Separate is Still Not Equal

Article Excerpt: The quarter mark of 2018 has arrived (as of this writing) and it should surprise no one who pays even a casual amount of attention to current events, this first quarter has already been a blur of ideological clashes. I’ve been spending much of my energy in this space (and in my headspace) looking at how issues of intellectual freedom manifest themselves in a larger context. Librarians, after all, have been expending energy to keep their buildings, shelves, and collections free from the meddling hands of demagoguery since forever. The challenge is now facing media companies, corporations, individual citizens, and the government itself as overtly as any time before. As always, answers won’t often be simple or obvious. But sometimes, the world of current events still tosses us a good, old-fashioned, library fight.