Wednesday October 8th, SLIS faculty and students were invited to attend the Banned Books Week: Protecting Voices by Combatting Soft Censorship webinar co-hosted by OU SLIS 2025 Alumni of the Year Cherity Pennington and 2024 OKSL Technology in Education Award recipient Jessica Armstrong. Cherity is also chair of the Oklahoma Library Association's Advocacy Committee and co-chair of the American Association of School Librarians Standards Committee. Both spoke about the practice of soft censorship or the act of self-imposed censoring in library procurements and de-selection. Examples are choosing not to purchase or to remove existing titles that may be seen as controversial, placing those items in restricted sections, or opting not to include them in displays or having talks about them.
They discussed championing Intellectual Freedom, which is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. Using this principle promotes the inclusivity of material that may be challenged. Both speakers encouraged library professionals to become familiar with their library's collection development policy guidelines and location (such as a hardcopy located in the library itself or the library’s website) so that it may be easily shared should an item be called into question. They suggested practicing having calm, fact-based conversations about why a book has been included in the collection with a friend or colleague so that it makes speaking to concerned patrons easier.
During Banned Book Week, SLIS set up passive displays at both entrances of Bizzell Library. Students were able to interact with the displays which featured covers from a variety of challenged titles. They were prompted to denote titles they have read or share thoughts they had about them being banned/challenged. SLIS also hosted a tabling event on the SOVAL where we were able to discuss Intellectual Freedom and the impact of limiting access to books.
