ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom Condemns Government Agency Censorship

government censorship - protecting you from reality
Please read this post by ALA OIF’s Jamie LaRue about their condemnation of government sponsored censorship.

The American Library Association (ALA) has as one of its officially stated goals that it is the leading advocate for the public’s right to a free and open information society (Policy A.1.3). ALA opposes any use of governmental power to suppress the free and open exchange of knowledge and information (Policy B.8.5.1). Indeed, the principle of intellectual freedom – unfettered access to knowledge – is a core belief of our profession, as captured in the Library Bill of Rights.

VLA partners with the VSO

For this year’s Passport program we’ve partnered with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. They’ll be handing out special VSO-branded passports at their Summer Festival Tour and offering Book Bucks, a coupon good for five dollars off of one VSO-presented concert ticket through May of 2017. Details available via this flyer (click to download) which libraries are welcome to print out, hand out, or post.
coupon, follow link for PDF

New Tool: Report a Challenge to Library Resources

The Vermont Library Association is launching a form entitled Report A Challenge to Library Resources  (direct link) that will enable librarians from across the state to report material challenges at their library. The information gathered from this form will go directly to the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the VLA and may be shared with the following professional organizations: Vermont Department of Libraries, the Vermont School Library Association, and the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association.

Here are ALA’s statistics on banned and challenged books:  http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/statistics

Anyone who has any questions or concerns about this form should contact Vermont Library Association President at president@vermontlibraries.org or Mary Danko, Chair of the Vermont Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee at mdanko@burlingtonvt.gov
The Vermont Library Association (VLA) is an educational organization working to develop, promote, and improve library and information services and librarianship in the state of Vermont

Passport to Vermont Libraries statewide winners!

  We have our statewide winners! Thank you to all who participated in this fun and exciting program. The Vermont Library Association hopes to sponsor this amazing program again next year. Stay tuned!And the winners are:

  • Adult- Emily Ahtunan, Kellogg Hubbard Library, Montpelier
  • YA- Ariana Cioffi, Springfield Town Library
  • Child- Torynce Hathaway, Castleton Free Library
  • Wild Card- Noah Jones, Whiting Library, Chester

The Passport to Vermont Libraries committee will be in touch with each of your librarians to arrange getting your prizes to you. Congratulations!

VLA thriving at VTComicCon

comic book reader's license
VLA had a presence at Vermont’s first ComicCon. We had a good time, made a good impression and helped sponsor one of their special guests. We tabled for two days. Our table had a few things
– Mr. McFeeley from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (aka David Newell) who did a story time with puppets and his book twice daily. He was a wonderfully gracious man and the kids loved him.
– A Banned Graphic Novels exhibit. We brought graphic novels from our own libraries and put them up on book stands along with a printout of why each graphic novel was banned or challenged.
– Handouts of good “If you liked…” suggestions for graphic novels to read. We have copies of them in PDF or Word format if anyone would like them for their libraries.
– Stickers! We used these as a model and printed out a bunch of them. Very popular.
– Minicomics! One of the publishers had a stack of these and let us use them as giveaways at the booth, also very popular.
– Our Comic Reader’s License (seen above). This was a frame like a driver’s license with a whiteboard area where people could write their names. It hung on a movie screen stand and we had a chair behind it. We took people’s photos, uploaded them (with permission) to the VLA Instagram account and then later edited them and put them on our facebook account in a VLA ComicCon album so people could tag and share them.
It was really fun seeing so many people all dressed up and having a good time celebrating reading (among other things) and we’re sure to do it again next year.

Cindy Weber to represent VLA at Career Development Facilitator Program

The Vermont Library Association Board is pleased to announce the selection of Cindy Weber, director of the Stowe Free Library, as Vermont’s representative to a Career Development Facilitator (CDF) training offered by the American Library Association and the National Career Development Association. Vermont is one of 22 states selected to participate based on an application outlining our plans for implementing the program statewide. Participants from each state will become certified Career Development Facilitators, with an emphasis on guiding other librarians in providing career and job-seeking help to their communities as well as assisting librarians with their own career development needs.
VLA and Cindy Weber will be working together to identify a cohort of librarians in the state to help share this material widely. The VLA Board is looking forward to being able to help our members serve this function in their communities more confidently and to contribute to the economic vitality of our local families and communities. The training includes such topics as development and maintenance of a career resource center, labor market information, career planning processes, basic helping and facilitation skills, informal and formal assessments, program promotion, ethical and scope-of-practice issues, professional portfolios, and up-to-date job search resources.
The training consists of two days of workshops in Chicago in January 2015 prior to the ALA Midwinter Conference and then an online course for 14 weeks. See the ALA press release on the selection of participants here. Look for future announcements on the VTLibraries mailing list or contact Cindy Weber for more information or to express interest in future trainings: cweber@stowelibrary.org or (802) 253-6145.