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Freedom to Read
Adopted June 25, 1953,
by the ALA Council.
Revised January 28, 1972.
The freedom to read is
essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private
groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working
to remove books from sale, to censor textbooks, to label
"controversial" books, to distribute lists of
"objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. Those
actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free
expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed
to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as
citizens devoted to the use of books and as librarians and publishers
responsible for disseminating them, wish to assert the public interest in
the preservation of the freedom to read.
We are deeply concerned about
these attempts at suppression. Most such attempts rest on a denial of the
fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary citizen, by exercising
his 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 to reject it. 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.
We are aware, of course, that
books are not alone in being subjected to efforts of suppression. We are
aware that these efforts are related to a larger pattern of pressures
being brought against education, the press, films, radio and television.
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 toward
conformity is perhaps natural to a time of uneasy change and pervading
fear. Especially when so many of our apprehensions are directed against an
ideology, the expression of a dissident idea becomes a thing feared in
itself, and we tend to move against it as against a hostile deed, with
suppression.
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 stress.
Now as always in our history,
books are among our greatest instruments of freedom. They are almost the
only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression
that can initially command only a small audience. They are the natural
medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original
contributions to social growth. They are, essential to the extended
discussion which 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 towards 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
to 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 men 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 which 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 his idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian
systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless
suppression of any concept which 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 why we believe it.
2. Publishers,
librarians and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or
presentation contained in the books 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 books would be
published or circulated.
Publishers and librarians
serve the education 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 than those that may be held by an single librarian
or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one man can
read should be confined to what another thinks proper.
3. It is
contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to determine
the acceptability of a book on the basis of the personal history or
political affiliations of the author.
A book should be judged as a
book. No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the
political views of private lives of its creators. No society of free men
can flourish which 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 tastes 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
literature is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut
off literature at the source if we prevent serious artists 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 taste differs, and taste
cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised which 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 book the
prejudgment of a label characterizing the book or 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 citizens. It
presupposes that each individual must be directed in making up his mind
about the ideas he examines. 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 each
individual is free to determine for himself what he wishes 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 librarians 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, bookmen can demonstrate that the answer to a bad book is a
good one, the answer to a bad idea is a good idea.
The freedom to read is of
little consequence when expended on the trivial; it is frustrated when the
reader cannot obtain matter for his purpose. What is needed is not only
the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of opportunity for
the people to read the best that has been 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 their
freedom and integrity, and the enlargement of their service to society,
requires of all bookmen 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 books. We do so because we believe that they are
good, 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 people. 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 a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.
Endorsed by:
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
Council, June 25, 1953
AMERICAN BOOK PUBLISHERS
COUNCIL
Board of Directors, June 18, 1953
Subsequently endorsed by:
AMERICAN BOOKSELLERS
ASSOCIATION
Board of Directors
BOOK MANUFACTURERS' INSTITUTE
Board of Directors
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
Commission for the Defense of Democracy through Education
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