We’re kicking off a three-part series — Overdue: Libraries and the Gender Ideology Reckoning — looking at how gender ideology moved into America’s public libraries, and what it will take to move it back out.
Part 1 is about the books themselves. Part 2 goes to the boardroom. Part 3 is about what you can actually do about it.
This week, we start where the story starts: the shelf.
Guest: James LaRue
James LaRue is the former director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and a longtime voice on collection development, censorship, and the politics of what gets shelved — and what doesn’t. We talk about how children’s collections became a battleground, who’s really deciding what your library carries, and what “intellectual freedom” has come to mean in practice versus in principle.
LaRue is the retired director of the Garfield County (Colorado) Public Library District. Author of "The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges," (2007) and “On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US,” (2023) LaRue was director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, and ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom from January 2016 to November 2018.
In This Episode:
How collection development policy actually works — and where it’s been quietly rewritten
The gap between “anti-censorship” rhetoric and the reality of what’s being curated
What parents and patrons don’t know about how a book ends up on — or off — the shelf
Coming Up:
Next week — Part 2: The Board, with EveryLibrary’s John Chrastka, on governance, trustees, and how policy gets made (or blocked) behind the scenes.
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