Intellectual Freedom Committee Minutes 4

Intellectual Freedom Committee
Minutes
Annual Conference • April 7, 2005

Present: Becky Pruett, Shelley McCoy, Sandy Gillman, Marvin Rich, Beth Crabb, Jerilynn Williams, Sheila Ross Henderson.

Becky Pruett called the meeting to order.

Becky distributed the minutes from the IF Committee meeting at Annual Assembly. Beth Crabb moved to accept the Minutes, Shelley McCoy seconded the motion and the Minutes were accepted as read.

Unfinished Business

IFC Budget

Becky reported that she had requested $2,500 from Catherine Lee to provide enough funds for another speaker for the 2006 TLA Conference based on the amount of funds needed to bring speaker Joe Raiola to the 2005 TLA Conference. Catherine stated that she would review the request and discuss it with the Executive Board. Becky will submit the budget form to Catherine Lee by May 15th.

IF Goal Statements

All five goals focused on better communication about the role of the Intellectual Freedom Committee and how it can better educate and help librarians with censorship issues. The IF webpage has been revamped to provide greater information about the role and support provided by the IF Committee. The Committee had also used the TLC distribution list to advertise for IF nominees for the ProQuest Intellectual Award.

Two concerns re: the Goal statements were mentioned. Shelley McCoy commented that there was no nominees for the ProQuest Intellectual Freedom Award until Ann Harris nominated herself. Shelley suggested adding a note pointing out the Intellectual Freedom Award at the bottom of the Request for Reconsideration form.

Additionally, ProQuest only donated $500 to the award this year, instead of $1,000 as it had in the past. So the presentation was made at the Intellectual Freedom Program rather than at the closing luncheon. While no one was happy about the decrease in the monetary award, it was agreed that making the presentation at the Intellectual Freedom Program turned out well because of the large turnout of librarians.

Discussion about the decrease in funding continued and Marvin Rich questioned whether the ACLU might be approached to sponsor the award. Sandy Gillman suggested contacting Greenwood Press. Becky said she would talk to Pat Smith about the award, the amount, and a possible different sponsor.

Website Review

The IF webpage has been revamped to provide greater information about the role and support provided by the IF Committee. It was agreed that the webpage needs ongoing updating to continue to best serve librarians. The Committee members agreed to email Becky any suggestions for improvements or new items they felt needed to be added to the page.

Public Library Censorship/Book Challenge Survey

Becky will talk to Pat Smith about getting this off the ground.

New Business

TLA Program Ideas

The theme of the 2006 Conference is: Libraries: Igniting the Passion. Sandy Gillman talked about the new process being implemented by TLA for the program portion of the Conference. It has been agreed that there will be fewer programs and that the programs have to be of high quality. All program suggestions need to be submitted to TLA by June 17th and then the program will be advocated at Annual Assembly. Proposed sponsors will be notified if their program proposal has been accepted in July.

Also, as at the last TLA Conference, if a group contributes no funds for a guest speaker, it will not be considered a sponsor of that speaker.

IF Committee members suggested contacting the following people as possible speakers/contacts for the Intellectual Freedom Program at the TLA Conference:

Al Franken
Susan Shaw, Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
People for the American Way
Judith Krug, ALA
Reverend Barry Lynn, Head of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

Jeri also recommended that the speaker focus on handling organized groups.

Announcements

Executive Committee Liaison, Sheila Henderson, stated that proposals should be submitted by May 15th. She reminded people that they could sign up for the hotel for next year. Finally, she mentioned the New Officer meeting at 1:50 p.m. that afternoon.

Becky Pruett adjourned the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Becky Pruett, IFC Chair