{"id":1809,"date":"2014-11-20T14:46:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T14:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archives.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2021-01-27T19:14:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T19:14:11","slug":"freedom-to-read-foundation-45-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/2014\/11\/20\/freedom-to-read-foundation-45-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom to Read Foundation: 45 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Patriotic<\/a>
Patriotic library poster, c. 1990<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the ALA founding the Freedom to Read Foundation<\/a>, a non-profit organization that defends the First Amendment as it relates to libraries, books, the Internet, and library users. An off-shoot of the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (itself founded only two years prior), the Freedom to Read Foundation focuses its efforts primarily on defending librarians, book publishers, teachers, and other people who are in court due to controversial material, while the Office of Intellectual Freedom focuses on outreach, advocacy, and raising awareness of First Amendment issues.<\/p>\n

The Freedom to Read Foundation’s first president was Alexander P. Allain, an attorney, and considered one of the 100 greatest library leaders<\/a>. In the first newsletter<\/a>\u00a0put out by the Freedom to Read Foundation he outlined the Foundation’s goals:<\/p>\n

For many years librarians have looked to the Library\u00a0Bill of Rights for guidelines insuring intellectual freedom\u00a0in materials selection.\u00a0[…]\u00a0It is, however, only\u00a0a statement of principle. It has no standing in law. No\u00a0“rights” accrue from it, even though it constitutes the\u00a0library profession’s interpretation of the First Amendment\u00a0of the U. S. Constitution. The Freedom to Read\u00a0Foundation believes the profession must now attempt\u00a0to establish legal precedents, through case law, to make\u00a0the Library Bill of Rights not only a statement of principle,\u00a0but a principle grounded in law and protected\u00a0and supported by the nation’s judiciary system. Only\u00a0when this gain is made can librarians and library governing\u00a0bodies face pressures to remove materials or to restrict\u00a0selection, not only with “right” on their side, but\u00a0with the law as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Libraries:<\/a>
Libraries: An American Value, 1999<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While today the Library Bill of Rights<\/a>\u00a0remains a guiding\u00a0document for the library profession and not a legal one, in the past 45 years the Freedom to Read Foundation has helped set legal precedent and challenged legislation, such as the Communications Decency Act, the Children’s Online Protection Act, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, as well as many state-level obscenity laws.<\/p>\n

The ALA Archives houses the papers of the Freedom to Read Foundation, including the files of the cases they have worked on.\u00a0The Archives has digitized the Foundation’s newsletters from 1971-1989, which are available to read online<\/a>.\u00a0The Freedom to Read Foundation website also has a timeline of major court cases they have worked on<\/a>.<\/a>\u00a0The Foundation’s most recent legal defense work is with Antigone Books v. Horne.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the ALA founding the Freedom to Read Foundation, a non-profit organization that defends the First Amendment as it relates to libraries, books, the Internet, and library users. An off-shoot of the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (itself founded only two years prior), the Freedom to Read Foundation focuses its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":573,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[69,126,169],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-history","tag-censorship","tag-legislation","tag-office-of-intellectual-freedom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/573"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7207,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions\/7207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ala\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}