew
Quick
🐦 Also reading* Where Have All the Birds Gone?
<https://search.follettsoftware.com/metasearch/rest/v2/go/5999/details/107388>
*by Rebecca E. Hirsch
🎧 Currently listening to *Solito
<https://search.follettsoftware.com/metasearch/rest/v2/go/5999/details/108444>
*by Javier Zamora
⭐ Member of 2024 Lincoln Award Selection Committee, helping to choose the
20 books nominated for the Illinois Teen Choice Award; here is the 2023 list
<https://www.d128.org/vhhs/students/student-services/library/2023-illinois-teen-choice-award>


On Thu, Feb 2, 2023 at 7:55 PM Intellectual Freedom AISLE via AISLE <
aisle at list.railslibraries.info> wrote:

> Hi there!
>
> I sit on a committee that includes librarians from AASL, ALSC (Association
> for Library Services for Children), and YALSA (Young Adult Library Service
> Association).
>
> This year’s AASL/ALSC/YALSA School/Public Library Cooperation Committee
> is charged with developing strategies for youth services libraries
> (that’s us!) to work together in the face of the current climate of book
> challenges as well as creating useful resources to support this work. As
> groups promoting censorship spread misinformation about both the materials
> in our libraries and (often) our intentions in offering them, it behooves
> us to unite in developing and sharing with our entire communities factual
> information on the policies and processes by which we develop our
> collections as well as how we handle requests for reconsideration of those
> materials.
>
> We’re working to create a toolkit that will include these resources, and
> we need your help. We’re hoping to compile Selection and Reconsideration
> Policies from all over the country, and any articles, handouts, talking
> points, or toolkits you’ve found to be helpful. We have two Google Forms
> set up to collect the resources:
>
> This one, for the selection and reconsideration policies:
> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSelOe27y6C-cQgHOdWrTPw9Zn-e8CDW81fEbLmw6gDH6hqNEw/viewform
>
> And this one, for all other resources:
> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfno7vbwsSj7Cgz5AGefV4Q1J7I00Qu3jf4xRfLFOif9lPnkw/viewform
>
> Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.
>
> And as always, if you need anything, or even just need to talk about
> intellectual freedom stuff, my door is always open!
>
> Kristina Weber
>
> Intellectual Freedom Chair, AISLE
> [image:
> 4bibi3MGXd0eY0SgxTIkEbbKHie7gttNHHzxQB4VCjsTetoaXD5jAk6KI6-CvdkzRR490Oz99Uh_oMH6bGj-GM4=w16383.png]
>
> Intellectual Freedom Resource Center
> <https://sites.google.com/aisled.org/intellectual-freedom/?pli=1>
> sites.google.com
> <https://sites.google.com/aisled.org/intellectual-freedom/?pli=1>
> <https://sites.google.com/aisled.org/intellectual-freedom/?pli=1>
>
> MAILMAN_MIMEDEFANG
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>
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