As school libraries are staffed by part time volunteer parents, concerns arise that their weeding practices in protecting children mirror CENSORSHIP.

As librarians we are all trained to resist censorship. Yet with the national shortage of school librarians in 47 out of the 50 states in these United States. We find more and more often that many school libraries are staffed by part time volunteer parents. The upbringing and religious convictions of many of these well intended parents upon close evaluation can be found to often mirror the effects of CENSORSHIP. Some of these parents feel it is their duty to protect children from tenets of intellectual freedom in a school library setting. And as such their weeding practices can mirror a defacto CENSORSHIP type effort. This of course is of great concern to librarians and other professionals, who have a deep commitment to the tenets of intellectual freedom. Is it not reasonable that if professional librarians who hold master's degrees from programs accredited by the American Library Association, that they would be able to support tenets of intellectual freedom, resist CENSORSHIP and help preserve the freedom to read statement espoused by the American Library Association. When there are no librarians available who are also state certified teachers, it is important to have the school libraries staffed by professional librarians with master's degrees from ALA accredited programs.

Voice your opinion please. You don't have to be an expert. Everyone in the profession has a right, indeed a duty to express his or her opinion.

Remember there are never any right or wrong opinions. The important thing instead is to foster a meaningful dialog in the profession of librarianship at large, that will add value to the profession overall as a whole. So please comment today.