Category: Reading & Literacy

School Libraries and Intellectual Freedom

School Libraries should be bastions of intellectual freedom. Tragically, the School Library has always been a battleground in the struggles between those that would protect our rights and freedoms and those that would impose their beliefs on others.

This has become all too evident in the U.S. in recent years, and sadly we in Canada are not immune. Provincial Ministries of Education, School Boards, and individual schools and school libraries have been sucked into the current climate of extreme political polarization. Attacks on the freedom to read are on the rise, and include recent decisions made by the government of Alberta. The following are quotes from the response of Canadian School Libraries:

“Individual parents have the right to decide on their child’s reading, but they do not have the right to impose it on everyone.

The selection and availability of school library and learning resource materials should be made by trained professionals, not politicians and bureaucrats.

Not every book in a school library is meant for every student. Schools need to have a wide range of age and developmentally appropriate resources that cover the needs of the student population.

School library collections, with a richness and diversity that allows students to see themselves and experience lives other than their own, are developed within the lens of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rights and freedoms it affords to all Canadians, including children.”


Find out more about Canadian School Libraries

Get Caught Reading Banned Books

In the past few years, the number of challenges to books in both Canada and the United States has exploded. And while sanity prevails in many cases, in more and more places the censors have been successful. In some jurisdictions, hundreds and hundreds of different titles have been pulled from libraries, schools, government offices and other public institutions. In the private sector, bookstores and publishers have reported the increasing pressures of censorship. Writers have commented on the chilling effect this has on intellectual freedom.

Stand up for your rights and freedoms. Democracy is built on upon your right to information. You have the right to choose for yourself.

Adults have the right to choose for themselves what they want to read. Adults don’t have the right to choose what other people get to read. Parents have the right– and the responsibility– to teach and guide and discuss with their children about what types of library materials are right or wrong for them. Parents are free to have their opinions on what materials are good or bad for children in general They even have the right to express their opinions about why they think certain materials are good or bad for children. Parents do not have the right to decide for other people’s children what they can or can’t read.

February 23 to March 1 is Freedom to Read Week in Canada

Freedom to Read Week

February 23 to March 1, 2025, is Freedom to Read Week in Canada

From freedomtoread.ca: “Freedom to Read Week provides an opportunity for Canadians to focus on issues of intellectual freedom as they affect your community, your province or territory, our country, and countries around the world. Whether you are a librarian, bookseller, educator, student, or member of the community, there are lots of ways you can help mark this annual event.”

Visit your school library in person, or online here at tweedsmuirlibrary.ca, all week long to find out more about Freedom to Read in Canada, how you can celebrate, and how you can join in the ongoing struggle to protect your rights and freedoms.

A Favourite Book

What is one of your favourite books? That is the question we asked teachers and other staff at Lord Tweedsmuir.

The response was excellent. There are some pretty cool books that were brought up. Ms. Perez loves Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. If you haven’t read it, maybe you should check it out. (We have it here in the school library for you to borrow.)

We’ve asked the adults in the building. How about the students? What are some of your favourite books?

Look for more examples of favourite books in the coming weeks.

Freedom to Read is Useless if People Don’t Read

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

Source: Unknown*

The rights and freedoms of Canadians include the right to read what you want to read. Such rights and freedoms are fundamental to democracy. However, such rights and freedoms are meaningless unless citizens exercise these rights and freedoms.

There are authoritarian forces at work in our society that seek power by attacking your rights, including attempts to censor or limit your freedom to read. Totalitarian states know that uneducated and illiterate citizens are easier to control and oppress. Such forces can only celebrate that the work is much simpler when significant portions of the population choose not to read. Censorship becomes less pressing when “aliteracy” becomes prevalent.

A true democracy guarantees fundamental rights and freedoms to its citizens. But to work effectively, indeed, to survive, democracy requires that citizens exercise those rights. In particular, democracy breaks down if citizens aren’t educated, informed and active.

The rise of powerful new information technology in the last few decades has made it more important than ever that citizens are highly “information literate.” Citizens must not only have access to information, they must have the tools required to wade through increasingly destructive levels of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and outright lies. Citizens need to have access to information that is credible, accurate and trustworthy.

The rise of anti-intellectualism and anti-science movements, perhaps most recently represented by anti-vax conspiracies, are part of the wider breakdown of democratic institutions. There is little doubt that attacks on public education over many years have reaped some these results and are integral to the rise of authoritarianism.

It is not enough to celebrate the Freedom to Read. As citizens of democratic societies, we have an obligation to exercise our Freedom to Read, in part so that we are equipped to defend our democratic rights and freedoms.

It is clear that democracy is under attack, throughout the world, and in our back yard. We must act.

Find out more:

Note* The above quote, or variations on it, are often popularly attributed to Mark Twain. However the original source of this quote, or its variations, remains unclear.

If you don’t read, they don’t need to ban books.

People need to read books for book banning to even be a thing. This idea has been expressed in many different ways.

So Read. Keep reading. Read some more. Read what you want to read. Read what you decide to read.

Read for information. Read to learn. Read for fun. Read to escape. Read for entertainment. Read to experience the world from the point of view of different people. Read to cry. Read to be scared. Read to laugh.

Read to understand. Read to learn new things. Read to learn more about things you already know.

Read to learn the point of view of people that you might disagree with, even when you are certain that you will disagree with them. Read to consider new information, new evidence, new perspectives. Read critically, even skeptically, but read with an openness to change your mind when faced with rational and logical reasons to do so.

Read for whatever reason you decide. Stand up for your freedom to decide for yourself what you want to read.

That doesn’t mean you should read anything and everything. People that care about you might know why reading some things, at certain times, might not be so good for you. You might decide not read some books because of your age, maturity, or history. Some books might not be right for you because of your current mental or emotional health. Perhaps some material has nothing to offer you of any value. But that is for you to decide in cooperation with the people that you trust. That is not for other people, other groups, organizations or governments to decide for you.

People try to ban books because they don’t want you to read those books. If you don’t read books to begin with, you are doing their work for them.