Head Tale

Freedom to Read Week 2021

I’m a huge Freedom of Expression guy and think Freedom to Read Week should be a highlight of every librarian’s calendar.

I don’t think I managed to do it every year but ever since I was in library school in 2006 (also the year I started this blog), I’ve tried to do an annual series of posts during FTRW about different aspects of the subject.

Unfortunately, FTRW also falls on the last week of February and though we’ve gone at times ranging from New Year’s to mid-March, at least for the last few years, that’s the week that’s happened to be when we’ve gone on some sort of a tropical vacation (which usually means I take a “blog vacation” that week, no matter what interesting subjects I should be talking about.)

So I haven’t done the series in a formal way since 2017 (when I did an homage to George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television”)  But since Mexico isn’t happening this year, it’s a good time to revisit the idea, especially as the topic is rich for examination in a variety of ways – the impact of Covid on libraries and our core values, the changing views of social justice issues within libraries and more.

Anyhow, today’s post is a bit of a “teaser” as much as anything but I’ve got a few ideas for posts to hopefully fill out the week with some interesting, thought-provoking content.

In the meantime, this may be one of the most controversial books of the year… (ahhh, love it!)