Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial
of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary
citizen, by exercising critical judgment, will accept the good
and reject the bad. The censors, public and private, assume
that they should determine what is good and what is bad for
their fellow citizens.
We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and
misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what
they read and believe. We do not believe they need the help
of censors to assist them in this task. We do not believe
they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press
in order to be “protected” against what others think may be
bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in
ideas and expression.
These efforts at suppression are related to a
larger pattern of pressures being brought against education,
the press, art and images, films, broadcast media, and the
Internet. The problem is not only one of actual censorship.
The shadow of fear cast by these pressures leads, we suspect,
to an even larger voluntary curtailment of expression by those
who seek to avoid controversy.
Such pressure against conformity is perhaps
natural to a time of accelerated change. And yet suppression
is never more dangerous than in such a time of social
tension. Freedom has given the United States the elasticity
to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path of novel and
creative solutions, and enables change to come by choice.
Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an
orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our
society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy
and difference.
Now, as always in our history, reading is among
our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is
almost the only means for making generally available ideas or
manners of expressions that can initially command only a small
audience. The written word is the natural medium for the new
idea and the untried voice from which come the original
contributions to social growth. It is essential to the
extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the
accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized
collections.
We believe that free communication is essential
to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture.
We believe that these pressures toward conformity present the
danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and
expression on which our democracy and our culture depend. We
believe that every American community must jealously guard the
freedom to publish and circulate, in order to preserve its own
freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians
have a profound responsibility to give validity to that
freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to
choose freely from a variety of offerings. The freedom to
read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with faith in
free people will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees
of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities
that accompany these rights.
We therefore affirm these propositions:
1.
It is in the public interest for publishers and
librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and
expressions, including those that are unorthodox or unpopular
with the majority.
Creative
thought is by definition new, and what is new is different.
The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is
refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain
themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept
that challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a
democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by
the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among
conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every
nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the
democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant
activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind
attain the strength demanded by times like these. We need to
know not only what we believe, but also why we believe it.
2.
Publishers, librarians and booksellers do not
need to endorse every idea or presentation they make
available. It would conflict with the public interest for
them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic
views as a standard for determining what should be published
or circulated.
Publishers
and librarians serve the educational process by helping to
make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of
the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster
education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own
thought. The people should have the freedom to read and
consider a broader range of ideas that those that may be held
by any single librarian or publisher or government or church.
It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what
another thinks proper.
3.
It is contrary to the public interest for
publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the
basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the
author.
No art or
literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the
political views or private lives of its creators. No society
of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to
whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
4.
There is no place in our society for efforts to
coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading
matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the
efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression.
To some,
much of modern expression is shocking. But is not much of
life shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we
prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents
and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to
meet the diversity of experiences in life to which they will
be exposed, as they have a responsibility to help them learn
to think critically for themselves. These are affirmative
responsibilities, not to be discharged simply by preventing
them from reading works for which they are not yet prepared.
In these matters values differ; and values cannot be
legislated; nor can machinery be devised that will suit the
demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.
5.
It is not in the public interest to force a
reader to accept with any expression the prejudgment of a
label characterizing it or its author as subversive or
dangerous.
The ideal of
labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups
with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for
the citizen. It presupposes that individuals must be directed
in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. But
Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.
6.
It is the responsibility of publishers and
librarians, as guardians of the people’s freedom to read, to
contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or
groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon
the community at large.
It is
inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that
the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an
individual or group will occasionally collide with those of
another individual or group. In a free society individuals
are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read,
and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to
its freely associated members. But no group has the right to
take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept
of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic
society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the
accepted and the inoffensive.
7.
It is the responsibility of publishers and
libraries to give full meaning to the freedom to read by
providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of
thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative
responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a
“bad” books is a good one, the answer to a “bad” idea is a
good one.
The freedom
to read is of little consequence when the reader cannot obtain
matter fir for that reader’s purpose. What is needed is not
only the absence of restraint, but also the positive provision
of opportunity for the people to read the best that has
thought and said. Books are the major channel by which the
intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal
means of its testing and growth. The defense of the freedom
to read require of all publishers and librarians the utmost of
their faculties, and deserves of all citizens the fullest of
their support.
We state these propositions neither lightly nor
as easy generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for
the value of the written word. We do so because we believe
that it is possessed of enormous variety and usefulness,
worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the
application of these propositions may mean the dissemination
of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many
persons. We do not state these propositions in the
comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We
believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that
ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is
fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is dangerous
way of life, but it is ours.
Adopted June 25, 1953; revised January 28,
1972, January 16, 1991, July 12, 2000, by the ALA Council and
the AAP Freedom to Read Committee.
A Joint Statement by:
American Library Association
Association of American Publishers
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The Freedom to View, along
with the freedom to speak, to hear, and to read, is protected
by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States. In a free society, there is no place for censorship
of any medium of expression. Therefore these principles are
affirmed.
Endorsed by the American Library Association Council January
10, 1990
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With regard to all public services, the Paris
Bourbon County Library shall adopt as policy The Freedom to
Read Statement, the Freedom to View Statement and the Library
Bill of Rights as adopted by the American Library Association
June 18, 1948, February 2, 1961, June 27, 1967, and January
23, 1980, by the ALA Council in the following statement.
The American Library Association affirms that
all libraries are forums for information and that the
following basic policies should guide their services.
1. Books
and other library resources should be provided for the
interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the
community the library service. Materials should not be
excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those
contributing to creation.
2. Libraries
should provide materials and information presenting all points
of view on current and historical issues. Materials should
not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal
disapproval.
3. Libraries
should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their
responsibility to present information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries
should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with
resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to
ideas.
5. A
person’s right to use a Library should not be denied or
abridged because of sex, race, color, age (40 and over),
national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation,
veteran’s status, background or political views.
6. Libraries,
which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the
public they serve, should make such facilities available on an
equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of
individuals or groups requesting their use.
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