Intellectual Freedom

Milton Public Library Chief Librarian and CEO Mark Williams is joining the Centre for Free Expression’s Working Group on Intellectual Freedom. “We are delighted to welcome such a dedicated champion of intellectual freedom to the CFE Working Group,” said James L. Turk, the Centre’s Director.

In a statement released today, the Centre for Free Expression calls on Zoom, YouTube, and all other online technology providers to cease being censors of discussions being held by universities, schools and libraries. 

When there is a news report about books being challenged in a school library learning commons, it is often because the item was removed at the direction of the school or district administration following a parent complaint about a specific book and that the proper ‘Request for Reconsideration’ process was not followed.  

I want to first address the fundamental role and value of the public library in Canadian communities – its “value proposition,” grounded in intellectual freedom – and then make a case for intellectual freedom as the institutional soul of the public library. I will review the complexity of intellectual freedom as a boundary and balancing issue and comment on hate speech as a particularly contentious example, concluding with a call for the public library to brand itself as an intellectual freedom champion. (i)