Program Description
Barbara Ballinger Lecture
Each fall, we gather to celebrate and recognize former head librarian Barbara Ballinger and her 32 years of dedicated service to the library and to Oak Park. Listen to Barbara's story told in her own words »
Event Details
Join us for a panel discussion centered around the topics of intellectual freedom, censorship, and book bans for this year's Barbara Ballinger lecture.
Read a Q&A with our panel of experts »
ABOUT THE PANEL
Emily Knox is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include information access and intellectual freedom and censorship. She is a member of the Mapping Information Access research team.Her most recent book Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman) won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom. Emily serves on the board of the National Coalition Against Censorship. She is also editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. Emily received her PhD from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information.
Kelly Jensen is an Editor at Book Riot, the largest independent book website in North America. She covers all things young adult literature and has written about censorship for nearly ten years. She is the author of three critically-acclaimed and award-winning anthologies for young adults. She was named a person of the year in 2022 by Publishers Weekly and a Chicagoan of the year in 2022 by the Chicago Tribune for her anti-censorship work. Prior to her work at Book Riot, she was a public librarian for children, teens, and adults in several libraries in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin.
Dr. Lucy Santos Green is the Director of the School of Library and Information Science, University of Iowa, co-editor of International Association of School Librarianship's peer-reviewed research journal, School Libraries Worldwide, and the 2023 incoming president of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Green led the effort to develop the Get Ready Stay Ready Community Action Toolkit, a large collection of resources that supports community and librarian activism in service of intellectual access and freedom. She is passionate about investigating barriers to information access impacting children and youth, frequently publishing and speaking on these issues.
Due to a family emergency, John Chrastka, founder and executive director of EveryLibrary, the national political action committee for libraries, and the EveryLibrary Institute, a public policy and tax policy think tank for libraries, will be unable to participate in this panel discussion event.
Disclaimer(s)
Virtual & In-Person Program
After you register (below), you will receive an email with information about attending in person and a specific link to join the event virtually.
Please indicate whether you plan to attend the event in person or virtually when you register. By registering, you agree to library policy and understand that no conduct is permitted that may reasonably be expected to create a disturbance or otherwise interfere with the safe use and enjoyment of the library and program by others. All times are listed in Central time.