Welcome to Fall 2024! Theme: Book Bans and the Landscape of Intellectual Freedom and Open Access.
Happy start to the fall semester to all new and returning iSchool students! This is Sabrina, your blogging team leader of ALASC. ALASC is glad to welcome you to another semester, and we present our fall theme, “Book Bans and the Landscape of Intellectual Freedom and Open Access”.
What are book bans and how do they affect us as information professionals?
SJSU defines book bans as “Banned Books are books that have been banned or challenged because of their content. The books that have been banned have been completely removed from a library or have been challenged in an attempt to have them removed from a library, based on the objections of a person or a group.”
How does Open Access tie into book bans?
Open Access champions the concept of a cost-free exchange of information, making scholarly publications available without expensive publishing fees. This concept challenges typical publishing models and encourages the free exchange of information not bound by subscriptions and publishing fees. Both book bans and Open Access tie into intellectual freedom, which ALA describes as “Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.”
For more information on Open Access consider taking INFO 281, Seminar in Contemporary Issues – Open Access.
Here are some resources to learn more about book bans and Open Access…
https://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/oif
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom
https://libguides.sjsu.edu/SJSU_ScholarWorks
We look forward to exploring these themes in our future blog posts and events, be sure to follow us so you don’t miss anything! We hope to see you at one of our events this semester!
