COMMMITTEE OFFICERS, Meetings, & Activities

We have experience and resources to help with your intellectual freedom challenges.

• INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM  ISSUES

• OTHER HELPFUL LINKS

• USEFUL FORMS & RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Request for Reconsideration Form

  • Sample Reconsideration Process Flow Chart (pdf)
    (used by Fort Bend ISD)

Purpose: To increase attention to intellectual freedom and social responsibility as an action-oriented association

Goal: To promote intellectual freedom  

Objectives:

1. Publicize the role of the Intellectual Freedom Committee to TLA members and to others outside the Association.

2. Educate members of the organization and support effort to combat censorship in all forms.

3. Develop and implement an action plan to share information in a timely manner about intellectual freedom issues in Texas and the United States through print media as well as through technological means.

4. Educate the public, elected officials, and leaders about issues related to intellectual freedom.

5. Publicize the ProQuest/SIRS Award for Intellectual Freedom

Intellectual Freedom Handbook, 5th Edition (1996)

The Texas Library Association holds that the freedom to read is a corollary of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. Freedom of choice in selecting materials is a necessary safeguard to the freedom to read, and shall be protected against extra-legal, irresponsible attempts by self-appointed censors to abridge it. The Association believes that citizens shall have the right of free inquiry and the equally important right of forming their own opinions, and that it is of the utmost importance to the continued existence of democracy that freedom of the press in all forms of public communication be defended and preserved. The Texas Library Association subscribes in full to the principles set forth in the LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS of the American Library Association, Freedom to Read Statement, and interpretative statements adopted thereto. 

(Preamble, TLA Intellectual Freedom Statement)  

Intellectual Freedom Issues

USA Patriot Act

• http://www.fincen.gov/pa_main.html

• http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/usapatriotact.htm

Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

• http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html

• http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslissues/cipaandschoollib/cipaschoollibraries.htm

Banned Books

• American Civil Liberties Union of Texas

• Banned Books Online: Special exhibit of books that have been the objects of censorship

• Banned Book Week  (American Library Association)

• Censored Children's Books (California State Univ., Long Beach)

• Most Frequently Banned Books in the 1990s (Banned in the USA)

• X-Rated Children's Book Newsletter

Last Modified: 01 August 2006 • Copyright © 2004 by the Texas Library Association