Saturday, February 21, 2009

More than just the freedom to read

With Freedom to Read Week upon us, we want to remind everyone that intellectual freedom and social responsibility go hand-in-hand. LIS professionals engage with a variety of issues in their personal and professional lives, and here are just some of the past and present topics related to intellectual freedom and social responsibility. These can be found in our society and beyond, and it is important that we be mindful of these issues as we celebrate this event.

Academic freedom
Alternative press, media and publishing
Book censorship and challenges
Burning books
Collection development and management
Community development and outreach
Confidentiality and privacy (eg. FOIPP, PIPEDA)
Copyright, copyleft, and fair use
Destruction or looting of libraries and cultural properties/artefacts
Democracy and citizenship
Diversity and cultural awareness
Environment and sustainability
Free speech in the workplace
GLBTQ, gender, and identity
Hate speech and revisionism
Homelessness and poverty
Human rights
Information access and dissemination
Intellectual freedom
Internet access
Internet filtering and monitoring
Labels and rating systems
Legislation regarding freedom to access information
Library funding (especially for public and school libraries)
Licensing of media and other technology
Literacy and reading
Media
Neutrality
Non-traditional materials and materials in other languages
Open access
Open source
Outsourcing and privatization
Public spaces/forums in libraries
RFID
Social networking
Social responsibility
Surveillance and mass registration
Technology and the digital divide
Unions

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